blindspot.light (2025)

10/01/2024

I’m in the practice of taking full responsibility for my choices, my life, and the reality I create. It’s revolutionarily freeing as well as a tremendously confronting.

I’m in the practice of looking inward rather than placing blame on someone else or external circumstances. I ask myself:
“How have my choices led me here?”
“What choices am I making that aren’t serving me?”
“Are my choices in alignment with my values and what I desire?”

We always have a choice. Maybe external circumstances got us to an undesirable place, but we get to choose how we respond or react.

We can choose to withhold -to never share the vulnerable thing- or we can choose to reveal, to feel, and be seen. We can choose to open our hearts to love despite being broken in the past, or we can choose protection and shut it out. We can choose what’s familiar and what we know, or we can choose to venture out of our comfort zone and expand our vision of what’s possible.

We constantly have opportunities to make choices, and in the end our choices make us.

02/01/2024

In 2023 I fell madly, deeply in love. This was also a year where I lost myself.

No one talks about the grief you feel entering into a new relationship (especially after years of being single). The loss of complete selfishness, freedom, and independence.

It feels wrong to name the grief when my relationship is so full of love, intimacy, abundance, playfulness, and fun. But my grief has nothing to do with him or our relationship, and everything to do with me.

So much of my healing is relational, in that when I’m single I feel wholly confident because I get to be completely independent, selfish with my energy, and focus on my own needs. But when I’m in a relationship I become codependent, my anxious-attachment kicks in, and I lose sight of my individual needs & desires.
—
About a week ago my partner reflected to me that he’s been feeling more of a dependency coming from me and I had SUCH a reaction.

First it looked like rationalization, then it looked like defensiveness, and now —several days later— I’m finally understanding the emotion underneath. It’s loneliness.

I’m catching myself in that codependent pattern. I block myself from the multiple streams of love that used to flow into me—the friends, community, and connections that nourished me. Instead I unconsciously expect one person to fill the role of what my whole community could.

So my intention for 2024 is ☯️balance.☯️
To nourish myself, my friendships, and my relationship. To focus on building my business & work in a way that feels creative/nourishing rather than draining/depleting.
To integrate all parts of myself in a healthy, authentic, and compassionate way.

Cheers to a new year, new opportunities, and new possibilities 🙏✨

27/10/2023

Many of my clients are wealthy, successful, and sad.

Societal norms are changing and people’s desires are awakening. We’re conditioned in western society that prioritizing ourselves is selfish, because our society isn’t based on self-care or mental health.

Your self-worth is not correlated to your productivity or output. What you do is not necessarily who you are. I’m not saying “don’t work hard.” Anything worth having requires hard work, just make sure you’re working towards the things that matter to YOU.

When you have everything you “should” want, and yet you’re still unfulfilled or searching for your purpose, ask yourself: what would I be doing if money didn’t matter? That’s your soul purpose, and it’s starving feeding into capitalistic ideals.

27/09/2023

Many of us feel anxious and develop perfectionist tendencies because we're trying to do G/d's job by trying to control everything.

Control makes us feel safe because when we have control, we have predictability. It’s a protective behavior and it’s probably kept us safe in the past. But the reality is we have no control over things or circumstances outside of ourselves. When we exert control over others, it’s manipulation.

The more we control, the less peaceful we feel because we don’t trust what could happen if we simply let things be.
❕I’m not saying to sit back, relax, and expect things to go your way.❕
I’m emphasizing the importance of learning how to take action and letting go of any expectations, attachments, or plans for how it should unfold. Do something without following it up with excessive worry.

Hand it over to your higher power and trust that it will go the way it’s meant to, even if it’s not the way you want it to.

11/09/2023

Boundaries are for us, they’re not meant to control others. Boundaries don’t ask for someone to stop their behavior, they let the other person know how you will respond when they behave in that way.

We can easily blame others for not upholding our boundaries. When I feel this way, I check-in with myself:
- Am I upholding my boundary?
- Have I communicated my needs and how their behavior impacts me?
- How am I contributing to this dynamic?

When we clearly hold our boundaries, there is no need to blame the other person because our boundaries are protecting us from that harmful behavior.

06/09/2023

Compatibility is a key element to any longterm relationship. It doesn’t mean you need to agree on everything or have the same hobbies or interests, but it means that you are fundamentally in alignment with your values, priorities, and beliefs.

31/08/2023

“I’m feeling smothered” he said to me.

This was only a few months into dating. I didn’t yet feel secure in our relationship and it had been days or weeks since I last felt connected to him. I felt myself wanting to collapse inward. My biggest insecurity is being perceived as needy, and I twisted his words to touch that wound right where it would hurt the most.

With my wounds activated, I went to one of my mentors and shared what he said, wanting her to see me in my hurt and meet me in my victim. But she didn’t. She listened and when I finished venting, she said “Erica, this is beautiful! You’ve been wanting him to share his feelings with you, and now he is. You want him to hold your big emotions, and this is an opportunity for you to hold his. He isn’t saying YOU’RE smothering him, he’s sharing that he’s FEELING smothered.”

