HeartBalm

Sometimes the Healing Feels Just as Hard as the Hurt

There’s a space I’m in lately - and maybe you’ve been here too - where healing finally shows up… and somehow, it’s what undoes you.

I’ve stepped into something good recently. A new situation surrounded by kind people. A life that could feel safe, possibly even stable. The kind of environment I used to dream about when everything felt like survival. And yet… I am unraveling.

The part of me that was built to survive, not thrive, is fighting it. And fighting it hard.

I catch myself bracing for impact when there is none. Chewing my nails like something bad is around the corner. Feeling shame about things I didn’t cause. Feeling like I have to shrink or polish myself to fit. Even doubting that I deserve any of this.

It’s confusing - to be invited into peace and still want to run.

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Dear HeartBalm Family,

As May winds down, I hope you're finding small moments of peace, reflection, and resilience wherever you are. Whether this month brought clarity, challenge, or quiet healing, I’m grateful to be walking this path alongside you.

Take a breath. Let your shoulders drop. Remind yourself that healing isn’t linear - and you're doing beautifully.

May was packed and rich with insight, courage, and connection. If you missed anything, you’ll find a full list of this month’s HeartBalm podcast episodes and The Friday Editions below, and explore the archives for more resources on healing and CPTSD.

Sending love and heartbalm to your nervous system.

P.S. Be sure to subscribe to the HeartBalm YouTube Channel for more content and calming reflections.

• Exclusive Access to the HeartBalm Healing Podcast, read by Sunny Lynn
  Immerse yourself in soothing, trauma-informed content with each episode, carefully crafted to support your healing journey.

• The Friday Edition
  A regular release that delves into trauma-informed topics, offers healing insights, and fosters a community built on empathy, strength, and resilience.

• All Wednesday Meditations with Sunny, Power Gems, and Notes from Nature
  Deepen your practice with transformative mini-meditations, motivational musings, and nature-inspired musings that provide clarity, comfort, and strength.

• Full Access to the HeartBalm Archives
  A treasure trove of all past posts, articles, meditations, and resources - all at your fingertips to revisit and rediscover the wisdom shared.

• Ability to Comment on Every Article
  Engage with the HeartBalm community, share your thoughts, and connect with fellow survivors on the journey to healing.

• Access to All Free Posts, Articles, Notes, and Threads
  Stay connected with ongoing insights and inspiration directly from the HeartBalm space.

• Our Deepest Gratitude for Supporting Our Ad-Free, Sponsor-Free Work
  By subscribing, you're helping to create a nurturing, safe, and peaceful space where we can all unfold and heal - without distractions or outside influence. You're part of something bigger, and your support means the world.

• Join the HeartBalm YouTube Channel
  Explore a space filled with guided meditations, nature soundscapes, and high-frequency ambient music - perfect for nurturing your soul and fostering peace.

This work is sustained by the community it serves. It takes time, heart, and energy to keep these stories, insights, and resources flowing. If HeartBalm has offered you support, clarity, or companionship in your healing journey, I invite you to become a paid subscriber.

Your support helps keep this space alive and growing - for you, for me, and for everyone who needs it.

HeartBalm is an ad-and-sponsor-free, reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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The River That Carries Us (and a few words about today’s New Moon in Taurus)

I’ve been trying to complete this edition all weekend, but I’ve been living in a strange liminal place – one where the old urgency is gone, and peace feels both beautiful and disorienting. I’m not creating from survival anymore. And that’s a radical shift for me.

Maybe that’s why I noticed the moon this time.

So… I’m just gonna start by saying, I am not one of those people who track every moon phase and know what house it’s in and what ritual you’re supposed to do. Half the time I don’t even know the new moon is here until someone mentions it.

But today… this one – this New Moon in Taurus – it’s powerful. Not in an overwhelming way but just… deeply felt. There’s been this humming or soft vibration happening in my body, and it’s disconcerting in many ways. It’s like a quiet earthquake happening inside my body. And maybe you’re feeling it too.

