About This Blog
This blog brings together psychological knowledge and lived experience. In the psychoeducational articles, I share insights into emotions, relationships, the body and nervous system, complex trauma, and inner processes of healing and growth.
Notes to Grow is a collection of personal essays about my own life - about how I meet life as it unfolds, what it touches within me, and how I learn, grow, and heal through it. These essays are especially close to my heart because it takes courage to show myself with such openness and honesty. Through them, I also hope to invite you to find your own way of showing who you are.
The tags beneath each article image tell you what kind of piece you are about to read.
Take what inspires you - and let go of the rest.
Healing Complex Trauma Through Kintsugi: The Beauty of Integration
Do you feel like you’re falling apart inside while holding it all together? This blogpost explores how the Japanese art of Kintsugi can guide trauma healing — and how what feels broken within you may hold your greatest strength.
From Thinking to Feeling – How to Access and Release Suppressed Emotions
Many people understand their emotions intellectually but struggle to feel them in their bodies. This article explores the difference between thinking and feeling—and offers a grounded, body-oriented practice for reconnecting with suppressed emotions without force or pressure.
What Is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy brings the body into the healing process. By working with physical sensations and nervous system responses, it can support trauma healing, self-regulation, and a deeper sense of safety and connection.
The Truth Behind Porn Addiction
Why does pornography become compulsive for some people? Explore how shame, loneliness, and emotional regulation can shape porn use – and why lasting change begins with understanding rather than self-judgment.
Sexuality as a Mirror of Trauma
What if your sexual fantasies are telling a story? A trauma-informed exploration of how kinks, shame and desire can reflect unmet needs, old wounds and the longing for healing.
You’re Not Here to Decide Who You Are— You’re Here to Remember
A quote from The Matrix invites a radical shift in perspective: What if your path wasn’t meant to be decided—but remembered? This post explores the illusion of control, the role of pain, and the truth that arises when you stop trying to force it.
What if — Fear Is Not the Enemy?
What if fear isn’t here to stop you — but to guide you home?
This is a midnight moment I had with my own anxiety — a raw, unfiltered reflection on fear, truth, and the body’s quiet wisdom. Maybe it speaks to something in you, too.
Sexual Dissociation: When Sex Becomes a Performance and True Intimacy Is Missing
Do you ever feel like you’re on stage during sex—empty afterward, wondering if you “performed” well enough? Discover how sexual dissociation blocks true intimacy and learn gentle, practical steps to reconnect with your body and reclaim authentic closeness.
The Disease That Healed Me: GNE Myopathy
A personal story of being diagnosed with GNE myopathy — and how what first felt like a collapse became the beginning of a deep inner healing. This is a journey of fear, self-abandonment, transformation, and ultimately, coming home to myself.
Healing the Mother Within – A Personal Journey through Shame, Trauma, and Transformation
What happens when we suddenly recognize ourselves in the behavior of our parents?
This is a personal essay about intergenerational cycles of pain, emotional patterns, the illusion of helplessness — and the strength we find in honest self-encounter.
When my best friend said to me, “Lisa, it’s okay to feel miserable — but if you don’t take action, it won’t get better,” it hit me straight in the heart.
I realized I was caught in the very same pattern I had been blaming my mother for all these years.
This piece explores that cycle: pain, withdrawal, overwhelm, overdrive, breakdown — and back again.
And how we can begin to interrupt it.
By recognizing our deepest beliefs. By accepting what was. And by taking small steps — out of victimhood and into responsibility, compassion, and dignity.
In the end, it’s not about being rescued.
It’s about learning to acknowledge ourselves.
Following the Shadow to Survive
A personal story about a calf in Oaxaca, a tied-up horse in Costa Rica, and the invisible ropes we all carry. Exploring how core beliefs not only keep us safe, but also keep us bound—even when we’re free—and what it takes to truly break into our potential.
The Haircut - A story about self-worth, safety, and saying yes to being bold.
What began as a quiet night around the fire turned into something sacred—a spontaneous haircut by celebrity stylist Riawna Capri that became a leap into trust, healing, and self-worth. This is not just a story about hair. It’s about beauty, boldness, and saying yes to the woman you're becoming.
The Mountains We All Climb
On a flight from Mexico City to Los Cabos, I met Kristin Harlia, a renowned mountaineer. Though our lives seem worlds apart—hers defined by summits, mine by physical limitation—we find common ground in our shared longing for peace.
Through stories of loss, stillness, and surrender, we explore why so many of us climb our own metaphorical mountains in search of something we may already hold within.
This post reflects on the pain of letting go, the illusion of becoming, and the quiet arrival in what already is.
The Dance of Trust: Embracing Withdrawal and Self-Acceptance
In this personal reflection, I explore how withdrawal can be more than a reaction to overwhelm—it can be an essential act of self-care. Inspired by my rescued dog Anat, I’ve learned that stepping back can create safety and space for growth. Yet, I’ve often judged my own need for retreat as a weakness. This post dives into the process of unlearning self-judgment and embracing patience, trust, and self-compassion, one step at a time.
How a Rare Disease Transformed My Perspective on Life
It wasn’t my body that needed healing—it was my mind. Letting go of what I thought life should look like was the hardest part. But in that stillness, I found something far greater than I could have ever imagined. Joy. Love. Beauty. Gratitude. Discover my journey of transformation and the lessons I learned from a rare disease that taught me to see with my heart instead of my mind.
Mastering Emotional Triggers: Practical Tools for Self-Healing and Personal Growth
Explore how to transform emotional triggers into valuable guides for self-healing and personal growth. Learn to break through resistance, understand ego-driven patterns, and cultivate compassion and self-awareness on your healing journey.
How a Donkey Opened my Heart: A Journey to Self-Healing and Transformation
A deeply personal reflection on rescuing Milagro, a donkey whose pain awakened something old and tender within me. This piece explores trauma, compassion, self-healing and the quiet transformation that can happen when love meets pain.
The Art of Surrender: Healing Without Effort
Sometimes, healing comes not from the relentless effort to fix ourselves, but from the quiet act of surrender. In a dream that kept visiting me, I found a rare moment of clarity and deep relaxation, something I struggle to grasp during the busyness of life. Through an encounter with butterflies in nature, I realized that true healing doesn't happen by controlling or protecting ourselves—it happens when we open up to the wounds we've tried to avoid.
For years, I had built an identity to shield myself from pain, believing that was the only way to stay safe. But in turning toward the very wounds I’d been running from, I discovered comfort and a sense of healing I didn’t expect. It wasn’t about doing more or trying harder. It was about trusting that healing was already happening within me, if I only allowed myself to receive it.
Full of Shame - The Fuel to Become Extraordinary
For most of my life, shame quietly guided every decision, hidden beneath layers of perfectionism and the drive to be extraordinary. It wasn’t until my thirties, with the help of psychedelics, that I began to unravel the deep-rooted shame buried within me. What I discovered was far more profound than I could have imagined—an intense emotional journey that revealed how much I had been craving to see me. This is the story of how psychedelics brought me face-to-face with my shame and led me toward true dignity, shattering the illusion of who I thought I had to be.
Why Letting Go Feels Impossible —Until It Isn't
"Die to Live" – a reflection on the cycles of death and rebirth within us. As I sat in my garden, surrounded by the peaceful mountains of Oaxaca, I realized that surrendering to the process of letting go is both terrifying and inevitable. Each time we resist, we hold on to the old, until the pressure becomes too much, and only by surrendering do we find transformation. Just like nature, this cycle repeats itself, teaching us to trust in the process even when it feels most uncertain."
