Discovering Joy, LLC

08/10/2025

Roots Reclaimed Tickets still on sale! We are giving away two tickets to the retreat! Head over to our IG accounts and for contest details!!!

08/04/2025

19 days until Roots Reclaimed! Get your tickets here!

This gathering is an opportunity to listen inward, honor your story, and reclaim the parts of you that have been waiting to be remembered.

07/14/2025

Here’s the truth:
All those moments of real growth in your life?
They weren’t engineered.

As someone who works with complex trauma, I see it all the time—adults who grew up feeling helpless now trying to control everything to feel safe.

They try to plan healing.
Manage disappointment before it happens.
Analyze instead of feel.

And while I’m so grateful mental health awareness is growing, the truth is:
You can’t think your way out of feeling.
You can’t outsmart grief, numbness, or fear without also blocking joy, peace, and connection.

When you try to script every outcome so you never get hurt…
You end up missing the very people, opportunities, and experiences that were meant for this version of you.

💡 Growth comes from leaning in—not avoiding.
💡 Anxiety isn’t random—it’s often your body telling you something’s off.
💡 Anger? A flashing light that your boundaries matter.

If we don’t slow down and feel, we miss what our emotions are trying to teach us.
And we miss the chance to give ourselves exactly what we need.

So today, ask yourself:
✨ What emotion have I been avoiding?
✨ What might it be trying to tell me?

You don’t have to engineer your healing.
You just have to trust the path, feel the feelings, and follow the signals.

07/11/2025

Grief is hard.
But it’s not just about losing something—it’s also about remembering who you are.

When we’re deep in it, a few things can really help:

🌱 Reconnecting with your values—they’re like anchors when everything feels uncertain.
🌱 Being around supportive people who really see you.
🌱 Expressing yourself through creativity—art, movement, nature… they all speak when words fall short.
🌱 Slowing down. Seriously. There’s no rush when you’re healing.

These are also ways we reclaim our roots.
When we reconnect with our story, our culture, and the strength of where we come from, we’re reminded—we’re not starting from scratch.
We come from a line of resilience.

This is what Roots Reclaimed is all about.

✨ A healing circle where your story is held
✨ Art to process what’s hard to say
✨ Connection with your pelvic floor to ground you in your body
✨ Sound healing to slow it all down
✨ And community—because we heal better when we’re not doing it alone

If this speaks to you, come join me and on:

🗓️ August 23rd | 1–4pm
📍 Mt. Charleston Library

We’d love to have you there. Come get rooted with us. 🌿

07/09/2025

🧠 A question I hear often in therapy:

“What do I do so I won’t get activated… or make others angry… or make things weird?”

Here’s what I tell my clients:

✨ Increase your tolerance to be activated.
Being activated isn’t a failure—it’s feedback. It’s your body and mind giving you information about what still needs care and understanding.

✨ Get comfortable with others having big emotions.
It’s not your job to manage or soothe other people’s feelings. It’s your job to soothe yourself when emotions arise—in you or them.

✨ It’s only weird if you make it weird.
Owning your truth with calm confidence often creates space for others to do the same.

Discomfort doesn’t mean something is wrong.
Sometimes it means you’re finally doing what’s right for you.

07/07/2025

When we’re afraid of the unknown, we shrink to fit into the familiar—even when it keeps us stuck.

For those who live with anxiety, control often becomes the coping strategy:
“If I can predict it, I can survive it.”
But here’s the truth—control doesn’t ease anxiety, it feeds it.

🌀 Anxiety isn’t always something to silence.
It’s a signal.
It tells us when a person, place, or pattern is out of alignment with our values.
The more we force ourselves to stay in misaligned environments, the louder the anxiety becomes.

It’s not anyone else’s job to make you feel safe.
It’s your job to gently work with the parts of you that crave control because chaos once surrounded them.
And it’s your job to expand your capacity to sit with uncertainty—because that’s where real growth begins.

When life feels blurry and you don’t know what’s next…
That’s not failure.
That’s a sign you’re ready to step into something new.

💭 You won’t be able to fully experience the present until you care for the younger you still stuck in the past.

07/03/2025

🌀 “See Your Memories” on FB hits different when you’re almost 40.

Sometimes I read my old status updates and cringe.
Other times I’m surprised by how wise I was.
And often, I grieve—for the people, places, and versions of me that are no longer here.

But here’s what I remind myself:
👉🏽 My younger self made choices to survive and navigate life with limited information.
She was doing the best she could.

We often forget this when we’re struggling today.
Instead of compassion, we offer self-blame:
“I should’ve known better.”
“I made stupid decisions.”
“I let the wrong people stay too long.”

But the truth is—being human means learning through trial and error.
And most people hate trial and error…
Because it reminds us that healing and maturity don’t always happen on our timeline—or anyone else’s.

