That.Little.Extra

Hi Love Bug,
Everyone's hand goes up when someone asks who wants change.
But wanting change and being willing to become someone different to get it — that's where most people quietly put their hand back down. I know because I did it too, more than once.
The hard truth is that change doesn't happen to you. It happens because of the thousand small moments where you chose yourself anyway — when you were tired, when it was uncomfortable, when the old version of you was louder than the new one trying to emerge.
So I want to ask you something honestly: are your actions matching your answer?
Because you deserve the life that's waiting on the other side of that commitment. But only you can decide to actually show up for it.
Do more than wish — believe.
Do more than dream — do.
Do more than consider — commit.
I love you. I believe in you. We do have this.

Hi Love Bug,
Things You Will Only Understand in Retrospect:

-Why certain doors had to close before you were ready to let them.

-Why the people you loved had to leave to make space for who you're becoming.

-Why the hardest seasons were actually the most transformative.

-Why you had to lose yourself completely before you could find yourself authentically.

-Why the delay was protection, not punishment.

-Why some questions were never meant to be answered.

-Why the life you thought you wanted would have kept you from the life you actually needed.

Over the years, the biggest theme that propelled my life furthest along the path to healing and growth was learning to make moves that were uncomfortable, hard, lonely, and confusing — especially when they were the opposite of everything I'd ever known.

Embracing uncertainty. Choosing self-love and self-care. Setting boundaries. Trusting the direction I was heading, even when it meant leaving behind people and places that once felt like everything. Learning to be okay with being misunderstood, or being "the bad guy" in someone else's story. Walking away from my old comfort zone and slowly, uncomfortably, building a new one.

But the hardest part — the thing that scared me most — was betting on myself.

Looking back, there will never be a day when I'm not grateful to the younger me who chose to sit in the discomfort, walk blindly into the unknown, and believe in a life that sometimes felt like a fantasy — but refused to give up.

Hi Love Bug,
Mother's Day brings a whirlwind of emotions for me. The waves of love and grief ebb and flow unpredictably, and learning to cherish both without becoming overwhelmed is a gentle, ongoing journey.

For those of us working to reparent ourselves as part of our healing path, it's important to remember that this process is not a reflection of parental failure. It shows a deep commitment to growth — drawing on the wisdom and tools we now possess to rewire our minds, form positive habits, and focus on progress rather than past shortcomings.

Reparenting while raising children is a brave and often exhausting path — one that breaks the cycles passed down through generations. It's about healing your inner child with compassion and tenderness, and understanding that "breaking cycles" isn't about perfection, but about choosing to try again, with patience and love. My husband took this picture of my daughter and me yesterday — feet in the river, surrounded by nature, reminiscing about joyful moments from our past, a healing moment in a hard day.

Being a parent is one of the most beautiful and challenging things anyone can do, especially without a blueprint for what "right" looks like. Watching my daughter grow, trying to teach and guide her in the ways I wish I'd been shown up for — while also giving her the space to become her own person — has been an extraordinary and humbling experience.

Every time I show up for her in a way that is the opposite of what was done to me as a child, it heals a part of my younger self. Seeing her show up for herself, her life, and the people she loves — in the strong, sassy, brilliant ways she does — feels empowering. She knows her worth. She understands her strength. And in so many ways, she embodies a way of living and thinking that I'm still growing into.

And that gives me so much hope. I hope you know it's never too late to show up for yourself, to heal, to change the course of your life, to break the cycles of your past, and live a life of love. It just takes choosing you, and I promise you, you are worth choosing and showing up for.

Hi Love Bug,
Abandonment wounds often begin with self-abandonment, a coping strategy learned in childhood to survive, where you abandon your true needs to gain connection or safety. This manifests as chronic self-betrayal, such as suppressing feelings, ignoring intuition, or choosing people-pleasing over boundaries. Healing requires reversing this by learning to stay with oneself, rather than relying on external validation. 

- Understanding Self-Abandonment -

Self-abandonment is not just someone leaving; it is the moment you leave yourself so they will not. 

The Root Cause: Early experiences in invalidating, negligent, or abusive environments teach you that your needs and emotions are unsafe or unwelcome.