I sat with this for a long moment. My victim mindset began to dissolve and my power began to come back to me. I knew that my old patterns of challenging him and reacting from a place of hurt would only further the disconnection between us and would only cause him to shut off from me (the opposite of what I wanted). So I whipped out my proverbial tool-belt, I grounded myself, and I softened.

I heard my coach ‘s voice telling her story of attracting a divine masculine man, and how she learned to stand in her feminine spine when he’d yield his masculine sword.

And I wept. No longer from a place of hurt, but from a place of gratitude. I attracted this beautiful, strong, confident, fiercely loving & protective man into my life. He’s directly sharing with me how he’s feeling, and now it’s my choice whether to receive it or not.

——

This is feminine embodiment work. It’s not submitting to a man. It’s developing the skill to discern where I choose to put my time, energy, and attention. It’s building community, self-love, and self-worth; all while learning to take radical self-responsibility.

30/08/2023

When you invest in personal growth work and start to heal parts of yourself that felt unworthy or unwanted, your life will change.

And the first step is usually allowing your old life, old relationship, old patterns, crumble away. It feels utterly terrifying and inconvenient, like you’re being asked to give up everything you have. Because you are.

Transformation doesn’t just happen. People who live magnificently abundant lives often had to give up the life that was given to them in order to create the one that’s aligned for them.

Transformation isn’t for everyone. It’s hard and requires support, whether it’s from community or your higher power. It asks you to give up control in order to receive unexpected blessings. It asks you to make room for something better.

23/08/2023

Performing and hiding behind a facade feels safe because it protects us from feeling true rejection. It’s also prevents us from forming genuine connections.

Many of my clients who struggle with anxiety and depression hide it so well around their friends and family. And yet hiding it only feeds the anxiety and depression because they’re not being authentic and they’re missing out on building intimate human connections because they’re not allowing themselves to be truly seen or known.

Most of us want the same things. To be loved, to belong, and to have purpose. Strip away the masks and facades and performances and at our core we’re all so similar.

Here’s some gentle reminders to be authentically yourself.

14/08/2023

Overthinking can get in the way of living authentically.

The more we think, the less we feel, and the less action we take. We create imaginary scenarios and outcomes in our minds that may feel like we’re taking action, and may result in a feeling, but these are all happening within us. And life happens outside of us.

01/08/2023

Approaching the topic of exes with a romantic partner feels SO triggering for me. I revert to a competitive, immature, mean girl. It activates my scarcity mindset, which triggers my negative and limiting beliefs about myself. These beliefs lie to me, saying that simply because this person has been in love before or has experienced deep, meaningful connections in prior relationships, this somehow takes away from our current relationship. My fear tells me: “you’re not enough.”

When I’m triggered, I get tunnel vision and
my unhealed sisterhood wounds become activated. I see it as her versus me. I have to be better. I have to “outdo” her. I have to “win.” My insecure parts use so much energy creating this imaginary competition, that I have little energy left to nourish the relationship I’m so afraid of losing.
I create a problem within OUR relationship that’s entirely built on MY insecurities and which actually have nothing to do with THEM. They’re not the one bringing their past into the present— I am.

😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨

This is an opportunity for me to whip out my tool belt - the one I’ve been cultivating and building for years - in preparation for moments like these. Before I react or respond, I focus on my breath. I refocus my energy from external comparison to internal compassion. I validate my feelings and thank my protective behaviors for showing up. I do my best to get out of my head and ground into my body.

Once I move through this trigger, my insecurities settle down and I can feel and think clearly. I see the impact of my actions and how I’ve unfairly brought them into my spiral when they’ve done nothing wrong.
I can observe the same situation but this time from a place of groundedness, abundance, and gratitude:
Thank goodness for the relationships they’ve had before me! Thank goodness for all of the lessons they’ve learned, growth they’ve gone through, and love they’ve let go of. Just as I’ve been on my own journey, they’ve been on theirs. Nothing is wrong. Everything we’ve been through has gotten us to where we are today and that is priceless.

24/07/2023

Anxiety has a bad rap.
It’s the body’s instinctual alarm that something is not right. Like any alarm, the more we ignore it, the louder and more intense it becomes.

Similarly, we’ve been taught to think of anxiety as a deficit when really it mirrors our level of creativity. I think of artists and musicians. Artists can visualize a piece in their mind and create it with their desired medium so that others can see. Musicians can hear a tune in their mind and then actualize it so it exists with the possibility for others to hear.

These folks who create ideas and turn them into reality can also do this with their worries. They interact with the world as if their greatest fears are true, and this propels a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Imagination and creativity are wonderful skills! The biggest difference between creating art and creating an anxious mind is that art allows people’s internal worlds to be seen and felt, while anxiety prevents people from being seen and felt due to their internal world feeling unworthy of being shared.