So if you’re feeling frustrated with someone else’s slow journey…
Ask yourself:
🔍 “What part of me feels abandoned or let down by their pace?”
🔍 “Can I give myself what I need, rather than waiting for them to catch up?”

And if the answer is no—if their slowness feels like betrayal—it may be time to lovingly release that connection.

Honoring your humanity means holding both truths:
🌱 People didn’t show up the way you needed.
🌱 And you have the power to choose differently now.

You’re not here to be perfect.
You’re here to be whole.

06/02/2025

Hey friends 🌿 it’s Hazel —there’s nothing I love more than creating space for women to slow down, reconnect, and remember who they are.

I’m heading back up to Mt. Charleston (one of my favorite places to ground and breathe) to co-host another beautiful retreat with Dr. Catrina Fabian — she’s a pelvic floor specialist with such powerful wisdom on how healing truly starts in the body.

This retreat is for you if you’ve been feeling a little disconnected — from your roots, your culture, your sense of belonging — or if you’ve inherited silence, disconnection, or the pressure to just “hold it all together.”

We’re creating something really special. You’ll experience:
✨ Mindfulness practices inspired by the earth
✨ Storytelling and reflection to reconnect with your lineage
✨ Pelvic floor healing with Catrina
✨ Sound healing
✨ Nature rituals to help you release and feel rooted again

And of course — we’ll have a cozy space to share, light snacks, a little gift bag, and lots of room for YOU. 💛

If something in you is saying “yes… I need this” — come join us.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roots-reclaimed-reclaiming-ancestry-embodiment-belonging-tickets-1364721912979

04/22/2025

She doesn’t know it yet… but she’s growing in all the ways that matter.

At first, it looks like small things.
Letting herself feel disappointed instead of pretending it’s fine.
Doing things even when she’s scared—and realizing she survived it.
Not shapeshifting just to fit in. Choosing to be herself, even if it feels risky.
Saying no to gossip and still feeling connected.
Messing up, learning from it, and moving forward instead of shutting down.
Questioning why she never felt “Filipino enough” and realizing—that’s colonization, not truth.
And maybe the wildest part? She ends up being someone who helps others feel whole, just by being real.

She didn’t know all this yet… but she’s getting there.
And if you’re on your way too—just know you’re not alone. 🤍

04/02/2025

✨When we hold ourselves and others accountable with kindness, we create space for learning, healing, and real change. Accountability with compassion fosters trust, strengthens relationships, and helps us move forward instead of staying stuck in shame.

✨Let’s start feeling comfortable with saying, I made a mistake. How can I move forward with you? Or accepting when others acknowledge their mistakes and being open to how they’re willing to repair. Too often, cognitive dissonance makes people sweep things under the rug or pretend nothing happened. But we can’t truly move on from hurt until it’s acknowledged and there’s a plan to ensure that you’re prioritized.
✨There’s so much shame around making mistakes that people avoid admitting them—but that’s not human, and it’s not realistic. Mistakes will happen. What matters is how we take accountability and commit to doing better.

✨Everything here is for educational and marketing purposes. This is not intended or a replacement for medical or mental health treatment.

03/31/2025

📖I finally had a book put into words what I’ve felt as a child of immigrants. Sagan Kohli’s But What Will People Say spoke to my experience of straddling two worlds—being Filipino American and never quite knowing how to balance the two.
✨One concept that hit deep: Is my time respected, or just expected?
Time is more valuable than money. But growing up, the focus was always on saving money, making money, and then making more money. Hustle culture and consumerism only reinforced this. But did I ever truly learn to respect my time? Not really.
As a recovering people-pleaser, I see how my over-helpfulness—something that can be a strength—was often taken to the extreme. In Filipino culture🇵🇭, we’re taught to listen to authority, to prioritize others, to say yes before even considering if we want to. But here’s the truth:
You don’t owe anyone your time.
Time should be respected—by you first, and then by the people around you.
What’s something you’ve done lately to honor your time?

Everything here is for educational and marketing purposes. This is not intended or a replacement for medical or mental health treatment.

03/27/2025

Consistency isn’t just a habit—it’s an act of kindness, both for yourself and others. When we’re not intentional in our relationships, we create confusion. And when there’s confusion, our minds scramble for answers—often filling in the blanks with worst-case scenarios.

But when you get intentional—about what you want in relationships, in life, and within yourself—you gain clarity. Clarity sets expectations. It helps you communicate what you need. And when you’re clear, you’re not only kinder to others but, most importantly, to yourself.

Clarity also brings acceptance. You start to see others’ limitations for what they are, rather than taking them personally. And from there, you can make a choice: draw closer to those who show up with consistency or step away from spaces that don’t.

Because at the end of the day, it’s better to sit with temporary loneliness than to abandon yourself for a lifetime.