There’s a kind of strength that doesn’t shout—it shines. It’s the quiet, steady light that grows when you choose to connect with God one small step at a time. That’s the heart of the PoWeR Goals: Pray, Write, Read. These daily habits help you find your fight again—not through striving, but through spiritual rhythm and grace.

The purpose of PoWeR goals is simple: stretch yourself, but not stress yourself. You take one gentle step beyond where you are, and as you do, your spirit begins to bloom—like the amaryllis, bold and radiant, yet rooted in patience and growth.

P – Pray

Prayer is where your fight begins—not against the world, but for your peace. If prayer feels unfamiliar, start small: a quiet thought before sleep, a whispered gratitude in the morning. As that becomes natural, you can grow into spoken prayers, kneeling in reverence and connection.

Prayer isn’t about perfection; it’s about presence. It’s the moment you pause long enough for God to meet you where you are. And remember: every sincere word is a seed of strength.

W – Write

Writing is one of the most powerful ways to hear your own soul—and to hear God speaking within it. One journal entry a day is enough to shift your spiritual awareness. The easiest way to begin is by writing letters:

• A letter to God about your frustrations or your gratitude

• A letter to your past, present, or future self

• A letter to your current (or future) spouse

• A letter to your current or future children

Many women find this far more meaningful than simply summarizing their day. And if handwriting isn’t your thing, use an online journal or speech‑to‑text on your phone. The point is expression—letting your heart speak so God can meet you in the truth of what you’re feeling.

R – Read

Reading nourishes your faith and reminds you of who you are becoming. Scripture is a beautiful foundation, but any uplifting, inspiring words that draw you closer to God or your higher self will do. If you’re LDS, your patriarchal blessing can be a powerful guide.

Start with a verse, a page, or a paragraph. Let the words settle into your heart. Over time, you’ll feel your understanding deepen, your confidence strengthen, and your spirit rise.

The Outcome: Spiritual Poise

As these habits take root, you’ll notice something gentle but profound—you feel more connected to God. That connection brings calm strength, what Elder Mark A. Bragg calls spiritual poise:

“Spiritual poise blesses us to stay calm and focused on what matters most, especially when we are under pressure.”

This poise is the essence of finding your fight: not through force, but through faith. It’s the grace that steadies you when life feels uncertain, the quiet assurance that you are walking God’s path for you.

My hope is that the PoWeR goals become a daily invitation to rise—to find your fight again through prayer, writing, and reading. You don’t have to do everything at once. You simply begin where you are, take one small step, and let God meet you there.

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*A huge shoutout to my friend, mentor, and boss Maurice Harker, for introducing me to this tool and allowing me to share it with all of you.

This article was inspired by a conversation in Sunday School recently. We were talking about Rehoboam—how he first sought counsel from the elders, then from his friends—and how Scripture teaches us to seek wisdom from people who are grounded, seasoned, and spiritually mature.

Someone in the class shared that he always tells his children to come to him for advice before going to their friends. He mentioned that he knows life coaches can be valuable, and before I could respond, the Sunday School teacher jumped in with a playful, “Be careful… I am a life coach.” But this brother continued, explaining that he didn’t understand why someone would pay for advice when they could simply go to a trusted spiritual leader or friend.

Comments like that reveal a common misunderstanding about what coaches actually do.

A properly trained life coach rarely gives advice. There is only one person who knows you inside and out—and that’s you. You know the tiny details of your situation. You know what you’ve already tried and whether it helped. You know the edges of your courage and the places where fear still whispers. You carry the full story of your life, not just the parts you share out loud.

So why would I try to give you advice?

I can almost hear the question rising: “Well, if you don’t give advice, then what do you do?”

I’m so glad you asked. Life coaches are trained to listen deeply, to put pieces together, and to recognize gaps in understanding. We’re trained to notice patterns in your behavior and thought processes, to identify limiting beliefs, and to hear what you’re not saying in the middle of everything you are saying. Most importantly, we ask intentional, thoughtful questions that help you think more clearly, more honestly, and more courageously—so you can uncover the answers already waiting inside you.

If you meet with someone who calls themselves a coach but spends the session telling you what they did to overcome the same challenge you’re facing, that person isn’t coaching you. They’re mentoring you.

And mentors absolutely have their place. It can be incredibly helpful to learn from someone who has walked a similar path. They may have tools or insights that support you. But the nuances of their situation are rarely identical to yours, which means their advice—while well‑intentioned—may not fit your life, your personality, or your calling.

This is where a coach shines.

