Shame can quietly shape the way we remember our past, especially the chapters that feel complicated, misunderstood, or hard to explain. In this personal reflection, I share how I began releasing shame tied to my early modeling career, honoring my younger self, and reclaiming self-worth through honesty, compassion, and self-acceptance.

I have felt a ashamed about this career chapter of my life… just two days ago I shared my shame with my mom, she was shocked and said she had no idea. My Mom didn’t know as I never was fully transparent about my feelings with anyone, including myself.

A heartfelt exploration of photography, resilience, creative entrepreneurship, and living authentically through change

I am beyond thrilled to share the second episode of my YouTube series, In Conversation. This episode is a passionate and inspiring dialogue with my dear friend, Christine Johnso, a renowned photographer, creative entrepreneur, and Airbnb Superhost.

Our conversation, "Authenticity and Passion Through the Lens of Life," dives deep into what it means to stay true to your inner voice when life throws an unexpected curveball. Christine’s journey is a testament to the power of resilience and the beauty that emerges when we choose to lead with our hearts.

Photography as Storytelling: Capturing the Essence of Life

For Christine, photography has always been more than just capturing images; it’s about documenting stories, emotions, and the very essence of being. We explore her transition from the world of modeling to the other side of the lens, where she discovered a profound talent for witnessing others.

A personal reflection on body image, restrictive eating, intuitive nourishment, and learning to love my body with greater compassion

For most of my life, I have been in an unhealthy relationship with my body, body image, and the skewed self-narrative I carried within. In my teens and twenties, I was always trying to be smaller than my natural size, wrapping my value, worth, and acceptance around my weight.

I know many women can relate to this, which is why I feel called to share how I have come into a truer relationship with my body, one rooted in acceptance, nourishment, and self-love.

A personal reflection on perimenopause, women’s health, and navigating hormonal change with greater awareness, support, and self-compassion

I turned 44 this July and have found myself arriving at a new chapter of womanhood, hello, perimenopause.

My desire to write and share my words around this often-taboo subject is simple: to acknowledge perimenopause and menopause with more openness, less shame, and deeper support. This transition is not something women should feel they have to navigate alone.

A personal reflection on addiction, abandonment, grief, family systems, and the difficult healing of releasing someone’s outcome

I am very familiar with addiction. I know the hurt, the pain, the confusion, the abandonment, and the heartbreak addiction causes loved ones.

My sister and I grew up with addiction in our family system, and we experienced firsthand the ways addiction can fracture a family—especially the innocent hearts of children. If I were to name the deepest imprint addiction left on me, it would be abandonment. That is the truest wound I know in the depths of my core from loving someone affected by addiction.

Through the various chapters of my life, I have been full of questions, wonder, fear, confusion, disconnection, surrender, breaking down, breaking open, reconnection. Oh, there she is… this glimmer of my heart knowing, my innocence, my power, my sensitive ways, my strength my soul essence.

I continue to meet new parts of myself, that is… new to me and yet she, my essence, my soul (Ellie) is ancient, wise, a force to be reckoned with. I am interweaving my relationship with my soul self with my humanness of me.

Change is in the air, externally with the seasons changing and internally with shifts in our lives, our perspectives and our very being. The question is, how do we invite the shifts of change instead of fighting to keep comfortable, sameness. For myself personally, I am experiencing a shake up in both my external and internal reality. So, my writings arrive with truth, acknowledgement, and a dose of surrender.

I am and always have been a sensitive and emotional child, adolescent, and adult. When I was younger I sensed my emotions to be a lot for others, not so much myself as I didn’t know any difference.

I first learned of epigenetics from my therapist 6 years ago. I had shared with my therapist that I experienced emotional and physical trauma when I was younger from a grandparent. I also shared that though I have vivid memories of inappropriate behaviors from my childhood with this caregiver; I was also experiencing somatic contraction in my body as an adult and wasn’t sure if there was a correlation?

A New Year is upon us which offers abundance with new beginnings and opportunities. I love choosing one Word for the New Year to live, breathe, integrate into my emotional, physical, and energetic language. My word for 2023 is Omnificent, I first heard and felt this word thru listing to a podcast with Laurel Airica as the guest. Laurel is a wordsmith, writer, and speaker. I had never heard of omnificent before but when Laurel speak to it in the Aubrey Marcus Podcast, I immediately pushed pause to look up the definition…Omnificent: Unlimited creative power. In that moment, I choose Omnificent for my 2023 word of the year.

New OnWord Journeys YouTube Channel: In conversation with one of my best friends Danica Patrick, Danica and I speak to finding comfort in the discomfort. Danica courageously shares about her healing journey, some of the ugliness of the process, which ultimately creates growth and blossoming. Danica also shares about her awakening through the mystery and mystic ways of trusting the unknown…

Arrival in July 2022, taking a moment to acknowledge where I am in this present moment. I have much to share on my new chapter with OnWord Journeys. I have been speaking to shifting my intention and career to be more aligned with my heart and purpose. Over the past two years I have been working on honing the foundational pillars for my emotional wellness coaching practice. I re-branded OnWord Journeys with my intentionality, connective threads and energetic coherence offering support and guidance for those who are feeling called to explore their inner landscapes.

This month, May 2021 is Mental Health month. It has been a long time coming that mental health comes to the forefront with introspection and education versus the old stigma full of shame and judgment. Asking for help, sharing your emotional wellbeing, allowing yourself to “feel” is a part of our very essence of human nature. Vulnerability is now perceived as courageous instead of weak. In this blog post, my intention is to offer connectivity thru sharing my personal story; I also have included some self-inquiry journal prompts along with a self-love affirmation. 

This post is a vulnerable share about my journey being an Empath. I heard the term of being “empathic” feeling “empathy” but for someone to be an actual empath… was unknown to me. I’ve always considered myself to be extremely sensitive with my emotions and feeling the energy of a room and with people. I have vivid, visceral memories from the young age of 5, going into a room with a lot of people, whether it was a classroom, birthday party family gathering, and feeling a lot of different discomforts, often feeling a sense of overwhelm but not sure why?

Beautiful…what does this word mean to you? In our society, beauty is seen thru external perfected imagery.  From airbrushed models in magazines to perfectly casted commercials and flawlessly edited social media posts.  It’s no wonder how beauty has become defined by outward appearance.  My question is this, “How do we take off our tainted lenses of preconceived external acceptance and see the true beauty illuminating within each of us?”