Hi friend,

This week I’m releasing two episodes that belong together. Different topics, same question underneath: what happens inside of us when things don’t go the way we planned, and how do we find our way back to ourselves?

Grab your coffee, hot cocoa and your journal, here’s what’s waiting for you.

Episode 55. Not As Planned

Life blows off script. Everyone knows it, and most of us still get thrown when it happens. So how do we hold on to who we are while staying flexible enough not to break?

When the plan falls apart, a lot of us grip tight. We stand in for structure with rigidity, and rigidity works right up until it cracks. Then comes the meltdown. In this episode we look at the alternative, and it looks a lot like a tree.

Here’s the shift from ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Theory) that I keep coming back to: a rule says, “This is exactly how today has to go.” A value says, “No matter what happens today, I want to treat myself and others with kindness and patience.” Your values never depended on the plan working out a specific way in the first place.

And when it all starts to wobble, three questions to bring you back to your roots:

Questions lead to insight...

1.  What’s actually true right now, and what’s the story I’m adding to it? Be the robot who fact-checks. Everything else is interpretation, and interpretation is where the meltdown actually lives.

2.  Which part of me is driving right now? What would my highest self do here? Name that part. Naming it creates just enough distance from the emotion to find your ground.

3.  What does my body need right now to respond instead of react? You can’t access your values from a disregulated body and mind.

The invitation: become a non-anxious presence, someone who can observe the chaos without absorbing it.

Episode 56. The Way It's Wired

A text goes unanswered. Someone gets quiet and pulls away. And you’re not annoyed. You’re flooded. Why did that hit so hard?

Our earliest attachments quietly wrote the rule book for every relationship that came after. Drawing on the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, we talk about how those first relationships became the template, and how underneath every one of them is a single question: am I safe?

Four attachment patterns show up in that research:

• Secure – needs met with consistency and attunement; connection feels safe and reliable.

• Anxious – heightened alertness to abandonment.

• Avoidant – a learned self-reliance that keeps closeness at arm’s length because closeness doesn’t feel safe.

• Disorganized – wanting closeness and fearing it at the same time.

Which one sounds most like you?

Neurons that fire together wire together, and those pathways become the way we interpret closeness, distance, conflict, and repair. When your body reacts like it’s an emergency, that’s your nervous system reaching for the old rule book.

The good news is neuroplasticity: your brain can form new pathways. You just have to catch it in the moment, pause, and ask:

1.  Is this reaction about right now, or is it an old wire firing? Is it about the event, or about the meaning I’ve assigned to it?

2.  What might they and I be protecting? Both of us are running a protective part, one that’s just trying to keep pain from happening again. Human, just like you.

3.  What’s another story I could tell about this event?

Our first interpretation of a relational event is almost never the only possible one. It’s just the first one that comes quickly because of the nervous system. Curiosity is what moves you from reacting out of the rule book to choosing your response.

Every time you pause and ask, you’re not running the old system anymore. You’re growing new roots. That’s earned security: understanding your own wiring and building the support you need to feel held.

Come Practice With Us!

Listening is a great start. Practicing is where the roots grow. Inside the Light It Up Club, we take ideas like these and live them out together: weekly live calls, reflective questions, creative and somatic prompts, and a community of people who are doing this work right alongside you. Can’t make a live call? Recordings are there for members.

Membership is $29/month.

Until next time, keep your roots deep and your branches loose.

With love,

Hope

Arise Coaching and Retreats Podcast