Up to Earth

02/02/2026

Instead of asking "What's wrong with you?" ask "What happened to you?"

01/31/2026

Loneliness comes from deep and recurring wounds. Abandonment, judgement, shame. We learn that we are less than when we share our pain and it isn't met with compassion or grace. We are taught that it is wrong to feel hurt, that we should suck it up and be grateful and not acknowledge the hurt that comes when trust is broken. When safety is compromised, hurt is internalized. And for a while, especially with a positive attitude, it works. But the hurt keeps coming, and we default to what worked before. We take responsibility for holding onto our pain so that no one can be accountable for actions they took that hurt us. Every time we internalize the pain we aggravate the very wound that caused the hurt by abandoning the self.
Finding safety takes work and it takes support. Our hurt must be witnessed before it can be released.
Blessed are the healers, they are doing the hardest work. And they will return to the greatest love. Complete acceptance of the totality of the life that has shaped them.
If you are hurting, know that you are not alone. Please try to give yourself grace for learning to survive the best way you knew how. And know that we can learn new ways to move through the hurt and toward healing.

The late, great Carl Jung once said, “Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.”

That line rang true for me immediately.

The loneliest moments of my life haven’t been caused by a lack of people, but by feeling misunderstood and unsafe while surrounded by them. Loneliness is rarely about being alone. It’s about feeling unseen. It’s about carrying aches and truths we’ve learned to edit because we don’t feel safe.

Which is why connection isn’t healed by proximity, but by permission. The permission to be honest. To be weak. To be unpolished. To stop performing okayness and start telling the truth.

Grace doesn’t just forgive wrongs. It creates space. Space where you don’t have to translate your soul before speaking. Space where being known is finally safer than being acceptable.

As I’ve said before, people are far more likely to be honest when grace and forgiveness, rather than judgment and ostracization, are on the horizon.

01/29/2026

There's a specific moment I remember from third grade.

Mrs. Empson kept me after school one evening. I hadn't turned in homework for half the school year. Not because I couldn't do it — I finished all 20+ assignments in a couple of hours that night. She drove me home afterward, bewildered.

Nobody asked why a bright kid who completed months of work in one sitting wasn't turning anything in. It was rural Nebraska in the 90s. I was quiet. I wasn't disruptive. I wasn't a "problem."

I just... forgot. Or got distracted. Or thought I'd already done it when I'd only done it in my head.

That's the story of my life, it turns out. Except I didn't know that until I was 39 years old.

The "Successful" Years
Fast forward three decades. I had crushed it, at least on paper:

Master's degree in Organizational Management

Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Resource Management

A comfortable career of 14 years and a promotion I'd pursued for five years (public face of the agency, the dream job)

Five years sober alongside my husband

A new home we'd been able to keep updating over the years

Luna, the best dog in the world

I should have been celebrating. Instead, I felt like I was watching my life from outside my body. Going through motions. Hitting marks. Feeling nothing.
Colleagues praised my work. Clients sent thank-you notes. My performance reviews were stellar. The accolades were pouring in…

And I felt like I was invisible.

The Diagnosis That Changed Everything
I found a psychiatrist in Rock Springs (miracle #1 in rural Wyoming). She told me I had a chemical imbalance that needed addressing before therapy would even work.

I was skeptical. Opposed to medication, honestly. But I was desperate.

Within ONE HOUR of taking my first dose, my soul snapped back into my body. I could feel again. Hope. Actual hope for the first time in years.

Six weeks later: ADHD diagnosis.

At 39 years old, I learned that the chaos I'd been managing my entire life wasn't a character flaw. It was neurodivergence that nobody caught because I was:

Female

Quiet

"Successful"

Resourceful enough to build workarounds

Raised in an environment chaotic enough to mask the symptoms

My brother described child-me as "fast, small, and wild." My family remembered my intense curiosity, my inability to sit still, my hyperfocus on nature. All the signs were there. Hidden in plain sight.

The Grief and the Liberation
I went through stages:

Disbelief: Do I really have ADHD? Or am I losing my mind?

Anger: How did nobody catch this? What could my life have been if I'd known at 9? At 19? At 29?

Grief: Mourning all the years I felt that something was “different” about me, but never had evidence to prove it.

Liberation: Oh. OH. This is why. I'm not broken. My brain just works differently.

I devoured everything I could about ADHD — because of course I did. The more I learned, the more I saw myself. The more I realized how many women are walking around undiagnosed, feeling unseen and desperate for connection.

What I'm Building Now
For the first time in my life, I'm choosing me.

I'm building Up to Earth Life Coaching for women like me:

Late-diagnosed or suspecting ADHD/neurodivergence

Accomplished but exhausted

Successful on paper, miserable in reality

Seeking validation outside themselves because they can't accept it internally

Ready to stop performing and start living

Nature taught me everything I needed to know about healing. Ecosystems are messy, interconnected, non-linear. So is recovery. So is self-discovery. So is learning to live in a brain that works differently.

You're not broken. You're not too much. You're not failing.

You're just finally ready to come home to yourself and start pouring the energy you’ve been putting into others, into YOU.

That's where I'll meet you.

Empowering women through nature-based coaching to reclaim themselves, especially those navigating ADHD or recovery. Start living authentically today.

