“If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” ~Mary Engelbreit

“So, what do you think?” my husband asked, the dinner table lit by the soft glow of the overhead light. He’d been talking for a while, and I knew I should have been listening.

“What do you think?” he repeated with a hint of frustration.

My mind raced trying to piece together the last few minutes. All I could say was a weak, “Huh?”

It was the worst possible response. Normally, I’d be right there with him, sharing my thoughts. But this time, my attention was elsewhere: I was scrolling mindlessly on my phone.

The frustration in his eyes was a clear reminder of how often I was missing out on the present moment.

I realized that my phone was robbing me of genuine connection. I knew then I needed to change.

The Struggle with Bad Habits Is Real

We’ve all been there battling habits we know aren’t good for us. Mine was the endless scrolling and checking social media.

After that dinner incident, I was determined to reclaim my attention and be present. My first move? Deleting all my social media apps.

The first week was tough. I wasn’t on social media, but my phone still felt like an extension of my hand. I’d instinctively reach for it, ready to open Instagram, only to remember it was gone. This happened every hour. I was trying to change, but the craving was intense.

Weeks later, my motivation went away. “What’s the point?” I thought. I felt like I was missing out and losing touch with friends.

I justified checking my phone during “downtime,” like waiting in line, or after a long day when I needed to “relax.”

The more I told myself, “Don’t use your phone,” the stronger the urge became. It was like telling yourself not to think about sleeping… you just become more aware of being awake.

Inevitably, I reinstalled the apps and fell back into my old patterns. I felt defeated and frustrated. I also labeled myself “lazy.” I thought I had failed.

Discovering A New Approach: Acceptance

One day, while browsing the library, I stumbled upon the psychological concept of an “extinction burst.” This describes the surge of a behavior after you try to stop it.

Think of it like this: you decide to give up sweets, and for a few days, it’s fine. Then, suddenly, you devour an entire box of cookies.

That’s what happened to me. I thought willpower was the answer, but resisting only intensified my cravings.

Instead, I learned about accepting bad habits. This means acknowledging their presence without judgment.

When I shifted my perspective, everything changed. My anxiety decreased, and I stopped stressing about “doing the right thing.”

I realized that falling back into old patterns didn’t make me a failure. It meant I needed more time to understand my habits better.

Practical Steps for Accepting Bad Habits

1. Create space for observation.

Accepting bad habits begins with understanding them. I started observing my phone use with a new level of awareness.

• I used mindfulness techniques to become more aware of the triggers that led me to reach for my phone.
• I also started journaling to track when and why I wanted to scroll. What emotions or situations prompted me to seek the distraction of my phone? What needs was I trying to fulfill? For example, did I feel lonely, bored, or stressed?

2. Change the narrative around your habits.

Instead of a harsh “Don’t use your phone,” I began to use a gentler approach. I tried saying, “Don’t use your phone now.”

This acknowledged the urge without completely denying it. It gave me a moment to pause and breathe, to consciously decide whether checking my phone was necessary.

This simple shift in language created space for mindful decision-making.

3. Reframe ‘bad habits’ as signals.

Instead of labeling habits as ‘bad,’ consider them signals. Ask yourself: What need am I trying to meet? What am I feeling now?

For example, I learned that checking my phone was a signal for a need for connection or a fear of missing out.

Once you understand the message behind your habit, respond with compassion and understanding. Instead of criticizing yourself, acknowledge your needs and explore healthier ways to meet them.

This shift transforms habits from enemies into valuable insights about your inner world.

4. Replace, don’t just eliminate.

Instead of simply deleting social media apps, I looked for healthier alternatives. I started saying, “I noticed I want to use my phone; instead I’m going to read one page of that book.”

Finding substitutes helped me fill the gap and made the transition smoother.

For example, if I felt the urge to scroll when bored, I would reach for a book, walk, or listen to a podcast instead.

5. Treat yourself with kindness.

Beating myself up for slipping back into old habits only made the process more difficult. I learned to practice self-compassion, reminding myself that change takes time and that setbacks are a normal part of being human.

I desired this change the most, so I needed to be patient and kind to myself. And I made more progress by offering myself the same understanding and support I would offer a friend.

Moving Toward a New Relationship with Your Habits

Habits are complex, and breaking them isn’t easy. But understanding them is the first step to changing them.

Accepting bad habits is a powerful tool for transformation. Instead of fighting them, we can observe, understand, and redirect them.