A coach can offer tools just like a mentor can, especially a specialized coach like me. But instead of telling you what to do, we help you decide what you want to implement, how you want to move forward, and what aligns with your values, your faith, and your God‑given identity. Coaching isn’t about giving you answers. It’s about helping you rise into the wisdom you already carry.

We can sit here and talk about “finding your fight” all day long, and it sounds inspiring, doesn’t it? But if you’re anything like most women I work with, you’ve probably wondered at least once what that actually means. Because when you’re tired or overwhelmed or stretched thin by life, “finding your fight” can feel like one more thing you’re supposed to do. One more thing you’re supposed to push through. One more thing you’re supposed to muster up on command.

But that’s not what I mean at all.

Finding your fight isn’t about forcing strength. It’s about returning to the strength that’s already in you. It’s about reconnecting with the part of you that knows who you are, what matters, and what you’re capable of — even if you haven’t felt that way in a long time.

For starters, having your fight means you have the energy to do the things that make you feel like yourself again. Not hype energy or “grind harder” energy. I’m talking about the quiet, steady spark that helps you show up for the things that matter. The kind of energy that comes from safety, not stress. When your nervous system feels supported, your energy begins to return. When your spirit feels grounded, your strength rises. When you stop running on fumes, your fight comes back online. It’s not about doing more — it’s about coming back to yourself.

Finding your fight also means you stop absorbing everyone else’s chaos. You don’t lose yourself every time someone else is upset. You don’t spiral because someone else is having a bad day. You don’t carry emotional weight that was never yours to hold. Do these things still affect you? Of course. You’re human. But it doesn’t take you out for long. You feel the wobble, but you don’t stay in the spiral. You return to yourself more quickly. You stay anchored in who you are, even when others aren’t anchored in themselves.

And maybe most importantly, finding your fight means remembering who you are. Your fight isn’t about aggression — it’s about identity. It’s the part of you that knows who God created you to be. It’s the part of you that remembers your worth, your voice, your boundaries, your calling. It’s the amaryllis inside you — bold, radiant, confident — even after seasons where you felt dimmed or dormant. Finding your fight is not about becoming someone new. It’s about returning to the woman you’ve always been.

And here’s the beautiful part: your fight doesn’t return in one dramatic moment. It comes back in small, brave steps. One honest conversation. One boundary. One moment of choosing rest instead of numbing. One moment of telling yourself the truth. One moment of doing the next right thing instead of all the things. Courage isn’t loud. It’s consistent. And every small step strengthens your spark.

So if you’ve been wondering where your fight went, hear me when I say this: it isn’t gone. It isn’t missing. It isn’t lost. It’s simply waiting beneath the stress, the exhaustion, the expectations, and the noise — waiting for you to come back to yourself.

So as you move through today, pay attention to the moments when your spark flickers — even if it’s faint, even if it’s brief. Those moments matter. They’re evidence that your fight is still there, waiting for you to notice it, nurture it, and let it grow. You don’t have to rise all at once. You just have to rise a little. And then a little more. This is how you come back to yourself — gently, steadily, with God guiding every step.

If this resonates with you and you’re ready to find your fight in a deeper, more grounded way, I’d love to walk with you. Send me a message, reach out through my website, or share what’s helping you rise today. You don’t have to do this alone — your spark is real, and I’m here to help you fan it into strength.

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In last week’s article I spoke about two things that spark my energy. The first was my tagline, Find Your Fight. The second is the flower I chose to use in my logo and on my website.

I was inspired by a fellow coach who used a water lily on her website because of the symbolism of peace, renewal, and transformation. (Very appropriate for betrayal trauma, right?) The problem is - I know absolutely nothing about flowers and symbolism.

Enter best friend Dayna.

Dayna loves all things flowers, so I went to her for ideas. She recommended the amaryllis. The word amaryllis comes from the Greek word amarysso, which means “to sparkle” or “to shine”. That is most definitely what I want from the women I work with!

Dayna went on to tell me that during Victorian England, bold, striking, confident women were given amaryllis bouquets, and the flower became synonymous with those qualities. Again - the perfect symbolism for what I want for the women I work with.

So I moved forward with the amaryllis—this bold, confident, radiant flower that refuses to shrink back. The more I learned about it, the more I realized it wasn’t just a beautiful symbol for my brand. It represented the exact kind of becoming I want for the women I work with. Not a sudden transformation, but a steady, intentional unfolding into strength, confidence, and inner shine.

That’s where the DPAR comes in—your weekly practice of Discover, Plan, Act, and Reflect. It’s a simple rhythm that helps you grow into the woman you want to be.

“Discover” invites you to pause and notice what’s happening inside you—and who God is inviting you to become. It’s the honest moment of naming what’s true for you right now.

