Denise Morrison

05/19/2026

You’re the one everyone calls.

The one who remembers the birthdays, picks up the slack, listens to the hard stuff, holds the room together when it starts to crack.

You do it well. So well that nobody thinks to ask if you’re okay.
But you know.

You feel it at 9pm when the house finally quiets and you’re standing in front of the pantry, not really hungry but desperate for something that feels like yours.

You feel it on Sunday nights, when the dread starts before the week even begins.

You feel it in your shoulders, in your sleep, in the way you snap at the person who least deserves it.

This isn’t a character flaw. It’s a math problem. You can’t keep giving from a cup nobody’s refilling. Not even you.

The food at night, the wine, the scroll until 1am. That’s not weakness. That’s the only space in your day that belongs to you.

There’s a version of this where you don’t have to wait until you’re empty to take care of yourself.

Where rest isn’t something you earn after collapse.

When you’re ready to stop running on fumes, DM me the word EMPTY and I’ll send you the thing I made for exactly this moment.

😘

05/19/2026

You're the one everyone calls.

The one who remembers the birthdays, picks up the slack, listens to the hard stuff, holds the room together when it starts to crack.

You do it well. So well that nobody thinks to ask if you're okay.
But you know.

You feel it at 9pm when the house finally quiets and you're standing in front of the pantry, not really hungry but desperate for something that feels like yours.

You feel it on Sunday nights, when the dread starts before the week even begins.

You feel it in your shoulders, in your sleep, in the way you snap at the person who least deserves it.

This isn't a character flaw. It's a math problem. You can't keep giving from a cup nobody's refilling. Not even you.

The food at night, the wine, the scroll until 1am. That's not weakness. That's the only space in your day that belongs to you.

There's a version of this where you don't have to wait until you're empty to take care of yourself.

Where rest isn't something you earn after collapse.

When you're ready to stop running on fumes, DM me the word EMPTY and I'll send you the thing I made for exactly this moment.

😘

05/18/2026

What would you add?

Let me know in the comments, and 📍 save this for the next time you're tempted to push through.

05/15/2026

There was a stretch of time when I was sure something was wrong with my body.

The bloating. The cravings I couldn't explain. The exhaustion that didn't lift no matter how much I slept. The aches in places I'd never felt before.

I kept trying to fix it like a food problem. Cleaner eating. More discipline. Another plan.
None of it touched what was actually going on.

What I didn't know then is that the body doesn't separate emotional pain from physical symptoms. Grief, stress, loss... the body holds it all in one place.

So when life got heavy, my body did too.

If your body has felt off lately and food has felt louder than it used to, this might be why.

Comment CARRY and I'll send you the free Emotional Eating Assessment. No fixing. No pressure. Just a real conversation about what your body has been trying to tell you.

05/14/2026

A hole bigger than the size of Grand Canyon 💔💔

“Getting back to life.” Have you heard that phrase from people outside of your grief?

It’s kind of a job hazard – when I talk about the realities of grief to non-grieving people, it’s never too long before someone says, “Well, yeah, but eventually you have to get back to life, right? You have to get over it.”

The thing is, the people who often say these things actually do have a life to go back to.

For many of us, the people we’ve lost were such an integral part of every single day and facet of our lives, there is no “normal life” without them. There truly is no life to “get back to.”

Eventually, perhaps, new things will begin to grow around the crater that has erupted in the center of your life. The hole itself will remain. I don’t mean that as a downer. I mean that a loss that shifts the axis of your universe isn't something that simply shrinks over time.

That’s the real work of grief – to show up with kindness for ourselves - every day, many times a day. Somehow, if we don’t see it as “fixing” your grief or “getting back to life,” it makes it all just a little bit easier.

We discuss "getting back to life" and other experiences of grief in my monthly group. Join us at patreon.com/megandevine

We meet every 4th Thursday, and sessions are always recorded for later viewing.

05/10/2026

Mother’s Day isn’t just for the women who gave birth. It’s for the women who stayed, who nurtured, who worried, who protected, and who loved something outside themselves with their whole damn heart.