I’ve learned that accepting your habits doesn’t mean giving up—it means you are gaining control. You’re acknowledging your humanity and approaching change with compassion and understanding.

You have the power to reshape your relationship with your habits and create a life that aligns with your values and aspirations.

What habits are you working on? Share your experiences in the comments below! Or share this post with someone who could benefit from it. Let’s support each other on this journey.

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“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.” ~Akshay Dubey

The realization came to me during a chaotic day at the Philadelphia public school where I worked as a counselor.

A young student sat across from me, her body language mirroring anxiety patterns I knew all too well—the slightly hunched shoulders, shallow breathing, and watchful eyes scanning for threats that weren’t there. She responded to a minor conflict with a teacher as though she were in genuine danger.

Something clicked into place as I guided her through a simple breathing exercise. The patterns I saw in this child weren’t just individual responses to stress—they were inherited responses. Just as I had inherited similar patterns from my mother, and she from hers.

At that moment, looking at this young girl, I saw myself, my mother, and generations of women in my family who had the same physical responses to authority, conflict, and uncertainty.

And I realized that the breathing techniques I had been teaching these children—techniques I had originally learned to manage my own anxiety—were actually addressing something much more profound: generational trauma stored in the body.

The School That Taught the Teacher

My decade as a school counselor in the Philadelphia School District shaped me in ways I never anticipated. Every day, I worked with children carrying the weight of various traumas—community violence, family instability, systemic inequities, and the subtle but powerful inheritance of generational stress responses.

I came armed with my training in psychology, cognitive techniques, and traditional counseling approaches. Helping these children understand their emotions and develop coping strategies would be enough.

In many ways, it helped. But something was missing.

I noticed that no matter how much cognitive understanding we developed, many children’s bodies continued telling different stories. Their nervous systems remained locked in stress responses, and no amount of talking or understanding seemed to shift them completely.

The same was true for me. Despite my professional training and personal therapy, certain situations would still trigger physical anxiety responses that felt beyond my control—particularly interactions with authority figures or high-pressure social situations.

The patterns were subtle but persistent. My voice would shift slightly, and my breathing would become shallow. My authentic self would recede, replaced by a careful, hypervigilant version of myself—one I had learned from watching my mother navigate similar situations throughout my childhood.

The Missing Piece

Everything changed when I discovered therapeutic breathwork—not just as a temporary calming technique but as a pathway to releasing trauma stored in the body.

While I had been teaching simplified breathing exercises to students for years, my experience with deeper breathwork practices revealed something profound: the body stores trauma in ways that cognitive approaches alone cannot access.

My first intensive breathwork session revealed this truth with undeniable clarity. As I followed the breathing pattern—deep, connected breaths without pausing between inhale and exhale—my body began responding in ways my conscious mind couldn’t have predicted.

First came waves of tingling sensation across my hands and face. Then tears that weren’t connected to any specific memory. Finally, a deep release of tension I hadn’t even realized I was carrying—tension that felt ancient, as though it had been with me far longer than my own lifetime.

By the session’s end, I felt a lightness and presence that no amount of traditional therapy had ever provided. Something had shifted at a level beyond thoughts and stories.

Bringing the Breath Back to School

This personal revelation transformed my work as a school counselor. I began integrating age-appropriate breathwork into my sessions with students, particularly those showing signs of trauma responses.

The results were remarkable. Children who had struggled to regulate their emotions began finding moments of calm, and students who had been locked in freeze or fight responses during stress began developing the capacity to pause before reacting.

One young girl, whose anxiety around academic performance had been severely limiting her potential, explained it best: “It’s like my worry is still there, but now there’s space around it. I can see it without it taking over everything.”

She described precisely what I had experienced: the creation of space between stimulus and response, the fundamental shift from being controlled by inherited patterns to having a choice in how we respond.

However, the most profound insights came from observing the parallels between what I witnessed in these children and what I had experienced in my family system.

The Patterns We Inherit

Through both my professional work and personal healing journey, I came to understand generational trauma in a new way.

We inherit not just our parents’ genes but also their nervous system patterns—their unconscious responses to stress, conflict, authority, and connection. These patterns are transmitted not through stories or explicit teachings but through subtle, nonverbal cues that our bodies absorb from earliest childhood.

I recognized how my mother’s anxiety around authority figures had silently shaped my own responses. Her tendency to become small in certain situations also became my reflexive pattern, and her shallow breathing during stress became my default response.

These weren’t conscious choices—they were inherited survival strategies passed down through generations of women in my family.