“Plan” is where you look at what you’ve discovered and identify a few possible actions or goals that would help you move forward. From that list, you choose one and decide how you’ll put it into motion.

“Act” is the follow‑through. It’s doing the thing—whether for a couple of days, a week, or whatever timeframe you’ve chosen. This is where intention becomes movement.

“Reflect” gives you space to look back with compassion. You notice where you felt strong, where you struggled, what surprised you, and what you want to carry into the next week. Reflection is what turns experience into growth.

When you move through these four steps consistently, you create a daily cadence that slowly shapes you from the inside out. It’s not about doing everything right. It’s about becoming more grounded, more intentional, more you. And that’s why the amaryllis feels so fitting. In Victorian England, it symbolized bold, striking, confident women—women who were honored not just for who they were, but for who they were becoming.

That’s the invitation I want this flower to hold for you. A reminder that you are allowed to shine, that your strength is welcome, and that becoming the woman you want to be is already in motion—one small DPAR at a time.

Do you need some guidance starting your DPARs? Book a free consultation below.

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Every woman has a moment when she realizes she’s running on fumes — not because she’s weak, but because life has been asking more of her than she’s had space to give. That moment hit me recently, and it brought me right back to the heartbeat of my work.

After publishing my last article a few weeks ago, everything just… stalled. I skimmed through pages of potential ideas. Nothing. I even asked AI for inspiration. Still nothing.

But as I sat with it today, my mind was quietly pulled back to two things that have always sparked something in me. And we’re going to talk about one of them.

My tagline: “Find Your Fight.”

Back in 2016, during life‑coaching school, I was working with a fellow student coach. I asked her to help me come up with a tagline — something for my website, something I could use as a hashtag, something that captured the heartbeat of what I wanted women to feel.

She asked thoughtful questions, helping me dig for the message underneath the message. And near the end of our session, it just burst out of me:

“I just want them to wake up every morning and find their fight.”

She looked straight at me and said, “I think you found it.”

And she was right.

Life wears us down in a thousand small ways. Stress chips away at our drive. When we don’t have healthy ways to cope, we reach for things that drain us instead of build us. Slowly, our energy to face the day — our courage, our clarity, our sense of self — starts to fade.

This is why Find Your Fight matters to me.
And this is why I’m here.

My goal is to help you build the tools, the resilience, and the emotional grounding you need to move through life’s stressors without losing yourself. I want you to have the strength to rise, the spark to keep going, and the energy to wake up each day ready to Find Your Fight — not from pressure, but from possibility.

Because that fight in you?
It’s still there.
And it’s time to feel it again.

If this message stirred something in you — even a small flicker — I’d love to hear from you.
Comment below or hit reply and tell me:

What helps you Find Your Fight when life feels heavy?

Your story might be the spark another woman needs.

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Whether you’ve experienced a single traumatic event or lived through ongoing trauma, you may begin to feel like your sanity has been hijacked. That sense of being hijacked isn’t imagined — it’s your nervous system doing its best to protect you. But when your body stays in protection mode for too long, it becomes hard to feel God’s guidance, hard to feel your own agency, and hard to believe you’re still capable of choosing your life on purpose.

This is where the DPAR becomes a gift. It interrupts that survival cycle. It slows everything down just enough for your brain and spirit to come back online so you can reconnect with yourself and make decisions from clarity instead of fear.

DPAR stands for Discover, Plan, Act, and Reflect. We use these steps in a cyclical pattern to partner with God and learn what He would have us do next — not in a pressured way, but in a gentle, guided, line-upon-line way.

Before starting a DPAR, there’s a little bit of pre-work that helps anchor the process.

1 — Make a list of your stewardships.
You might be a husband or wife, parent, grandparent, child of God, son or daughter, friend, neighbor, or disciple. Add any professional, charitable, or community responsibilities you carry. Trauma often blurs our sense of identity; this step helps you reorient you to who you actually are.

2 — Spend a few minutes journaling about what “showing up well” might look like in each stewardship.
Not perfection — just possibilities. Make quick notes about areas where you feel you can grow in each stewardship. If you start feeling overwhelmed, stop and work with what you have.

When you begin your first DPAR, you start with Discover.
Pick a stewardship you feel God drawing your attention to. Brainstorm a few ways you could strengthen that stewardship. You’re essentially creating a menu of inspired options.

For example, pretend you feel prompted to work on your physical health. Your menu might include things like: walk more often, eat more vegetables, stretch before bed, or choose a self-care item like showering more consistently or taking a weekly relaxing bath.

Next comes Plan.
Choose one item from your menu and decide how you’ll carry it out. Set whatever alarms or timers needed to help you build that habit.