It’s for the women who mothered children, and the women who mothered friends through heartbreak, pets through illness, and parents through aging. The ones who talked to their plants like tiny roommates, cared for communities, clients, students, partners, dreams, and even the version of themselves that almost gave up.

Some women became soft places for others to land while carrying pain no one could see. That counts too.

So today, Happy Mother’s Day to every woman who has ever loved, held, carried, comforted, protected, guided, fed, supported, or poured herself into another living being.

Love is love. Care is care. And nurturing is its own kind of motherhood. ❤️

05/09/2026

Some days, being a healthcare provider feels like performing a version of yourself that the world expects to see.

Calm. Capable. Professional. Together.

Meanwhile behind the mask?
You're grieving. Exhausted. Running on fumes. Trying not to fall apart between patients, meetings, paperwork, and everyone else's needs.
And the hardest part? Most of us got really good at ignoring ourselves.

We learned how to keep showing up no matter what. How to smile while our nervous system is screaming. How to care for everyone else while quietly abandoning ourselves in the process.
Because people still need us. Patients still need us. Coworkers still need us. Families still need us.
So we push through.

But here's what most people never see:
The 90-second cry in the bathroom between patients. The drive home in complete silence because words, any words, are just too much. The moment you finally walk through your front door and your body exhales in a way that feels less like relief and more like collapse. Like you've been holding your breath for twelve hours and you're only now allowed to let go.
And what comes out isn't always pretty.
Sometimes it's tears. Sometimes it's nothing, just a blank stare at a wall because you don't have the bandwidth to feel anything yet. Sometimes it's food, scrolling, wine, zoning out not because you're weak, but because it's the only comfort left within reach after a day of giving every last thing you had.

By the time the day ends, there's often nothing left.
No energy to cook. No energy to think. No energy to process your own emotions.
Just exhaustion. Overstimulation. Silence.

And the world outside has no idea. They see the scrubs. The smile. The competence. They see someone who has it together because that's the version we've spent years perfecting.

What they don't see is how many of us are surviving this way.
Functioning. Performing. Holding it together publicly… while privately feeling completely depleted. Not because we're weak. Because constantly carrying everyone else is heavy. And no one can carry that forever without eventually feeling it in their bones.

And it's not just healthcare. I see you too, educators. The ones who walk into classrooms every day carrying the weight of thirty families, thirty different needs, thirty little hearts counting on you, all while navigating impossible expectations, shrinking resources, and a system that asks everything and replaces nothing. You do it because you love those kids. Full stop. And that love? It's just as heavy as it is beautiful.

The body always asks for something back.

Rest. Space. Care. Compassion. Permission to fall apart a little, without judgment, without an audience, without someone handing us a list of wellness tips written by people who have never had to hold this much for this long.

If you're in this right now, if you recognized yourself somewhere in these words, I want you to know:

I see you. Not the version you perform. Not the one who has it together. You. The one who is tired in a way that sleep doesn't always fix. The one who gives so much, so consistently, that you've forgotten what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

You are not alone in this.
And you are not weak for feeling it.

Love,
Denise

05/05/2026

❤️ 🙏 ☮️ ❤️‍🩹

Today's Message 💚

05/02/2026

YOUR LIGHT
Your light does not come from your successes.
Your light is not ignited by perfection,
or achievement or body shape.
Your light is not fuelled by popularity or acceptance.
Neither is your light at any risk of being put out,
when other lights around you, are bright.
Your light is simply made of the you-ness that makes you you,
the worries you have in the night,
the music which sparks your joy,
the books you had to read twice,
the memories stored safely in your heart,
The people you love and the people who love you.
Your light is never dependant on how you look,
or how you perform.
It’s just there,
and it’s quite simply brilliant,
and it’s all yours.
And it lights up every room you walk into,
whether you activate it or not.
What a wonderful thing.
Shine bright little fighter,
this dark world needs your glow.
Donna Ashworth
From ‘I Wish I Knew’:
Art by Victor Nizovtsev.
💜💙💜