Looking back over the last decade and especially this past year I share some highlights of my healing journey in the hopes it will help those of you who are either contemplating a healing journey or are perhaps at the beginning or middle of your healing journey.

Confusion is often the fruit of manipulation.

It shows up when someone is saying one thing… and doing another.

When their words don’t match their actions.

When you’re being told you’re the problem… while you’re the one trying to make sense of everything.

This is what gaslighting does.

It slowly disconnects you from your reality.

You start second-guessing yourself.

You start over-explaining yourself.

You start apologizing for things you didn’t even do.

And over time… you lose clarity.

But here’s the truth:

God does not speak in chaos.

God’s voice brings peace—even when it corrects you.

God’s Spirit brings clarity—even when it’s uncomfortable.

Love bombing feels AMAZING at first. That's the trap. Your brain gets flooded with dopamine and you think you've found 'the one.'

But it's calculated manipulation designed to bypass your logical thinking. Here are the 8 red flags I wish I'd known.

A Breakdown of 9 Red Flags to watch for when getting to know someone.

The Connection to our childhood trauma and the importance to slow down when getting to know someone.

“Complex PTSD happens when someone has experienced repeated emotional or psychological trauma over a long period of time.

This can come from childhood abuse, narcissistic relationships, chronic gaslighting, or environments where you constantly felt unsafe.

What many people don’t realize is that trauma changes the nervous system.

Your brain becomes wired to scan for danger.

So when something feels even remotely similar to past abuse, your body reacts immediately.

Not with calm.

But with survival.

Victim Blaming: How Can we better assist Survivors of Abuse.

On Episode 5 on my podcast I share some insightful tips how to help survivors of abuse and some of the costs of victim blaming.

What victim blaming creates:

~False guilt

~Toxic shame

~Self-doubt

~Delayed healing

~Nervous system dysregulation

Beloved, You did NOT choose the abuse.

You chose a person who did not reveal their true nature. NO ONE consents to deception.

If you find this podcast helpful or know someone who could benefit from it PLEASE share it with them. Link in BIO listen on Apple or Spotify.

If you are a survivor of domestic violence or any other type of abuse; my heart is with you and YOU ARE WORTHY of love!

Today we’re talking about something many survivors feel, but don’t have language for enmeshment.

Enmeshment is not love.

It feels like love at first… but it slowly erases you.

If you’ve ever felt like someone’s mood controlled your peace,

If you’ve lost clarity, boundaries, or your sense of self in a connection,

If walking away felt like losing oxygen

This episode is for you.

We’re going to talk about what enmeshment is, why it happens, how it happens, how to recognize it, how to avoid it and what God says about it.”

WHAT IS ENMESHMENT (Word for Word Teaching)

“Enmeshment happens when emotional boundaries between two people become blurred or nonexistent.

It’s when:

• Their feelings become your responsibility

• Their needs outweigh your own

• Their approval determines your worth

• And separation feels threatening instead of neutral

Enmeshment is not closeness.

It’s fusion.

You’re not choosing the relationship

you’re surviving inside it.”

WHY ENMESHMENT HAPPENS

“Enmeshment doesn’t start in adulthood.

It starts in childhood.

It happens when a child learns:

Love must be earned

Safety depends on pleasing others

Boundaries cause abandonment

And connection equals survival

Many of us grew up emotionally fused to a parent who:

Needed us emotionally

Couldn’t self-regulate

Used guilt, fear, or obligation

Or made us responsible for their feelings

So later, our nervous system confuses attachment with identity.

I want to talk about something that changed the way I understand love.

Because for a long time, I thought I just had a bad picker.

I thought I kept choosing the wrong people.

But the truth is, it wasn’t my mind choosing my partners.

It was my nervous system.

Your nervous system is shaped in childhood.

Before you have language.

Before you have logic.

It learns what feels safe, what feels familiar, and what feels like home.

And here’s the hard part.

Safe doesn’t always mean healthy.

Safe means recognizable.

If you grew up in a home where love was inconsistent, your nervous system learned to stay alert.

If affection came and went, you learned to wait.

If you had to earn attention, you learned to perform.

If emotions were unpredictable, you learned to monitor the room.

So later in life, when you meet someone who creates that same emotional atmosphere, your body lights up.

Not because it’s good for you.

But because it feels known.

That anxiety you call chemistry?

That intensity you call passion?

Often, that’s your nervous system recognizing a pattern it already survived.

Calm can feel boring when your childhood was chaos.

Consistency can feel suspicious when love was conditional.

And peace can feel unfamiliar when your nervous system was trained to stay in fight or flight.

So we don’t fall in love with people who treat us well.

We fall in love with people who activate what we already know how to navigate.

Your body chooses what it thinks it can survive.

This is why we stay in relationships that hurt us longer than we should.

Because leaving doesn’t just feel like losing a person.

It feels like losing a strategy that once kept us connected to love.

As children, we couldn’t leave.

We adapted.

We learned to chase.

We learned to wait.

We learned to shrink or overgive or stay quiet.

And as adults, those adaptations show up as attraction.

We’re not chasing the person.

We’re chasing the feeling of finally getting what we didn’t receive the first time.

We believe, somewhere deep inside, that if this person chooses us, it will rewrite the original wound.

That this time, we’ll be enough.

This time, they’ll stay.

This time, love won’t leave.

But healing doesn’t come from repeating the wound.

It comes from recognizing it.

When you understand that your nervous system is driving attraction, you stop shaming yourself for past choices.

You stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?”

And you start asking, “What did my body learn to expect?”

The goal isn’t to never feel activated.

The goal is to learn the difference between familiar and safe.

Because real love doesn’t keep your nervous system in survival mode.

It doesn’t make you prove your worth.

It doesn’t feel like a chase.

Real love feels steady.

And at first, that can feel uncomfortable.

But discomfort doesn’t mean danger.

Sometimes it means you’re learning something new.

And that’s where the pattern begins to change.

There’s always a seed where chaos and confusion start. For me it started in childhood with codependency with my caregivers. That later carried on into my romantic relationships. Today I share a brief part of my life as a teenager where the seed began in choosing abusive unhealed men in my life.

If this resonates with you I encourage you to subscribe and to share with with someone else who might relate and feel a piece of belonging on their healing journey OR to begin their own healing journey.

Blessings!