Continuing the example, maybe you choose walking. You decide to walk three times a week. You look at your calendar and see that Monday and Thursday at 3 p.m. and Saturday at 9 a.m. are open. Now you have a plan — simple and doable.

The third step, Act, is straightforward.
Do the thing. Try it for no more than a week. Let it be small enough that you can succeed even on hard days.

Then comes Reflect, which actually becomes the first step of your next DPAR.
Review the last week like a coach watching game footage. Where did you do well? When things went well, what was working? What was your mindset? Where did things fall apart? What got in the way? Keep it brief, honest, and curious.

Now you return to Discover.
You can go in two directions:

• Option 1: Pick a new goal. Maybe something else on last week’s menu stands out. Maybe God shifts your attention to a different stewardship entirely.

• Option 2: Continue the same goal. Discover ways to overcome what didn’t go well. Create a new menu, choose one item, plan it, and act again.

This is why partnering with God matters so deeply. Only He knows which stewardship needs attention today. Only He knows when it’s time to stay the course or when it’s time to pivot. As I’ve implemented DPARs in my own life, there have been seasons where God had me work on the same goal for months, and other times where He redirected me completely after just a week. His guidance is always timely, always personal, and always rooted in love.

When life feels chaotic or trauma has left you feeling disconnected from yourself, a DPAR becomes more than a planning tool — it becomes a spiritual lifeline. It’s a way to slow down, breathe, and let God gently place your feet back on solid ground. As you practice this rhythm of Discover, Plan, Act, and Reflect, you’ll begin to feel your agency return, your confidence rebuild, and your partnership with God deepen. Little by little, step by step, He will help you reclaim your life — not all at once, but in the exact pace your heart can hold.

**I have to give a huge shout-out to Maurice Harker, my long-time mentor who developed the DPAR and taught me, changing my life and allowing me to teach you. You can read his article on the DPAR here.

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I was asked a question recently that deserves more than a quick reply. A follower commented that while the techniques in my last article work well for a single traumatic event, how do they apply to chronic trauma — like the emotional abuse, gaslighting, and ongoing instability that often accompany betrayal trauma?

It’s a great question.
And the truth is: healing from chronic trauma looks very different from healing after a one‑time event.

There are many layers to long-term trauma — far more than I could cover in one article — so today we’re going to focus on one essential piece: how to support and regulate your nervous system when you’ve been living in long-term emotional dysregulation.

Why Chronic Trauma Requires a Different Approach

I recently finished a fascinating book, Our Polyvagal World by Stephen Porges. His work is the foundation of the last couple of articles I wrote — The Tiger in the Jungle and Returning to Safety.

As a betrayal‑trauma coach, I’ve been teaching self‑care for years, but reading this book helped me understand why it’s so essential. Porges explains that our nervous system operates in three primary states:

• Ventral Vagal (Green): regulated, connected, social, “rest and digest”

• Sympathetic (Yellow): fight, flight, hypervigilance

• Dorsal Vagal (Red): freeze, collapse, shutdown

When you’ve spent extended time in sympathetic or dorsal — which is extremely common in betrayal trauma, emotional abuse, or childhood adversity — your system needs intentional, repeated experiences of ventral safety to recover.

That’s where self‑care comes in.

Self‑Care as Ventral Time

Self‑care isn’t indulgent. It’s not optional. It’s not a luxury.

It is your most accessible way to give your nervous system time in the ventral state — even if it’s only for an hour a day. That hour becomes a lifeline. It’s the space where your body remembers who you are, what safety feels like, and how to return to yourself.

Different coaches and therapists categorize self‑care differently — some say three areas, some say four or five. I teach six. I’ve been told that makes me “a little extra.” (Though one of my favorite former students once said, “Ms. D, you’re not extra. Everyone else is just basic.” I still treasure that.)

To make them easy to remember, I use a cheesy acronym:

P.I.L.E.S.S.

Physical Self‑Care

Supporting your body through nourishment, movement, hydration, sleep, and even the basics — like showering regularly. Your body is the container for your healing.

Intellectual Self‑Care

Learning the skills, tools, and knowledge you need to navigate the challenges you’re facing. Knowledge is power, and learning is stabilizing.

Leisure Self‑Care

Giving your brain a break from overthinking, problem‑solving, and spiraling. This includes hobbies, creativity, time outdoors, music, gardening, or simply enjoying people you love.

Emotional Self‑Care

Learning to feel, name, and express your emotions in healthy, regulated ways. This is especially important when trauma has taught you to suppress or minimize your inner world.

Spiritual Self‑Care

Connecting with God in ways that bring peace and grounding — through prayer, scripture study, temple worship, or other practices that help you feel held by something bigger than your pain.

