(Excerpt from Chapter 2 of Beyond Healing)
One morning, mid-chaos — cereal on the floor, one sock missing, me running on broken sleep — my daughter asked me why I was “so spiky today.”
And just like that, my breath caught in my throat.
Because she wasn’t wrong. I was short. Irritable. Somewhere far away in my own head.
And the truth is… I’d woken up with a weight on my shoulders I couldn’t quite name.
I call it the unseen backpack.
We all carry one.
It’s packed with old beliefs, forgotten memories, unmet needs, and inherited pain we never consciously agreed to hold.
Some of us have been carrying it since childhood—
taught to be good, quiet, pleasing.
Taught that big feelings were too much.
Taught to survive, not thrive.
But the moment we become parents, something wild happens:
Our children start reaching inside that backpack.
Not to be cruel
—
But because parenting pulls at the zips we never dared to open.
Suddenly, we’re triggered by things we swore we’d never say.
We flinch at their messiness, their neediness, their loudness
—
not because they’re wrong,
but because those parts of us were once shamed.
🧠 Understanding your unseen backpack isn’t about blame. It’s about awareness.
Because when you know what you’re carrying,
you get to choose what you pass on.
And what you lovingly put down.
In Chapter 2 of Beyond Healing, I take you deeper into this idea—
how trauma isn’t just what happened,
but what your body had to hold alone.
And how the stories we carry can change,
if we choose to unpack them with compassion.
💬 What’s in your backpack today?
Is it shame? Guilt? Overwhelm? That old story that you’re not enough?
Breathe.
You’re not broken.
You’re healing.
👉 Ready to explore the rest of the journey?
Grab your copy of Beyond Healing []
and let’s break these cycles together—one conscious breath at a time.
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