The most sobering realization is that despite my professional training and conscious intentions, I had unconsciously modeled these same patterns for the children I worked with.

This understanding shifted everything. Healing wasn’t just about managing my anxiety anymore—it was about transforming a lineage.

The Three Dimensions of Permanent Healing

Through both professional practice and personal experience, I’ve come to understand that permanently healing generational trauma requires addressing three dimensions simultaneously:

1. The Mind: Traditional therapy excels here, helping us understand our patterns and create cognitive insights. But for many trauma survivors, especially those carrying generational patterns, this isn’t enough.

2. The Body: Our nervous systems carry the imprint of trauma, creating automatic responses that no amount of rational understanding can override. Somatic approaches like breathwork provide direct access to these stored patterns.

3. The Energy Field is the subtlest but most profound dimension. Our energy carries information and patterns that affect how we move through the world, often beneath our conscious awareness.

Most healing approaches address only one or two of these dimensions. Talk therapy targets the mind. Some somatic practices address the body. Few approaches integrate all three.

Breathwork is uniquely positioned to address all dimensions simultaneously, creating the conditions for permanent transformation rather than temporary management.

Beyond Management to True Healing

Working in Philadelphia’s schools, I saw firsthand the difference between management approaches and true healing.

Management strategies—breathing techniques for immediate calming, emotional regulation tools, cognitive reframing—all had their place. They helped children function in challenging environments and gain more control over their responses.

But management isn’t the same as healing.

Management asks, “How can I feel better when these symptoms arise?”

Healing asks, “What needs to be released so these symptoms no longer control me?”

The difference is subtle but profound. Management requires effort and vigilance, while healing creates freedom and new possibilities.

This distinction became clear as my breathwork practice deepened beyond simple management techniques to include practices specifically designed to release stored trauma from the nervous system.

As this happened, I began noticing subtle but significant shifts in how I moved through both my professional and personal life—particularly in situations that had previously triggered anxiety.

Interactions with school administrators became opportunities for authentic connection rather than anxiety triggers. Speaking at staff meetings no longer activated the old pattern of becoming small. My voice remained my own, regardless of who was in the room.

I wasn’t just managing my anxiety anymore. I was healing it at its source.

Practical Steps to Begin Your Own Breath Journey

If you’re carrying the weight of generational patterns that no longer serve you, here are some ways to begin exploring breathwork as a healing tool:

Start with gentle awareness.

Simply notice your breathing patterns throughout the day, especially in triggering situations. Do you hold your breath during stress? Breathe shallowly? These are clues to your nervous system state.

Practice conscious connected breathing.

For five minutes daily, try breathing in and out through your mouth, connecting the inhale to the exhale without pausing. Keep the breath gentle but full.

Notice without judgment.

As you breathe, sensations, emotions, or memories may arise. Instead of analyzing them, simply notice them with curiosity.

Create safety first.

If you have complex trauma, work with a trauma-informed breathwork practitioner who can help you navigate the process safely.

Trust your body’s wisdom.

Your body knows how to release what no longer serves you. Sometimes, intellectual understanding comes after physical release, not before.

Commit to consistency.

Transformation happens through regular practice, not one-time experiences. Even five to ten minutes daily can create significant shifts over time.

Breaking the Chain

Perhaps the most profound lesson from my work in Philadelphia’s schools and my personal healing journey is this: We can break generational chains.

The patterns of anxiety, hypervigilance, and trauma responses that have been passed down through generations are not our destiny. They can be recognized, released, and transformed for our benefit and those who come after us.

I saw this truth reflected in the children I worked with. As they learned to recognize and release stress patterns through breathwork, they weren’t just managing symptoms—they were developing new neural pathways that could potentially interrupt generations of trauma responses.

I experienced this truth personally, watching as my healing journey created ripples in my relationships and interactions.

The anxiety patterns that had been silently passed down through generations of women in my family were being interrupted. The chain was breaking.

Breathwork offers a profound gift: personal healing and the chance to transform a lineage.

The chains of generational trauma are strong, but they’re not unbreakable. And in their breaking lies personal liberation and the possibility of a new inheritance for generations to come.

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“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.” ~Dan Millman

For as long as I can remember, my mind has been a never-ending maze of what-ifs. What if I make the wrong decision? What if I embarrass myself? What if I fail? My brain worked overtime, analyzing every possibility, replaying past mistakes, and predicting every worst-case scenario.