Social Self‑Care

Honoring your relational needs. For some, this means spending more time with supportive people. For others, it means creating space and reducing social demands. Both are valid.

Why This Matters for Chronic Trauma

When trauma is ongoing, your nervous system doesn’t get natural breaks. It doesn’t get to reset. It doesn’t get to return to safety on its own.

Self‑care becomes the intentional pause — the ventral doorway — that helps you:

• regulate your emotions

• reduce overwhelm

• reconnect with your identity

• rebuild internal safety

• restore your capacity to make grounded decisions

It’s not about escaping your life.
It’s about creating the conditions where healing becomes possible.

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Last week I wrote about how our primitive nervous system is wired to keep us safe, and how, in moments of perceived danger, we automatically shift into fight, flight, or freeze. These responses happen fast—long before we have time to “choose” how we want to react. But just because the reaction is automatic doesn’t mean we have to stay there. We can return to peace. We can return to safety.

That brings up an important question: what does “safe” actually mean?

For most people, safety means you can breathe, think, and choose in a way that aligns with your values. It means your thinking brain—not your emotional survival brain—is the one making decisions. It means you can feel big emotions like overwhelm, uncertainty, or old triggers without losing yourself in them.

So the real question becomes: How do you get yourself from a heightened fight/flight state—or a dissociated freeze state—back to feeling “normal” or grounded?

There are a few gentle, effective ways to help your body come back down.

1 — Realign with your body.
Use your favorite grounding or awareness tools to reconnect. Slow breathing with a longer exhale, orienting to your surroundings, the 5‑4‑3‑2‑1 sensory tool, or even a simple walk can help bring you back into your body and out of the reactive state.

2 — Move your thinking back to your frontal brain.
Naming what’s happening helps shift you out of survival mode. Try phrases like:
“My body is trying to protect me.”
“I’m having a trauma reaction.”
“Do I feel mobilized (fight/flight) or immobilized (freeze)?”
This kind of gentle self-awareness brings your higher brain back online.

3 — Be intentional about moving forward.
One of my favorite tools is NiNiFiFi: Notice It, Name It, Flip It, Find It.
First, notice that something in your environment or inside you has triggered a response.
Second, name the emotion: “I’m feeling scared, overwhelmed, unsure, confused…”
Then flip it—identify what you want to feel instead: grounded, powerful, confident, steady.
Lastly, find it. What action helps you feel that way? Do you need to speak up? Step away from a situation that feels off? Take a breath? Move your body?

When I say “normal,” I don’t mean cheerful, calm, or perfectly put‑together. I mean regulated. Present. Able to think clearly again. Able to choose instead of react. Able to feel like yourself. “Normal” is the state where your body is no longer sounding the alarm, and your mind and spirit can work together again. It’s the place where you can breathe, access your values, and respond to life instead of bracing against it. In other words, normal isn’t a mood—it’s a state of safety.

The beautiful thing is that your body knows how to come back to safety. It’s designed to. These tools don’t force you into calm—they simply help you find your way back to yourself. And the more you practice them, the easier it becomes to recognize when you’re slipping into fight, flight, or freeze and gently guide yourself home again. You’re not broken. You’re human. And you’re learning how to work with your body instead of against it.

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There’s so much I want to share with you: ideas, theories, stories, analogies… so much that sometimes I don’t even know where to begin without overwhelming you. So I’ll take a deep breath and start here.

In my first betrayal‑trauma support group, my amazing therapist Jennifer Johnson shared the tiger in the jungle analogy.

Imagine you’re walking down a path between villages and you hear a rustle in the bushes. You tense up — there have been tiger sightings in the area — but you convince yourself it’s probably just a bunny and keep going.

Two steps later, a tiger leaps out of the bushes.

Your body reacts before you can think. You might run. You might fight. You might freeze, faint, or try to appease the tiger by offering food or kindness. If you’ve read anything about trauma responses, you’ll recognize these as fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and faint.

These are not “choices.” They are ancient survival instincts that once kept our ancestors alive — and now wreak havoc on our ability to function the way we want to.

When we experience trauma — betrayal trauma in an intimate relationship, a physical assault, or any event that shatters our sense of safety — our nervous system starts scanning for tigers everywhere, even when there are none.

In Body‑First Healing, Brittany Piper uses a different image: a herd of gazelles on the African plains. When a lion charges, the herd scatters. But after the danger passes, the gazelles return to grazing with complete peace. They don’t stay hypervigilant. They don’t keep looking over their shoulders. Their bodies complete the stress cycle and return to safety.

Humans don’t do that.

