02/28/2026
I’ve been the exile in life.
As a girl who couldn’t figure out the unspoken rules.
As a teenager who mimicked others to fit in—and got rejected anyway.
As a young adult on the fringes of every in-group, never quite safe enough to soften.
Exile taught me to believe: isolation is “safe”. Being seen leads to rejection.
Every time it happened, I felt two polarizing sensations:
Relief—I can stop pretending.
And pain—I am unwanted.
Exile doesn’t just hurt. It asks:
Am I real without witnesses? Am I valid in my own existence?
In order to protect us, the unmet wound wraps us with clever solutions:
Shape-shifting to fit the mold of each group
Or build walls so no one can cast you out again—but at the loss of no one truly knowing you.
Now, there is a third place. The “in-between” that is integration.
Meeting yourself in the dark aloneness of yourself and facing what’s there without turning away, but rather finding the depth of understanding and compassion for this part of yourself, when and why it formed.
Discovering that love, warmth, meaning have a source inside you that survives any rejection.
I will be ok on the other side of self aloneness, self revelation, self expression.
The one who descends fully does not return desperate for belonging. They return offering something.
The wound, fully met, becomes the medicine.
And it’s a process. It’s not a single moment of arrival. It’s a spiral—returning to the wound, again and again, each time a little more whole.
Maybe we are always on this journey,
That there is no real point of fixed arrival
Personally I still feel the sensation and seductive pull to protect,
Yet I’m no longer exiling myself to avoid being exiled by others.
And it truly is the greatest sense of power one can wield.
💗Last chance to join my upcoming retreat EXHALE
March 12-15
DM me or click link in my bio
Xoxo 😚