So I thought I’d come on here and speak to it – not as some moon expert, but as someone who's deep in it, right now. Feeling big shifts, big emotions, big letting go.

And what I want to say is… this New Moon feels like an invitation. Not a demand. Not a checklist. Just a gentle, body-level whisper that’s saying: You can let go now. You don’t have to keep holding on so tight.

Because if you’ve been living in survival mode. If you’ve had to scan, hustle, perform, over-function just to feel safe or accepted, then you know how hard it is to actually stop that pattern – that way of being. To trust, and rest, and to unclench.

And that’s what I’m going through right now. Some days I feel like I’m floating. Other days, I am face down in the mud with all my triggers screaming at me. It’s messy. It’s not graceful. But it’s real.

And this New Moon energy feels like it’s saying: You’re allowed to be exactly where you are. You belong here – because you are. No performance required.

I keep thinking of the story of the river creature from Illusions by Richard Bach. It’s stuck with me for years. Maybe you’ve heard it, maybe not – but I want to tell it here, because it fits what this moment feels like.

So... there’s this creature who lives at the bottom of a great crystal river. And like all the other creatures in the river, it clings tightly to the rocks.

That’s what they all do because the current is strong, and letting go feels dangerous. That’s how they survive – by holding on.

But this one creature… starts to wonder what would happen if I let go?

The others warn her, Don’t even think about it. The current will smash you against the rocks, and you’ll die.

But something in her knows – it’s time.

So one day, trembling and scared, she lets go.

And yeah – it’s brutal at first. She gets slammed around, tossed, and thrown against the bottom. She doesn’t know if she’s going to make it.

But then… something shifts. The current lifts her. She’s not fighting anymore. She’s floating.

And as she moves downstream, the others look up in awe and say Look! A miracle! A river creature who flies!

But she says, I’m not a miracle. I just stopped clinging. The river carries us all… when we let it.

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Another Failure - Yay! The CPSTD Creed

Once upon a time, Winston Churchill said the following mind-blowing words: "Success is moving from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

…or as I’ve come to understand it: Success is waking up every day with Complex PTSD and still daring to try again.

I don’t know what Churchill was really talking about …

This Is Grief (And I’ve Been Missing It My Whole Life)

I’ve been sitting in grief today. A heavy kind of dull weight. Not the sharp kind that pierces through your chest like arrows, but the undertow kind. The unrelenting, slow, dragging kind that holds you beneath the surface. I didn’t fight it. For once. I didn’t try to “fix” it. I didn’t try to do anything. I just let it take me over. I just let it be. Let me be.

And maybe for the first time, I saw it for what it was.

Grief.

Not depression. Not weakness. Not laziness. Not overwhelming exhaustion. Not overreacting or dwelling in the past.

Just... grief.

I don’t know if I’ve ever really known grief before. I think I’ve probably mislabeled it every time it showed up. Called it anxiety. Called it fatigue. Called it rage. Called it dysfunction. Probably even called it a hormone imbalance, and internalized it as my brokenness. My unworthiness. A flaw in my character that has never allowed me to get over it or fix it *sigh.

But the truth is: I’ve been grieving my whole damn life, and I didn’t even know it.

And no one told me. Not the therapists. Not the doctors. Not the people who were supposed to know. No one said, “Hey, what you’re carrying - that dead weight in your chest and behind your eyes, in the migraine, and aches and pains that won’t go away - is grief.” Not grief over a person who died. But over you - what was lost, stolen, hurt, degraded, never nurtured, never protected. That’s grief, too.

Why the hell is this not talked about?

It’s bullshit that grief only gets framed in those clean, perfect “stages” you read about in pamphlets at hospitals or funeral homes. Grief isn’t just about death. It’s about what was destroyed while you were still alive. The childhood you never got. The toxic parents who never parented like good parents are supposed to do. The dignity that was ripped out of you. The parts of yourself you had to sever and abandon and push away into deep, dark corners of your being just to survive.