When the “lion” is emotional, verbal, or psychological harm from a spouse, we don’t run. We stay. We problem‑solve. We justify. We override our body’s signals with our thinking brain:

“He’s just stressed.”
“He didn’t mean it.”
“It’s probably my fault.”

In other words, we stop listening to the part of us that knows the truth: I don’t feel safe.

And this is where healing begins — not with forcing ourselves to “be stronger,” but with learning to hear our body again.

Your nervous system isn’t dramatic. It isn’t broken. It isn’t overreacting.
It’s trying to protect you the only way it knows how.

The work ahead isn’t about shaming those instinctive responses or trying to think your way out of them. It’s about gently retraining your body to recognize real safety, to complete the stress cycles it never got to finish, and to trust your internal signals again.

Like the gazelles, you were designed to return to peace.

It may take time. It may take support. It may take learning new tools and unlearning old survival strategies. But your body is not your enemy — it’s your ally, your messenger, and your built‑in compass pointing you back toward wholeness.

You are not meant to live as though a tiger is always waiting in the bushes.
You are meant to heal, to breathe, to reclaim your sense of safety, and to walk forward with clarity and strength.

And you don’t have to do it alone.

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The “tiger in the jungle” trauma analogy, popularized by Dr. Peter Levine in Waking the Tiger, explains that trauma stems from frozen survival energy (fight/flight/freeze) that never discharged, leaving the nervous system trapped in a state of threat. Unlike wild animals that shake off this energy after danger passes, humans often remain “chased” by internal tigers.

Key Aspects of the Tiger Analogy:

• The Unreleased Energy: When a person survives a traumatic event, they may not return to a calm state. The adrenaline meant to help them fight or flee gets locked in the body, resulting in symptoms like anxiety, numbness, and PTSD.

• Animals Shake it Off: When a prey animal (like a gazelle) survives an attack, it trembles, shakes, and breathes heavily to release the accumulated energy before returning to grazing. Humans often override this instinctive shaking, keeping the nervous system on high alert.

• The “Frozen” State: In overwhelming situations, humans may enter a “freeze” state (immobility), which is a survival strategy but can lead to long-term trauma if not processed, as the body still feels trapped in the danger.

• Somatic Experiencing: This approach treats trauma by gently helping the individual connect with their body’s sensations to discharge this stored energy safely, often using principles like titration (working with small amounts of trauma) and pendulation.

I talk with my clients often about their value system. A value system is simply the set of moral, social, spiritual, and personal principles you consider important. Many of these values come from the way you were raised, the culture and time you grew up in, and the things you’ve personally chosen to prioritize as you’ve moved through life.

Most people can name their values as a list of qualities that matter to them: education, spirituality, honesty, ambition, laughter. Everyone’s list is unique because it reflects both what they were taught and what they’ve discovered for themselves.

Knowing your values matters in everyday life. It is a compass that supports clearer decision‑making, lowers stress, and strengthens relationships. When you know what truly matters to you, it becomes easier to cut through noise, confusion, and internal conflict.

For example, I value time together as a family. So when school holidays or long weekends come around, I don’t have to debate what we’ll do. We go hiking, bowling, camping, or take on a family project like cleaning the garage or weeding together. My value makes the decision for me.

Once you understand your own value system, everyday choices become simpler and more aligned. But many people have never actually named their values — they just operate from them unconsciously. That’s why taking time to identify your core values is so powerful. It gives you language for what already matters and clarity for what comes next.

Before you start the following exercise, remember that this is a living document. That means it is going to change as you have life experiences. The discovery process is ongoing and you are encouraged to update your values document as frequently or infrequently as you need.

Now grab a piece of paper and a pencil and jump in!

1. Get in the right mental state and try to be open to the truths your conscious mind may not even be aware of yet.
a. Take a few deep breaths
b. Create a space for new insights to emerge

2. Create a list of Personal Values
a. What things fill your physical space? (Look around your home)
b. What ways do you spend the majority of your time? (Look at your calendar)
c. How do you spend your money? (Look at your bank accounts.)
d. What do you talk about in social settings?
e. What inspires you?
f. What do you love to learn and read about the most?

3. Consider Meaningful Moments
a. An experience that stands out in your life.
b. What was happening to you?
c. What was going on?
d. What values were you honoring at this time?

4. Consider a time when you got angry, frustrated or upset.
a. What was going on?
b. What were you feeling?
c. Now flip those feelings.
d. What value is being suppressed?

5. Code of Conduct.
a. What’s most important in your life?
b. Beyond basic needs, what must you have in your life to experience fulfillment?
c. Creative self-expression? A strong level of health and energy? Excitement and Adventure? Always learning?
d. What are the personal values you must honor or a part of you withers?

