You Don't Need Motivation. You Need Someone to Sit With You in the Pain.

At 21, I was so numb, so dissociated, so frozen that I couldn't even name what was wrong with me.

I just knew I was in pain—deep, overwhelming pain I couldn't explain or fully feel.

My nervous system was protecting me by keeping me shut down. The emotional pain leaked through in ways that made no sense to me, in ways I couldn't control.

And I had no language for any of this.

I didn't know what trauma was. What it meant to be frozen. Why my own body felt like a prison.

I just knew something was deeply, fundamentally wrong.

So I did what most people do when they're suffering: I looked for help.

What I Found (And What Didn't Work)

I've sat in countless therapy chairs, trying to make sense of feelings that made no sense.

Longing to be held in the pain underneath my chaos.

Instead, I was often guided to rationalize. To analyze. To shift my perspective.

"Have you considered looking at it this way?"

"What would happen if you reframed that thought?"

"Let's work on your mindset around this."

But I didn't need a new perspective.

I didn't need to be motivated to think differently.

I didn't need strategies or frameworks or cognitive restructuring.

I needed to go deeper into what was already there.

Into the fear. The shame. The grief that had never been allowed to speak.

And every time someone tried to pull me out of those feelings—to help me "manage" them or "reframe" them—I felt more alone.

Because what I was learning, session after session, was this:

My emotions were wrong. Too much. Irrational. Something to be fixed.

The Problem With Being "Helped" Out of Your Pain

When we're met with logic while we're in pain, we learn to mistrust our emotions.

We start to believe they're mistakes. That feeling deeply means something is broken in us.

And so we develop sophisticated ways of staying away from what hurts:

• We intellectualize (turn pain into analysis)

• We rationalize (explain it away)

• We spiritual bypass (rise above it without actually feeling it)

• We optimize (add another morning routine, another productivity hack)

• We motivate ourselves (push harder, think positive, upgrade our mindset)

All of this is just another way of not being with what's actually here.

I spent years trying to think my way out of my pain.

Reading the books. Learning the frameworks. Understanding my patterns.

And none of it changed anything.

Because trauma doesn't live in your mind. It lives in your body.

What Actually Saved My Life

In 2019, something shifted. Not because I found the right therapist or the right technique. But because I finally stopped looking to save myself.

I decided to sit with my overwhelming pain. Because I saw that after trying everything: Nothing. Really. Worked.

Raw. No explaining. No technique. No trying to fix it, heal it, make it better, solve it, give solutions.

Just... sitting with it.

And something extraordinary happened.

The pain started to speak to me.

It started telling me its story. Its origin. The first time I felt it.

It told me what happened to me.

Not through analysis. Not through understanding.

Through feeling.

Through being willing to stay present with sensations I'd been running from my entire life.

Through finally, finally letting the pain exist without trying to make it go away.

And in that presence, in that willingness to just be with it—the pain revealed everything.

The memories. The moments. The parts of me that had been frozen for decades.

Not because I tried to access them.

But because I finally stopped trying to escape them.

The Medicine Journey That Taught Me Everything

A few years later, I did a medicine journey that brought this lesson home in the most visceral way.

I was suffering. Trapped in my own mind. Asking the medicine for solutions. Struggling with pain.

I was micromanaging the journey—correcting it, telling it to focus on this thing or that thing, asking for its attention about every feeling I had.

I was treating healing like a problem to solve.

Until I realized something:

I was angry at the medicine. Angry that it wasn't helping me the way I wanted. Angry that I was feeling what I was feeling.

And then I understood: It won't work if I don't trust it.

So I made a commitment.

To breathe and trust. To breathe and trust. To breathe and trust.

To stop trying to control the experience. To stop micromanaging my healing. To let go.

And everything changed.

When the pain came—and it did, waves of it—I didn't try to fix it anymore.

I didn't ask, "How do I get out of this?"

I asked, "Is there a way to give healing to this pain?"

I realized I was using my intention, but I was also refusing to surrender. I was still in my head, still trying to understand everything rationally, still trying to stay in control.

It was time to just breathe and trust.

With every new thing the medicine presented to me, I would breathe and trust. Trust that I was exactly where I should be. Trust that there was a reason for me to be where I was. Trust that I didn't have to cognitively understand it or analyze it.

I could just feel it.

The Wounded Animal I'd Been Hiding

At some point during the journey, the pain became so intense that I couldn't hold it inside anymore. I had to scream. I had to growl.

I was an injured animal.

I was completely owning the fact that I have these thoughts. Self-harming thoughts. Thoughts telling me I'm bad for people. Thoughts I've been terrified to admit because I was afraid of what they might mean.

I stood square with them.

This is the reality. There is no healing without the reality.

I can't heal what I'm not allowing to exist. I realized: I've been living my life alone with this wounded animal inside of me. And this wounded animal has been all alone with me.

I need to own the wounded animal that I have inside.

I can't pretend anymore. It's time for me and this wounded animal to not be alone, feeling victimized by each other.

It's time to take ownership of this pain. Time to own that it is here inside of me. To own it as a part of me.