Overthinking wasn’t just a bad habit—it was a way of life. I’d spend hours second-guessing conversations, worrying about things beyond my control, and creating problems that didn’t even exist. It felt like my mind was running a marathon with no finish line, and no matter how exhausted I was, I couldn’t stop.

But one day, I reached a breaking point. I was tired—tired of the mental noise, tired of feeling anxious, tired of living inside my own head instead of in the present moment. I knew I had to change.

The Moment I Realized Overthinking Was Stealing My Peace

It hit me during a late-night spiral. I had spent hours replaying a conversation, obsessing over whether I had said something wrong. My heart was racing, my stomach was in knots, and I couldn’t sleep.

In that moment, I asked myself: Is any of this actually helping me?

The answer was obvious. My overthinking had never solved anything. It had never prevented bad things from happening. It had only drained my energy and made me miserable.

That night, I made a decision: I would stop letting my thoughts control me. I didn’t know how yet, but I knew I couldn’t keep living like this.

How I Learned to Quiet My Mind

Overcoming overthinking didn’t happen overnight. It took patience, practice, and a willingness to let go of control. But here are the key things that helped me find peace:

1. I stopped believing every thought I had.

For years, I assumed that if I thought something, it must be true. But I started noticing that most of my thoughts were just stories—worst-case scenarios, exaggerated fears, self-doubt.

So I began questioning them. Is this thought a fact, or is it just my fear talking? More often than not, it was the latter.

By learning to separate reality from the stories in my head, I loosened the grip overthinking had on me.

2. I created a “worry window.”

At first, I thought I needed to stop worrying completely, but that only made me stress more. Instead, I set aside a specific time each day (ten to fifteen minutes) when I allowed myself to worry as much as I wanted.

Surprisingly, this helped a lot. Instead of overthinking all day, I trained my brain to contain my worries to one small part of the day. And most of the time, when my “worry window” came, I realized I didn’t even need it.

3. I practiced “letting thoughts pass”

One of the biggest shifts came when I stopped trying to force my thoughts away. Instead, I imagined them like clouds in the sky—passing through, but not something I had to hold onto.

Whenever I noticed myself overthinking, I’d take a deep breath and say to myself: I see this thought, but I don’t have to engage with it. And then I’d let it go.

4. I focused on the present moment.

Overthinking is all about living in the past or the future. So, I started grounding myself in the present.

Simple things helped:

• Focusing on my breath when my mind started racing.
• Noticing small details around me—how the sun felt on my skin, the sound of birds outside, the smell of my coffee.
• Reminding myself: Right now, in this moment, everything is okay.

The more I practiced this, the easier it became to step out of my mind and into my life.

How Life Changed When I Stopped Overthinking

I won’t pretend my mind is quiet 100% of the time. Thoughts still come, but they no longer control me.

Now, instead of analyzing every possible outcome, I trust that I’ll handle whatever happens. Instead of reliving past mistakes, I remind myself that I am constantly learning and growing. Instead of worrying about what others think of me, I focus on how I feel about myself.

Most importantly, I’ve found something I never thought was possible: peace.

A Message for Anyone Struggling with Overthinking

If you’re stuck in an endless cycle of overthinking, I want you to know this: You are not your thoughts.

Your mind will always try to keep you safe by analyzing, predicting, and controlling. But you don’t have to engage with every thought that comes your way.

Peace isn’t about never having anxious thoughts—it’s about learning to let them pass without letting them rule your life.

And trust me, if I can do it, you can too.

While these tools can be powerful, it’s also important to recognize that overthinking doesn’t always come from everyday anxiety. If your thoughts are tied to past trauma or feel too overwhelming to manage alone, please know there is no shame in seeking help. For those living with PTSD or deep emotional wounds, professional support from a therapist can offer safety, healing, and guidance tailored to your experience.

You don’t have to go through it alone—and needing support doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.

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The news: everything is bad.
Poets: okay, but what if everything is bad and we still fall in love with the moon and learn something from the flowers. ~Nikita Gill

My dad died when I was thirty-one. I wasn’t a child but barely felt like an adult. He had reached retirement, but only just. Mary Oliver got it right when she wrote, “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?”

A few months later, I pulled myself out the door and off to work. The December weather and my heart were both raw. Then I saw it: a single rosebud on a ragged bush.

I laughed aloud. A rose blooming in winter? And then I started to cry—for the wondrous absurdity of a tiny, lovely thing proclaiming its place in a dark world.

This pink bud did not make things “all better.” And yet, for a moment, I remembered that my heart was capable of feeling more than grief. It had space for wonder and delight.

