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What if becoming someone was never the goal? A therapist and Enneagram facilitator on shedding the personas we mistake for our true selves.
Today you’re in for a treat! I’m bringing my pal Koula Callahan, master yoga instructor and speaker for the Self-Care Workshop, on the blog to share why movement, namely yoga, is incredibly powerful and important for us to practice as we move through our days. If you’ve always wondered what all the fuss is about —and yoga and why is really effective, today is the day—you’re going to get some answers.
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In April, I bombed a keynote—45 minutes late, broken A/V, a room that wanted their drink tickets.
Here's what that failure taught me about participation, discernment, and why every Enneagram type has its own sophisticated reason to wait until it's "ready."
What if becoming someone was never the goal? A therapist and Enneagram facilitator on shedding the personas we mistake for our true selves.
Today you’re in for a treat! I’m bringing my pal Koula Callahan, master yoga instructor and speaker for the Self-Care Workshop, on the blog to share why movement, namely yoga, is incredibly powerful and important for us to practice as we move through our days. If you’ve always wondered what all the fuss is about —and yoga and why is really effective, today is the day—you’re going to get some answers.
Six months before my breast cancer diagnosis, I was quietly falling apart. This is my story and the heart behind why I created the Self Care Workshop.
Discover how each Enneagram type relates to structure—and why the right kind of rhythm can help you thrive. Learn how to create supportive routines without stifling growth.
When we hear the phrase self-care, most of us picture bubble baths, yoga classes, or carving out an hour to finally read that book on our nightstand. And while those things absolutely have their place, if we stop there, we miss the deeper, sustaining work that actually helps us thrive.
What I’ve learned in my own healing and in my work with clients is this: self-care without self-compassion can feel more like another to-do list item when it’s really a relationship to nurture.
There’s a moment, sometimes subtle and sometimes seismic, when you realize you have the chance to begin again. Maybe it’s the first crisp morning after a long summer. Maybe it’s a job change, a new relationship, or even the quiet decision to show up differently in the one you’re already in.
I’ve learned that beginnings—whether chosen or thrust upon us—are vulnerable places. They ask something of us: a willingness to step into what we don’t yet know. And if you’re anything like me, that’s both exciting and a little unnerving.
This is where curiosity comes in.
Are you ready to stop running on empty and start living from a place of wholeness?
Join me, alongside Ally Fallon (best selling author + writing coach) and Koula Callahan (yoga teacher + speaker), for an unforgettable day of enneagram insight, intentional writing, and embodied movement — what I call the trifecta of true self-care.
Somewhere between the smell of freshly sharpened pencils and the first rustle of fall leaves, we’re invited into a familiar rhythm—one that feels both nostalgic and energizing. Whether or not you have a backpack in your life anymore, the back-to-school season has a way of nudging us to recalibrate, recommit, and reset. It’s not just for students. It’s for all of us seeking a deeper sense of alignment and intention.
So, in the spirit of fresh starts and The Back-to-School Edit.
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you.”
— Anne Lamott
“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
Mitch Albom
“The Enneagram helps you discover who you were before the world told you who you were supposed to be.”
-Ian Cron
“Distractions are everywhere. Notice what takes your attention, acknowledge it, and then let it go.”
-Andy Puddicombe, Founder of Headspace
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.
-Anne Lamott
“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”
Bessel van der Kolk
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
-Rumi
“Where we think we need more self-discipline, we usually need more self-love.”
- Tara Mohr
“The human body is a river of intelligence, energy, and information that is constantly renewing itself in every second of our existence.”
- Deepak Chopra
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
– Winston Churchill
“If we observe ourselves truthfully and non-judgmentally, seeing the mechanisms of our personality in action, we can wake up, and our lives can be a miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy.”
-Richard Rohr
“People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
-Maya Angelou
Want Love? Meet Forgiveness....
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
If we are shaped by anything in life, it is surely by the pang of painful past experiences. You know this pain all too well. The ones in life who were supposed to protect, provide, and nurture instead inflicted deep and sorrowful hurt, abandonment, and abuse. Expectations were dashed, self-expression wasn’t allowed, eggshells were everywhere.
In therapy, I hear the broken, brutal stories of courageous people who have somehow made it through. They look for greater freedom and joy. They refuse to let their past define their present and future. I often find myself angry as I hold space for these stories to live and breathe, sometimes for the very first time. It’s never fair.
And this is the truth. Injustice isn’t fair. Yet I am learning it’s part of life. How we deal with that injustice is truly our making. The trauma of our past breaks us in a way that often feels irreparable...futile. This trauma doesn’t just dissipate either. It’s stored in the tissues and neural pathways of our bodies. For this reason, a holistic, mind-body-spirit approach to healing is vitally important.
The voluntary and visceral reactions to a past experience are so significant it gets branded into your body. My hunch is you’ve experience the effect of painful past experiences manifesting in your body. If so, lean in. The wisdom of your body is trying to get your attention.
In fact, your body is brilliant and tends to literally block out old trauma, having no memory of it until physically exposed to stimuli. We learn to detach, shut down, and numb.
Bessel van der Kolk, psychiatrist and author of The Body Keeps the Score, explains:
“Traumatized people chronically feel unsafe inside their bodies; The past is alive in the form of gnawing interior discomfort. Their bodies are constantly bombarded by visceral warning signs, and, in an attempt to control these processes, they often become expert at ignoring their gut feelings and in numbing awareness of what is played out inside. They learn to hide from their selves.”
This insight fascinates me as it’s helped me understand that we can’t talk our way out of healing from this “gnawing interior discomfort.” We must learn two things: how to feel safe in our bodies and how to forgive. I love using Brainspotting with clients to begin unlocking the process of re-attachment and develop a sense of safety in our bodies. It has been a game changer for me and many.
I’ve noticed the more difficult of the two is often the forgiveness piece, which isn’t a surprise to me. We think of forgiveness much like we do vulnerability: as weakness. Thus we choose to carry the perpetrators of our pain around, heaping tons of power on them. Oftentimes the one we need to forgive the most is ourself, which can feel nearly impossible.
When we choose unforgiveness, we not only stay connected to the pain and its source, we allow our past to define us. Isn’t it time we put down that heavy burden? Isn’t it time we take back our power and re-focus that wasted energy on giving and receiving new, hopeful opportunities and love?
This week, I encourage you to do some inventory and see if there might be any lingering unforgiveness that weighs you down and holds you back from your highest self. Support throughout this process is key, so know that I am here if you need a safe place to process and land along the way.
Remember, you are not the crumbs of your past. You’re invited to a grand, exquisite table of the present moment to feast on freedom and be satisfied by love. It’s a wide open space to explore and move around in. You are always welcome here.
Love & Gratitude,
Katie
xoxo
In April, I bombed a keynote—45 minutes late, broken A/V, a room that wanted their drink tickets.
Here's what that failure taught me about participation, discernment, and why every Enneagram type has its own sophisticated reason to wait until it's "ready."