I’m grieving now because I finally see (more than I ever have ) that I was hurt. Not just bruised or damaged in passing - but targeted. Manipulated. Gaslighted. Scapegoated. Used as a dumping ground for everyone else’s shit. I was not the problem. I was not bad or wrong or unworthy. I was just the inconvenient truth teller - the one who saw through the dysfunction. I was an easy mark in a broken system - family, society, all of it - that feeds off silence and shame and staying small and keeping abuse silent and behind closed doors.

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Let’s talk about Mother’s Day. (Includes Guided Meditation)

Not the cards or the brunch. Not the performative filtered social media stories to maternal perfection. Let’s talk about the deep ache and ick that fills your chest every May when you’re reminded again that many would rather canonize the role of “mother” than examine it. That no one wants to talk about the wound a mother can inflict and leave behind when she’s cruel, neglectful, emotionally absent, jealous, or just flat-out damaging.

Let’s talk about the fact that women who speak about their mothers with anything less than praise are still seen as selfish, ungrateful, and that we are the problem. We are taught, over and over, that it’s better to smile and stuff the pain down than to name it. God forbid we disrupt the narrative that all mothers are saints. That they tried their best. That we should be grateful just to exist.

But you know what? Existing isn’t enough. Being born isn’t the same as being mothered.

Some of us were raised by women who used us, competed with us, or punished us for being emotional, needy, angry, or too alive. Some of us weren’t allowed to cry, to feel unwell, or ask for more. Some of us were told to be quiet, to smile, to behave, to earn love that never came. And then, when we struggle with intimacy, with self-worth, with boundaries, with CPTSD, and auto-immune disorders born of chronic stress and overwhelm, we’re told we are the problem.

Wait… what… F*** NO! The problem is that nobody wants to talk about what it does to a child to grow up emotionally abandoned and preyed on by the one person who was supposed to protect them. The problem is that we are still expected to protect the image of “Mother” even when it means abandoning ourselves all over again.

The loss of the daughter to the mother, the mother to the daughter, is the essential female tragedy.

_Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution

And let’s be clear - this isn’t just about one woman failing to mother well. It’s systemic. The role of “mother” has been shaped, distorted, and confined by patriarchal expectations for centuries. Women are told they must give and give and give, that their bodies exist to produce, and their value lies in caretaking. Meanwhile, they’re stripped of real support, autonomy, and power. Many are pushed into motherhood before they’re ready, kept there by financial, emotional, or even religious control, and expected to sacrifice everything while smiling sweetly. Rage is not allowed. Needs are not allowed. And if a woman does break - if she projects that pain onto her child - the system protects her silence, and the abuse. It tells the child to be loyal. To be grateful. To never speak ill of the one who birthed them. This is how the epidemic grows: in silence, in shame, in the name of tradition. And too many people suffer because of it.

If someone does not want me, it is not the end of the world. But if I do not want me, the world is nothing but endings.

_Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

The truth is if you were unloved, neglected, controlled, scapegoated, exploited, or emotionally manipulated by your mother, that didn’t just shape your childhood. It shaped your wiring. It taught you to contort yourself for love, to apologize for existing, to distrust and negate your own instincts. That kind of wound doesn’t just “go away.” It burrows in deep and lives in the nervous system. It shows up in relationships. It shows up in the way you silence yourself, the way you second-guess your own worth, and the way you reach and recoil at the same time.

But let me say this to you clearly and candidly: you are not broken.

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Before you continue reading...

If this is stirring something deep, I’ve created two offerings to support your healing: A digital journal for daughters of narcissistic mothers to heal the mother wound - filled with gentle prompts, space to write, and a letter to your inner child. And, a free guided meditation on healing the mother wound (or click on the video link below) - created to help you reconnect, grieve, and begin to mother yourself the way you always needed.

You can find both in my HeartBalm Healing Etsy store and on my YouTube channel.
They were made with great care and tenderness, because I’ve walked this road too.