6. Combine all of the answers from Steps 2-5 to create a Master List of Values.
a. There are likely too many to be actionable.
b. Group these values under related themes.
c. Examples:
i. Values like accountability, responsibility, and timeliness are all related.
ii. Values like learning, growth, and development relate to each other.
iii. Connection, belonging, and intimacy are related.

7. Highlight the Central Theme of Each Group of Values
a. Example:
i. Honesty, transparency, integrity, directness, truth might all go under the central theme of Integrity.

8. Determine you Top Personal Core Values
a. You may still have a large list Use the following questions to narrow them down: i. What values are essential to your life?
ii. What values represent your primary way of being?
iii. What values are essential to supporting your inner self?

b. While the number of core values differs for each person, the magic ranges is between 5-10.
c. Rank them in order of importance.
d. You may need to do this in multiple settings. After doing one ranking, “sleep on it.’ Revisit your ranking the next day and see how it sits with you. Then go through the process again.

9. Give your Personal Values Richer Content
a. This is the fun part! Use your creativity!
b. Highlighting values into memorable phrases or sentences helps you put meaning and value behind them.
c. It gives you an opportunity to make the value more emotional and memorable.
d. Examples of ways to make them more meaningingful:
i. Use inspiring words and vocabulary
ii. Seek for words that evoke and trigger emotional responses.
iii. Play to your strengths in expressing your values.
iv. Make your value statements meaningful to you so they inspire you to uphold them.
v. If you value health it might say, “I value

10. Test Each Value
a. After you’ve completed your list of values and had a good night’s sleep, review your list again.
i. How do they make you feel?
ii. Do you feel they are consistent with who you are?

iii. Are they personal to you?
iv. Do you see any values that feel inconsistent with your identity (as if they belong to someone else, like an authority figure or society) and not you?
v. Check your priority ranking. Do you feel like your values are in the proper order of importance?

How did this exercise feel? Were there any surprises?

Do you have any questions or need a hand working through this exercise? Feel free to grab a free consultation with me!

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*This value exercise was compiled from the internet by me. I hold no copywrite or ownership of this exercise. Please feel free to share with anyone who you feel may benefit!

When a marriage ends—especially if it wasn’t your decision—it can feel like your identity has been cracked wide open. You’ve spent years as part of a duo: “Sonny and Cher,” “Beyonce and Jay-Z,” “Tim and Faith.” You knew who you were in that pairing. But now, the question becomes: who are you on your own?

How do you reintroduce yourself to yourself—as a solo artist?

Step One: Honor What Was

Before you leap into reinvention, give yourself permission to grieve. Divorce isn’t just the end of a relationship—it’s the end of routines, roles, and dreams you may have carried for years. What emotions are swirling inside you? Sadness, relief, anger, fear? Let them surface. Let them speak.

You might worry about being judged or feeling like a “statistic.” But here’s the truth: your path is yours. It doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. Confidence begins when you stop apologizing for your story and start standing in it with grace.

Step Two: Reconnect With Your Core

Who were you before the wedding vows? What values lit you up? What passions made you feel most alive?

Sometimes, in the effort to keep peace or meet expectations, we drift from our original selves. Now’s the time to gently return. Revisit the hobbies you loved. Reclaim the routines that grounded you. If you have children, this transition may involve them too—new schedules, new rhythms, new conversations. But don’t underestimate the power of modeling authenticity and resilience.

Even small steps—like journaling, joining a book club, or taking a walk in a place that feels sacred—can help you reconnect with the woman you’ve always been.

Step Three: Try Something New

This is your chance to explore. Who can you be now?

Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn pottery. Or volunteer at a shelter. Or host game night as the world’s most enthusiastic Dungeon Master. Maybe it’s simply laughing with friends again, or rediscovering the joy of quiet mornings.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. Just start. Try one new thing. Then another. Let curiosity lead the way.

Reclaiming your identity after divorce isn’t about rushing to reinvent yourself—it’s about gently rediscovering the woman you’ve always been, and giving her space to grow. You’re not starting from scratch; you’re starting from experience. With each step—whether it’s honoring your past, reconnecting with your core, or trying something new—you’re building a life that reflects your strength, your joy, and your unique story. And that’s something worth celebrating.

Any woman who has attended one of my healing groups knows how passionate I am about menopause education. When someone starts describing betrayal trauma symptoms—especially emotional volatility—the first thing I ask is, “How old are you?”

I’m not trying to be nosy. I ask because perimenopause can slip in quietly and amplify symptoms that look and feel exactly like trauma responses. And when you’re already navigating the emotional fallout of betrayal, that hormonal shift can make everything feel more intense.

