Someone who loves you looks you in the eye during a panic spiral and says: “Just calm down.” Be honest. What does that do for you? For most people? It makes it worse. The anxiety spikes. The frustration doubles. And somewhere in the back of your brain, a part of you thinks: “Oh thanks. If only I’d known I just needed to calm down. Problem solved.” Here’s the thing: that advice isn’t just unhelpful. It usually will make it worse, the rumination and spiral intensifies. So what

. I sat in my therapist’s office and laughed. I laughed while I told her my kids were struggling. I laughed while I told her I couldn’t sleep. I laughed while I told her I had a list of things I needed to do and absolutely zero desire to do any of them. She looked at me, tilted her head, and asked: “Why is that funny?” I didn’t have an answer. Not a real one. The real answer, the one I couldn’t say out loud yet, was this: if I don’t laugh, I will cry. And I genuinely don’t kn

So there’s this thing that happens to me. My family has a name for it. It goes like this: Someone calls for me from the other room. Nothing. They call again. Still nothing. Eventually one of my kids wanders in to find me, and my husband says from down the hall, “Don’t bother, your mom can’t hear you. She’s doing music.” Or I’m at the piano. Or I’m playing guitar. Or I’m in the middle of writing something and the song takes over and I’m gone. Completely, fully, unapologeticall

I was crying in a wheelchair. Two grown men were pushing me, and I wanted to disappear. I was supposed to be having fun. Vacation. The thing I’d been looking forward to, planned around, needed. And now here I was, broken foot, tears streaming, completely unable to do what I’d told everyone I could do. And the first thought my brain served up? “How could I have been so stupid. I’m such a burden.” Not: this really hurts. Not: I need help. Not even: well, that was unlucky. A bur

I bought five new swimsuits this week. Not because I wanted to. Because I'm going on vacation, and somewhere between the online shopping, the bathroom mirror and the spiral that follows, buying new suits every single time has become my ritual. My armor. My way of trying to control something that still, after all these years, controls me more than I'd like to admit. I'm a music therapist. I help women reclaim their voices and celebrate who they are. And I still stand in front

Every Sunday morning last December, I woke up dreading church. I was the youth chorister. I stood in front of a room full of beautiful children every week and taught them to sing songs about love, hope, and faith. And every single week, I felt like a fraud, because I didn’t have any of those things, not right then. I was running on empty, barely holding my house together, and showing up week after week because I was good at it and because I felt like I was supposed to. Then o

She’s ten, curled up on the couch next to her dad, watching Brave. It is near the end, when the fate of the mother is still up in the air and everything hangs in the balance and my daughter is sobbing. Full, real, from-the-gut tears. My husband, completely caught off guard, says: “It’s a Disney movie. You know what always happens.” And then he says it. “You’re overreacting. Why are you being so emotional? It seems like a lot to cry that hard.” I glared at him. Then I sat down

They told me I was too blunt. Too loud. Too emotional. That I wore my heart on my sleeve. That I talked too much. That I had so much potential, if only I could just... tone it down a little. I was a kid and I can still hear those words now. I was learning that who I was, naturally, was too much. I spent years trying to adjust, controlling my volume, rephrasing my bluntness so it landed softer. I learned how to read people really well, what was important to them and adjusted m

A place where we use music to find our voice, tell our truth, and celebrate who we've always been, unfiltered and unapologetically free. You found this place for a reason. Maybe you're exhausted and overwhelmed. Maybe you've been doing everything for everyone else for so long that when someone asks what YOU want, you go blank. Maybe you've been told your whole life that you're too sensitive, too emotional, too much, and somewhere along the way, you started believing it. Maybe