I have spent the last three years studying the emotion of awe. I could share studies about how experiencing wonder makes us more generous, humble, and curious. I’ve written a whole book on the emotional, psychological, and cognitive benefits of this feeling.

But here’s one thing I really love about this thoroughly human emotion: awe doesn’t require anything from us but our attention. We don’t have to do anything to feel awe. We don’t have to be anything we are not. We just have to show up in the world, eyes and ears open.

When researchers ask people around the world to describe a moment when they experienced awe, they often point to ordinary moments. A piece of music that brought tears to their eyes. A stranger helping someone in need. A blooming cherry blossom tree. The smell of the earth after the rain. Holding someone’s hand in their final days.

This year, I made a resolution to keep an awe diary. I call it “365 Days of Wonder.” I’m drawing inspiration from my late grandmother. She kept a daily diary for over fifty years, and most of her entries are only one or two sentences. Taken together, these micro-entries paint a rich picture of the rhythm of her years.

So I feel no pressure to write a long journal entry each day. Just a sentence or two about something I saw, heard, tasted, smelled, or learned about that day that made me say, “Oh wow.”

It’s now mid-March, and I have written seventy-seven entries. Can I share a few of them?

Day 9:

Listening to President Carter’s funeral, I was touched by this reflection from his grandson, Jason Carter: “In my forty-nine years, I never perceived a difference between his public face and his private one. He was the same person. For me, that’s the definition of integrity.”

Day 27:

Last night I randomly grabbed some old fortune cookies before driving home a group of teenagers. “Here, check out your fortunes for the week,” I said. The first teen read, “You will be surrounded by the love and laughter of good friends. Ha! Well, that one already came true.”

Day 34:

While on a morning walk, I got a text from a friend. She had woken up to the sound of a neighbor shoveling her driveway—a reminder, she wrote, that there are “good people everywhere.”

Day 37:

A beautiful family friend died today. She was ninety-five, and I remember when—at nearly eighty—she spotted our family across the beach and ran full throttle to greet us, with a hand atop her head to keep her sunhat from blowing away. I want to age like that.

Day 38:

I brought Humfrid the Octopus with me on a school visit today. At the end of my presentation, a kindergarten sidled up: “Can Humfrid give me a hug?” I replied, “With eight arms, he can give you a quadruple hug!”

Day 41:

Finding a moment of wonder was harder today. So this afternoon while driving, I tried to keep my senses open. And almost instantly, I got stuck behind a school bus.

But, but, but . . . while stopped, I noticed a border collie sitting at attention. The moment his teenage person stepped off the bus, he bolted down the long driveway and danced happy circles around his kid.

Day 42:

It was fourteen degrees when I took the dog out this morning, but the dawn was full of birdsong. In a month, the migrating birds will start returning—but I’m so grateful to the hardy little birds who stick around all winter.

Day 62:

I backed into a car last night in a small, dark parking lot. Tears. I couldn’t find the owner, so I left a note with my info and contrition. The owner texted me later, we shared all pertinent insurance details, and then he wrote this:

“The car is a car. They make thousands, if not millions, of them, and it’s no good for me to be angry because of an accident. Things happen. Better energy with happiness and kindness. Hope you have a lovely day.”

Day 65:

I came home late from a meeting last night. My thirteen-year-old was still up—writing heartfelt thank-you notes to people who had supported a service project she had helped organize.

Day 73:

Took my dog to be groomed. While he ran around the groomer’s backyard with her pups, she showed me an envy-inducing “She Shed” that her dad built for her last year. Mind you that she is my age and he is in his 70s. She got teary and said, “He’s the best man I’ve ever known. I’m so lucky.”

Day 74:

I didn’t need my Merlin app to identify woodpeckers today. At least three were rattling the neighborhood at dawn with their hammering. In other news, I heard my first red-winged blackbird of the season.

Day 76:

I wasn’t sure whether my youngest still believed in leprechaun magic and did the usual low-key-but-fun mischief around the house after the kids went to bed. When he came down the stairs this morning, he broke into a huge grin and whispered to me, “You did a good job this year, Mom!” And there it is. Another kind of magic.

Seeking out wonder has become a habit. I find myself looking up when I go out to walk the dog, paying more attention to good news in my doom scrolling, and pausing to listen when I hear something lovely. Like finding that rose on a December day, these moments of wonder don’t fix what hurts. But they whisper each day, “This world is hard. And this world is so, so wonderful.”

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