01/21/2026

Things I do not say...

People who have “known” me my whole life are shocked when I tell them that I have ADHD. They are shocked when they learn that I experienced depression and suicidal ideation when I was a teenager.

People who “know” me will tell you that I am outspoken and that I gave zero sh*ts about what other people thought, that I was going to do what I wanted when I wanted, regardless of the opinions of others.

To an extent, they are right.

What they don’t understand is that every action I took, every word I spoke (at least when I wasn’t under the influence of any intoxicating substance), every sentence I have spoken, was run through a filter. The gymnastics in my brain are impressive, busy, and meticulous.

How do I say what I need to in the most concise way possible?
How do I want people to perceive me?
What effect do I want to have here?

My most personal thoughts and feelings are rarely spoken; they are tucked away inside my brain, organized, acknowledged, and then locked away.

When the storage space is limited, I will release these thoughts from their captivity onto the pages of a journal or typed away in a note.

My deepest feelings are handled like hazmat: contained, carefully handled, and sequestered from outsiders.

For the longest time, I have held onto them because of the pain they might cause to others.

What I failed to realize about my thought storage system is that hanging onto all of the painful content would hurt the most important person: me.

There is no longer storage space for nuclear feelings inside my brain or in my
body.

There is a saying for people in recovery: “Secrets keep you sick.”

I understand now. Holding onto all of this pain has done some damage, and I am afraid the only way to stop the damage is to say the unsaid things.

I am ready to start.

01/19/2026

"If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." Martin Luther King Jr.

01/17/2026

Reflections after meeting with a client:

It feels good to make other people feel good, until it doesn't.
One day, someone asks you a simple question: "How did that make you feel?" or "What are you passionate about?"
And you freeze. Because you genuinely don't know the answer.

You've spent so long catering the comfort of others that you've erased yourself in the process.
Every time you compromised your needs for the benefit of someone else pieces of you were chipped away.

When you finally realize what's happened, it hits deep. It shakes everything. You question your sanity. You feel lost in your own life.
But here's what I know: you can find your way back.

It starts with recognizing the patterns. Bit by bit, you can reestablish who you are, what you need, and what you're no longer willing to compromise.

It's uncomfortable. It's confusing. And it's one of the most important things you'll ever do.
If this resonates, I'd love to support you through it.

PM me to learn more about how we can help you rebuild yourself into a woman who will never erase herself again. Visit www.uptoearthcoaching.com for more information.

12/30/2025

In July 2025 when I told my husband that I had scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist his first response was “why?” My answer: I should be happy and I’m just not, my voice shaky and my eyes welling with tears.
From the outside looking in at my life, I had every reason to celebrate. I had a comfortable job, a solid marriage, a nice home, my dream car, the sweetest dog in the world. I was free from the burdens that come with raising children, a choice that I made intentionally. I had accomplished nearly everything that I set out to do. I wasn’t ready to admit it yet, but I was utterly miserable.
I felt invisible. I felt incredibly alone. I felt broken. I felt like a fraud, the custom plate on my car read “GR8FL” (Grateful). I had been living a life of gratitude when I ordered those plates in 2021. I was newly sober alongside my husband, after eight years of living married while we both struggled through alcohol addiction. We had beat the odds, survived alcohol addiction and come out on the other side. Still married, with a greater appreciation for each other.
Four years after ordering those plates I wondered if I deserved to have them on my car. I had every reason to be grateful, but I just couldn’t feel anything anymore. I no longer had energy or interest in things that had mattered greatly to me before.
At my first appointment, my psychiatrist told me that I had a chemical imbalance in my brain that needed to be addressed before therapy would be effective. I had listened to some podcasts that mentioned this imbalance, and how medication can help address depression, how being on the right medication doesn’t feel like you are medicated at all.
There was something holding me back though, I was afraid to try medication, because I was aware of the possible side-effects: potential worsening of depression, loss of libido, dry mouth, digestive issues, etc. I actually told my psychiatrist “I don’t want to take medication”.
I was using the potential negative side effects to mask the real reason I didn’t want to be medicated, stigma.
I put my pride aside, I had sought help because despite my best efforts, I was unable to solve my problem on my own. I decided to trust my doctor, when she recommended medication, I took it. Within hours of the first dose, I felt alive again. Not healed, not happy (yet), but alive. Alive and filled with energy and hope.
I still have dreams of one day not needing medication. For now, I am grateful to feel alive again and little by little, I am cracking my heart open and allowing the light to come in. It’s always been difficult for me to accept help, even more difficult for me to admit that I need help. The truth is that vulnerability feels much scarier than it actually is, and those times when I have been able to be fully honest with myself and others are the times I’ve felt most alive.
My fear of being seen is the very thing standing between me and the connection that can fill the void inside myself.

12/28/2025

Check out Up.to.earth’s post.

12/20/2025

7.7.2001

Be Strong
Fight away the bad in your life
Be Smart
Know the difference between wrong and right
Be Brave
Face the things that scare you
Be Loyal
Keep the friends that are true
Be Aware
Notice all the things that surround
Be Ready
You never know what could go down
Be yourself
No one could ask for anything more than that