Three years ago, I published the very first piece for HeartBalm Healing. It was called Returning to Love. It came from the rawest part of me – a beginning shaped by both grief and deep hope – all tangled together. It wasn’t just a piece of writing – it was a reaching out. A whisper into the darkness, both for me and for anyone else who needed it. A voice saying gently and firmly:

Love is still here.

Even when we are lost.

Even when the path before us vanishes or feels uncertain.

Even if it hurts to hope.

And now – three years later – here we are. And I feel something deeper rising in me. Something quieter maybe, but steadier. Because what started as a way to remember love has become something more – it’s become the practice of staying with it.

Even when it’s hard.

Even when it’s isolating, we’re locked down, and things are silent.

Even through the unraveling, the unlearning, the becoming, and the rebuilding.

Because love isn’t just something we return to – it’s something we live inside of. It becomes a home. It becomes the thread that holds everything together… even the broken parts.

So today, I want to offer this as a kind of part two. A continuation of that first message. A balm, again – but deeper this time. A hand on your shoulder. A quiet, "Hey… you are still seen and held.”

Staying With Love: Three Years of HeartBalm
A continuation of Returning to Love

There comes a moment… after a crisis, after a fight, after the long crawl back to yourself, where the question kind of just… shows up: “How do I stay with love?”

Not just touch it for a moment or remember it when things fall apart. But actually, stay with it. Even here, and even now. Even when I’m not sure I deserve it.

It’s one thing to find love again after the storm, and to feel it wrap around you in the quiet after. But staying? Staying with that knowing – when the world is cruel and loud again, when your heart is tired, when you’re afraid to hope again – that’s a whole different thing. That’s the deeper work.

Because most of us learned how to run when things got tough and abandon ourselves until things calmed down. We were taught to mistrust love. To brace when things got quiet. To perform. To please. To believe that love would leave the moment we showed our truth.

So we left first, or we shut down and closed off our hearts. Or we tried to be good enough to keep love from disappearing – conforming in ways that left us tied in knots.

What if this time, you stay?

Even when your nervous system says “Run,” or when the old stories and ghosts come knocking, or when fear starts whispering again.

You stay with yourself.

You stay with your breath.

You stay soft.

You stay awake.

You stay open to the love that never left.

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Because love – real love – doesn’t flinch when you fall apart. It doesn’t vanish when you mess up. It doesn’t keep a ledger or ask for your best behavior.

It’s still here.

Not just after the pain, but in it. Like a flame that never went out or a star in the night sky that’s kept shining just for you.

And when you stay… when you really let yourself stay with love, even when it’s hard – you start to build something. Not a perfect life or a polished version of yourself, but a home inside you. A sanctuary.

Not a place you run to when you’re broken – but a place you live in.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what healing really is. Not getting it right or figuring it all out. But staying. With love. Just as you are.

This is what I’ve learned, and what I’m still learning. And this is the gift I wanted to give you today – on HeartBalm’s third birthday.

A reminder that this work, this path, this life… it’s not about arriving. It’s about staying with love.

Again. And again. And again.

And I’m so glad we’re still here, together. Still choosing love. Still walking each other home.

Be blessed, dear one. Go feel adored. I love you.

If this speaks to your bones, or if you know someone walking the same road, pass it on. This is how we remind each other we’re not alone.

HeartBalm is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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Dear HeartBalm Family,

April was full of healing moments! If you missed anything, here’s a quick roundup. Grab your favorite drink, take a pause, remind yourself how strong and courageous you are, and allow your heart to open and be soothed.

Catch up on April’s HeartBalm Healing podcast and The Friday Editions below, and explore the archives for more resources on healing and CPTSD.

Sending love and healing vibes your way! And, don’t forget to subscribe to the HeartBalm YouTube Channel.

• Exclusive Access to the HeartBalm Healing Podcast, read by Sunny Lynn
  Immerse yourself in soothing, trauma-informed content with each episode, carefully crafted to support your healing journey.

• The Friday Edition
  A regular release that delves into trauma-informed topics, offers healing insights, and fosters a community built on empathy, strength, and resilience.