The Survival Mechanism: To avoid the pain of abandonment from caregivers, you begin to abandon your authentic self (ex, hiding your true personality, suppressing feelings)

The Adult Pattern: This creates a cycle where, as adults, we might continue to ignore our own needs and emotions, putting others' needs above our own. 

So how do we heal this wound?

It involves acknowledging these patterns, consciously honoring your own voice, and building a secure internal foundation. It takes understanding and being okay with the fact that not everyone is going to like you, and that's OKAY.

As you learn to stay true to yourself, embrace and love yourself, you'll find others who do and feel the same, people who you can be your "flawed" "goofy" self with, and they love you for it, but most importantly, you'll learn to love and accept yourself for it. It takes choosing you.
And in a world where you can be anyone, isn't being someone who feels safe in their own skin the best thing to be?

"Hi, love bug!!" I said excitedly as I moved from the driver's seat over to the passenger seat of our van. At the time, we only had one working vehicle, so picking my husband up from work had become a daily occurrence I looked forward to as a little us time before getting home to our kiddos.

What I wasn't expecting was for those three words to provoke anger. "My mom called me that when I was a kid. Don't you ever call me that again." You see, terms of endearment have always been my go-to, and they were usually met with one in return.

I was taken aback. I apologized for not knowing and said I would never call him that again, which was met with a "Good, you better not." I hated that the car ride I had been looking forward to was now tense.

As we drove home I tucked my knees under my chin and turned my head to stare out the window. I told myself I shouldn't be confused or hurt by his reaction, since I was the one who messed up. I made the mistake by calling him the wrong thing.

You see, that's the thing about being gaslit most of your life: it makes you feel like you are always the one at fault. Halfway through the ride home, like a light switch, he changed back to his usual goofy, loving self as if nothing had happened. I knew better than to question it, so I embraced that I had him back and filed the interaction away in the back of my mind. Lesson learned.

A couple of years later I made the mistake of calling him 'love bug' again, it was a slip I immediately regretted this this time his response was worse. The kind of worse you don't forget. Because this time I had "known better" and chose to anyway. For the longest time, hearing 'love bug' was triggering. One day I decided to take his power away from it and take the phrase back. It was on that day my use of "Hi Love Bug" was born.

So when I say it to you — I mean it with everything I have.

Hi Love Bug,
In moments like these — lying in my hammock, staring at the beauty of nature in our backyard — everything becomes still. My mind quiets, my breathing slows, my heart settles, and I'm reminded just how beautiful and precious this life of ours truly is.

The past two weeks have been a lot for me emotionally. I've felt everything — heartbreak, anger, immense joy, and all the tender, complicated things in between.

Up until a couple of years ago, I never really allowed myself to feel the "bad" emotions. I grew up in an environment where anger was expressed in unhealthy and frightening ways, often coupled with abuse. In an effort to never become like the people who hurt me, I learned to suppress what I felt. I built quiet defense mechanisms — telling myself that whatever was done to me was deserved, so it couldn't really hurt. I learned to compartmentalize, and I became very good at it.

Over the past couple of years, I've been learning to let myself truly feel everything — to honor it, sit with it, process it, and then release it with love. In many ways, it's made life fuller and more complete. In others, it's stirred a different kind of heartache: the understanding that the people from my past could have chosen to express their pain without being volatile — and didn't. There's no judgment in those words. Just clarity, and the quiet grief that comes with it.

And so I lie here in this hammock, the sun filtering through the leaves, and I feel something I didn't always know how to feel — gratitude. For the stillness. For the growth, as tender and messy as it has been. For the beauty of this life. And most of all, for you — for the way you have shown me love and supported me so patiently, so fully, as I was learning to do the same for myself.

I love you. I believe in you. We do have this.

Hi Love Bug,
I've been quiet for a while. And honestly? I needed to be.

I've been on my own healing journey — the kind that asks you to step back, go inward, and trust the process even when it's uncomfortable. The kind I used to help others navigate.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, I remembered why I started this.

Because growth isn't linear. Because healing isn't a straight line. Because sometimes the person who helps others find their way has to find their own way back first.

I'm back. A little more whole. A lot more real.

that.little.extra has always been about the small, intentional things that change everything. That hasn't changed — if anything, I believe it more deeply now.

If you've been on your own journey while I was on mine — I see you. I'm here.

Let's keep growing together. 💚
I love you. I believe in you. We do have this.