20/07/2023

This isn’t me (it’s AI).
Social media isn’t real life (it’s data).
Your thoughts aren’t facts (it’s your imagination).
Their big reactions don’t make them “crazy” (it’s a protective behavior).

——

We don’t often think to question things because we assume we already know the answer. And a lot of the time we’re wrong.
Ask questions for the sake of curiosity. Be in inquiry with ideas and concepts to expand possibility. Create dialogues with people who share different views than you, not to argue but to seek to understand.

19/07/2023

In addition to the five existing love languages:
- acts of service
- physical touch
- words of affirmation
- quality time
- gifts
there are two new additions:
- shared experiences
-emotional safety.

10/07/2023

Codependency is becoming the new monogamy, and it’s detrimental to relationships.

Your person is meant to add value to your life— not be the sole source of it. It’s unfair, to both you and your partner, to place *your* happiness in *their* hands.

When we do this, we become enmeshed. Our sense of identity dissolves and we morph into one entity. This is often a breeding ground for resentment because we blame or make our partner wrong when they are not meeting our needs. We lack personal responsibility.

Often your partner actually wants to make you feel happy! But when it’s always expected, it becomes more of an obligation than a desire.

If you’re healing codependent patterns, I see you!
Try these three things next time you notice codependency arise:
1. Take intentional time to yourself. Go for a walk, take a drive, find an environment that’s away from your partner.

2. Reflect on what needs are asking for your attention. Why are you making it your partner’s responsibility? Where can you take accountability or meet your own need?

3. Consider where this need comes from. It often is an indicator of our attachment style which depends on our relationships with our parents when we’re young. If our needs weren’t met as children, we may expect our partner to fill the parent role.

06/06/2023

Life is not a game of hide and seek. Even though you’re hiding, a majority of people won’t go out of their way to find you.

Many adults moving through the world with unhealed inner child wounds, desperately want to feel seen, connected, and accepted. However, their wounded inner child’s protective behaviors are still so strong that they would never let themselves be seen out of fear of how it could be used against them or out of fear that no one would understand.

I often hear “I’m fine being alone,” or “I’d rather be alone.” And I challenge that. Sure, it makes sense to prefer being alone to being around harmful or triggering people/environments, but would you prefer being alone to being in a safe, supportive community? Usually not. But the idea of a safe and supportive community seems so foreign and far away, being alone sounds more comfortable.

It takes time to unlearn deep-rooted trauma responses. It takes time to learn how to trust and open up. Maybe it’s time to teach our inner child that it’s finally safe to come out of hiding. It’s scary, I won’t lie, but it’s also so worth it.

Let me know if any of this resonates for you in the comments ⬇️

23/05/2023

RelationSHIFTs happen all the time, and yet we don’t often adjust the relationship agreements. I see this often with couples who got married in their early twenties. They met during their party days but now they’re married living the white-picket-fenced life.

Many of my couples come into therapy wondering “how did we get here?!” And my question back to them is “when did the relationship stop working for you?” Often the answer is about a year or two ago.

Check in on your relationship agreements, babes. This ensures that the relationship grows with you rather than feeling restricting or limiting.

17/05/2023

I’m not a guru or a spiritual teacher, but spirituality is a big part of my personal practice and I believe it’s important for people to know the meanings behind the words they use.

“I really want this” is entirely different than “I’m manifesting this.” Wanting something is a feeling, while manifesting is an action.

“Ugh, Erica, it’s just semantics…” a client said to me while we discussed the importance of intentional verbiage. Great, let’s talk about this.
❔How intentional are you with your words?
❔How specific are you when you ask for something you need?
❔ Do you often find yourself feeling misunderstood, or in situations where there are frequent miscommunications?

Let’s use the example of s3x. Do you want to have s3x, do you want to make love, do you want to breed, or do you want to f**k?
I have clients come to me saying “I want to feel desired by my partner” and their partner replies, “what do you mean, we have s3x all the time?!”

This is where semantics and communication become very important. The more specific we can get, the better. Not specific in terms of what they’re doing wrong, but specific about our desires.
—
⏮️⏪ Okay so back to manifesting.
Manifesting is holding the possibility for, and wholeheartedly believing that you can have the thing that you want. It’s a verb for our way of being AND what we’re doing about it.

For example, recently I needed to find a place to live but I didn’t know where, what, when, or how. I did a visualization meditation to get clear on what I wanted and the next day I found my dream home, but I’d need to be a nomad for a few weeks. Instead of giving up, I held the possibility and my belief that I could have it. “What do I need to do?” I thought to myself. It required a lot of surrender and trust.

As I write this I’m noticing a lot of similarities between hard work and manifestation, but the key difference is that the hard work/ dedication has to be in alignment with your key desires and the life that you want. Not just burning ourselves out in a hamster wheel.

blindspot.light