• All Wednesday Meditations with Sunny, Power Gems, and Notes from Nature
  Deepen your practice with transformative mini-meditations, motivational musings, and nature-inspired musings that provide clarity, comfort, and strength.

• Full Access to the HeartBalm Archives
  A treasure trove of all past posts, articles, meditations, and resources - all at your fingertips to revisit and rediscover the wisdom shared.

• Ability to Comment on Every Article
  Engage with the HeartBalm community, share your thoughts, and connect with fellow survivors on the journey to healing.

• Access to All Free Posts, Articles, Notes, and Threads
  Stay connected with ongoing insights and inspiration directly from the HeartBalm space.

• Our Deepest Gratitude for Supporting Our Ad-Free, Sponsor-Free Work
  By subscribing, you're helping to create a nurturing, safe, and peaceful space where we can all unfold and heal - without distractions or outside influence. You're part of something bigger, and your support means the world.

• Join the HeartBalm YouTube Channel
  Explore a space filled with guided meditations, nature soundscapes, and high-frequency ambient music - perfect for nurturing your soul and fostering peace.

A deep, heartfelt thank you to all my incredible subscribers, friends, and companions on this healing journey - and a warm welcome to those joining us. Your support, subscriptions, and donations fuel this work and make it possible to continue this mission. I’m honored to walk alongside each of you as we grow, heal, and fully embrace our most authentic, empowered selves together.

HeartBalm is an ad-and-sponsor-free reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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Healing Generational Trauma You Never Chose to Carry

Some of us didn’t just survive trauma – we survived a family.

Not a single, isolated event. Not a freak accident of fate. But a long, slow system of destruction. A poisoned well passed down from generation to generation, wrapped in silence, shame, and an expectation to stay loyal to pain.

Most adults who encouraged you to keep “family issues private” were either perpetuating abuse or enabling it.

_Dr. Michelle Logvinsky, Psy.D.

For those of us with CPTSD, especially those born into generational trauma, this is the truth that no one wants to say out loud: sometimes family is the danger. The breeding ground. The root. And that sometimes, the people who say “family is everything,” and “blood is thicker than water,” are the very ones who taught us to stay silent and abandon ourselves.

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Being a Disruptor of the Extinction of Love

I woke this morning with the words:

“This world is made for the abusers – not for the abused.” Dropped into my lap.

My eyes were still closed, and yet I found myself (metaphorically) looking around like… What the heck – where did that come from?

It’s a big statement and not something I wanted to dive into. I threw it aside, but it kept coming back into the frame of my mind in a way that said: You need to look at this.

Sometimes, this is how I learn, understand, become aware, and heal. This is not the remedy of patriarchal western medicine but of our intuitive wisdom – a far more ancient, wild, wise, and timely offering. It waits on us to pick up the hints, the downloads, the wisdom… as we become ready to take on more and heal more.

Often, it doesn’t look like healing from our “linear time-frame perspective,” but what do we flesh suits truly know about the infinite and divine reasons for why we are here having (or going through) this experience of life?

And so, it began, as some mornings do, by sitting with this ethereal drop of information for my research, my healing, and understanding of things that are ready to be seen, heard, and transmuted.

On some level, it feels like an invitation to hurt more – to be unfuriated about those who hurt others, and grieving for the ones left hurting. This didn’t sound like a fun topic to me. But sometimes these morning downloads are filled with profound truths even when I don’t want to look at it. They come from a deep-down knowing. From the part of us that sees what most people are too afraid – or too comfortable – to look at or admit.

That whisper: “This world is made for abusers, not the abused” – is one of those statements that landed with a heavy thud of grief and clarity all at once. And, it is also something that needs to change.

This world, as it stands in its current systems: patriarchal, capitalist, exploitative, image-driven, is structured to reward dominance, power-hoarding, manipulation, emotional disconnection, and performance.

It has been built – generation after generation – by those who conquered, colonized, pillaged, denied, and skewed and dismembered truth. So naturally (but horrifyingly), those who harm often find easy pathways, wealth, respectability, and protection.

When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

_Unknown

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