I know this firsthand.

My Story: The Sneaky Beginning

I didn’t experience emotional instability early in perimenopause. What I did experience were dramatic changes in my periods—so dramatic that I needed a procedure at age 46 just to minimize bleeding and stabilize my iron. I barely knew perimenopause existed, much less that I was living through a classic symptom.

Then, three weeks after I turned 49, the hot flashes arrived.

At first, I didn’t recognize them. I’m someone who is never hot, so when I suddenly felt like I was overheating and ran to open a window, everyone stared at me like something was wrong. It wasn’t until my husband gently pointed it out that I realized what was happening.

From there, things escalated quickly.

When Everything Fell Apart

I started waking up at 2:30 a.m. every night and couldn’t fall back asleep. My hot flashes hit so hard and so fast that I’d feel dizzy and close to fainting. My patience evaporated. I didn’t feel like myself.

Eventually, I mentioned what was happening to a group of women at church. One woman pulled me aside and gave me a crash course on hormones and HRT. She also recommended an OB-GYN who specialized in menopause.

I hesitated. I had absorbed the same message most women have: HRT causes breast cancer.

But after another month of misery, I made the appointment.

The Appointment That Changed Everything

That appointment was a turning point.

My doctor explained how the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI)—the study that convinced millions of women in 2002 that HRT was dangerous—was deeply flawed. More recent research has shown the opposite: for most women, HRT actually reduces the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, dementia, osteoporosis, and other age-related conditions.

I left feeling like someone had handed me back control of my own body.

I dove into learning. I followed menopause experts on social media, listened to podcasts, read books, and consumed every credible source I could find. And the more I learned, the more I noticed something important:

The symptoms of perimenopause and menopause overlap significantly with the symptoms of betrayal trauma.

Especially emotional volatility.

So I started digging into the research.

What the Research Says About Trauma and Menopause

While there aren’t studies specifically on betrayal trauma and menopause, there are studies on trauma in general—and the findings are highly relevant.

1. Trauma Intensifies Menopause Symptoms

At the 2025 Menopause Society Annual Meeting, Rebecca C. Thurston, PhD, presented research showing that women with a history of trauma—especially relational or sexual trauma—experience:

• more severe hot flashes

• worse sleep

• greater emotional instability

• heightened cognitive symptoms

Her work also shows that trauma exposure accelerates cardiometabolic and neurologic aging during the menopausal transition.

Thurston’s findings highlight that trauma disrupts:

• the stress-response system

• the limbic system

• the body’s ability to regulate threat, safety, and attachment

When these systems are already dysregulated—as they often are in betrayal trauma—perimenopause and menopause symptoms can become significantly more intense.

Citation: Thurston, R.C. (2025). Trauma Exposure and Menopause Symptom Burden. The Menopause Society Annual Meeting.

2. Low Estrogen Worsens Anxiety, Depression, and PTSD Symptoms

A 2016 study found that declining estrogen levels are associated with:

• increased anxiety

• worsened depression

• heightened PTSD symptoms

This gives us a clear biological explanation for why betrayal trauma symptoms can feel amplified during perimenopause.

Citation: Bryant, C. et al. (2016). Estrogen, Mood, and PTSD Symptom Severity. CPTSD Foundation summary of peer-reviewed reseearch.

Why This Matters for Betrayed Women

Betrayal trauma already destabilizes the nervous system. It affects sleep, mood, cognition, and emotional regulation. Perimenopause adds hormonal volatility on top of that.

This combination doesn’t mean you’re “regressing” or “not healing fast enough.” It means your body is navigating two major stressors at once—one emotional, one biological.

Understanding this connection helps women stop blaming themselves and start making informed decisions about their health.

Closing: You Deserve Support, Not Suffering

Menopause is challenging on its own, and betrayal trauma is one of the most destabilizing emotional experiences a woman can face. When the two overlap, it can feel like your mind and body are working against you. But you’re not imagining it, and you’re not losing control. There are clear biological, hormonal, and neurological reasons for what you’re experiencing—and there are effective ways to get support. When we understand what’s happening inside our bodies, we gain clarity, compassion, and the ability to move forward with confidence.

When you’re going through the trial of betrayal trauma, taking care of your hormones isn’t a luxury — it’s a form of support that can make the healing process more manageable. Trauma already places a heavy load on the nervous system, and unmanaged hormonal changes can intensify that strain. When your hormones are stabilized, your sleep improves, your mood becomes more predictable, and your body isn’t constantly fighting against itself. That stability creates space for emotional recovery. It doesn’t erase the trauma, but it removes one of the biggest physiological barriers to healing, allowing you to move forward with more clarity and resilience.