What You Actually Need (If You're Still Stuck Despite Everything You've Tried)

If you're reading this and you recognize yourself—if you've done the work, read the books, understood your patterns, and you're still stuck—here's what I need you to know:

You don't need to be externally motivated, pushed, hyped up, or have your mindset upgraded.

You need someone to sit with you through the places inside you that hurt the most.

The places you're hiding from yourself and others. The places you're scared of looking at.

You need someone who won't try to fix you or pull you out of your pain.

Someone who can hold you while you feel what you've been avoiding.

Someone who understands that your emotions aren't mistakes—they're doors. They're signals from the parts of you still waiting to be witnessed.

Why Most Therapy Fails at This

I've sat in the therapy rooms of some of the most academically renowned therapists and acclaimed professionals with thriving practices.

They were good at knowing academic information. At using that knowledge to convey or challenge thoughts.

But they failed at empathy, compassion, and connection.

They were addressing my distress with sterilized gloves.

I could feel their distance to what I was feeling and experiencing. And that made me feel distant to myself too. Many professionals are taught to protect themselves and the client with emotional distance.

But what truly protects a healer is their willingness to become aware of their shadow and heal what in them could get entangled in the client's experience.

The truth is, knowledge alone is not enough.

The real value in healing comes from lived empathy—a willingness to meet others in their vulnerability, without armor or gloves. To feel what the client is feeling.

Only those who have faced and felt their own pain deeply can hold space for the pain of others with real compassion.

The Difference Between Understanding and Being Held

Let me show you the difference:

Traditional therapy approach:

Therapist: "Why do you think you shut down in conflict?"

You: "Well, growing up, my dad would rage when I spoke up. So I learned that conflict isn't safe. My nervous system goes into freeze mode to protect me."

Therapist: "That makes sense. How does understanding that feel?"

You: "It helps. I have more compassion for myself now."

Result: Insight. Understanding. Self-compassion. All valuable.

But the pattern doesn't change.

Being held approach:

Me: "What happens in your body when conflict starts?"

You: "My chest gets tight. I can't breathe. I go blank."

Me: "Good. Can you feel that tightness right now? Where exactly is it?"

You: "Right here [places hand on chest]. It feels like... a wall."

Me: "Stay with that. Don't try to fix it or understand it. Just feel it. What does the wall need?"

You: [stays present with the sensation, emotions start to surface, tears come]

Me: "That's it. Let it move through you. You're safe to feel this now."

Result: The frozen emotion is felt, processed, released. The pattern starts to shift—not because you understand it better, but because your nervous system experienced something different.

What Healing Actually Requires

Healing doesn't always start with understanding.

Sometimes, it starts with staying.

With being willing to sit in the fire and listen.

With breathing and trusting instead of controlling and managing.

With letting yourself be the wounded animal instead of pretending you're not.

With having someone who can hold you while you fall apart.

Not someone who will motivate you to pull yourself together.

Not someone who will give you a new framework or mindset.

Not someone who will help you rise above your pain.

Someone who will go into your pain with you.

Someone who will sit there with you in the worst of it and say: "I'm here. You're not alone in this. It's safe to feel what you're feeling."

My Deepest Realization

I spent years thinking I needed to be fixed. That if I just read the right book, tried the right technique, upgraded my mindset enough times, I'd finally be okay.

But I didn't need to be fixed.

I needed to be felt.

I needed to stop running from the wounded animal inside me and start owning it. I needed someone who could hold me through the places that hurt the most—without trying to pull me out of them.

And when I finally found that, everything changed.

Not because the pain went away.

But because I learned I could be with the pain. I could feel it. I could survive it. And on the other side of that—when I stopped resisting, when I breathed and trusted—I found something I'd been searching for my whole life:

A deeper connection to myself.

One that doesn't need to accomplish or do. One that moves from intrinsic motivation and inspiration, not from "shoulds." One that knows its own truth. That trusts its inner compass absolutely.

What Part of You Is Asking Not to Be Fixed, But to Be Felt?

If you're exhausted from trying to motivate yourself out of your pain...

If you're tired of upgrading your mindset and still feeling stuck...

If you've done all the work and something still hurts...

Maybe you don't need another strategy.

Maybe you need someone to sit with you in the pain. Someone who won't try to fix you or pull you out of it. Someone who can hold you while you finally, finally let yourself feel what you've been running from.

Because healing doesn't happen through more understanding.

It happens through embodied experience.

Through being with what is. Through breathing and trusting. Through owning the wounded animal inside you instead of pretending it's not there.

Through being held.

If You're Ready

I specialize in sitting with people through the places that hurt the most. Not because I have all the answers. But because I've been there. I know what it's like to be frozen, numb, convinced you'll never be free. I know what it's like to try everything and still be stuck.

And I know the way through.

Not through motivation or mindset shifts. But through presence. Through being held. Through finally letting yourself feel what you've been running from.

Book a 90-minute breakthrough session

Let's sit together in whatever you've been afraid to look at.

You don't need to be fixed. You need to be felt.