I have been thinking a lot lately about reciprocity, and about how difficult it has become to create the kind of community so many of us say we are missing. This is complicated territory for me, because I was once a very dedicated self-love coach. I grew up in religious extremism, in a world where obligation and self-sacrifice were confused with righteousness, and learning that access to me was my right alone was fundamental to my recovery. I had to learn that I was not respo

No one is entitled to me. Not my presence, not my voice, not my endurance. And I am entitled to seek my own safety, even when that inconveniences someone else, even when it disrupts something they were counting on, even when they never quite forgive me for it. I did not always know that. I had to learn it. Over and over, though each chapter wore a different face. Nobody told me I had to stay. Not directly. Not using words. It's all subtle. A hesitation when I mentioned leavin

I refuse to organize my life around the narrative of self-development. I say that as someone who was not just a consumer of it. I was a vehicle. I was a coach. I spoke the language fluently. I helped move others along the same conveyor belt I was standing on myself. I believed in growth. I still do. But what that industry quietly demanded was not growth with an end point. It demanded perpetual motion. Self-development was always about more . More insight. More healing. More r