I kept telling myself I was coping. My body had a different answer.
I Thought I Was Fine. My Body Knew Otherwise.
read more
marianlim
Subscribe to the "Letters to the Brave"
Latest on the Blog
What Simplifying Really Meant for Me, and What It Could Mean for You
Every August, the world remembers to tell us to simplify. It has a whole week for it now, and I understand the appeal. There is real tenderness in any invitation to put things down. But I've come to be wary of the kind of simplifying that arrives with a shopping list....
What Nobody Tells You About Therapy When You’re the Strong One
I was the strong one. The helper. The last person anyone expected to need a therapist — including me.
A short letter: where these begin
Dear you, I don't know your name. But I think I might know your evening. The one where everyone finally sleeps, and the house goes quiet, and for the first time all day there's no one needing anything from you — and instead of resting, you just sit there in the dark...
The Day I Finally Said ‘I’m Not Okay’ Out Loud
The specific moment I stopped performing okayness — and what happened when I finally let the truth out.
When to Bring Your Child for Counseling
Bringing your child for counseling, is this necessary? There’s a part of parenting that no one really prepares you for. It's not the school stuff, not the schedules, and not even the usual “how to raise your kids well” kind of advice. I’m talking about the moments...
How I’m starting to live a life that’s mine
Lately, I’ve been noticing something that I don’t think I was ready to fully acknowledge before. My life is starting to open up in a way it hasn’t in years. My eldest just graduated from college, which still feels a bit unreal when I think about it, because I can...
What I’ve learned from raising my kids on my own
I didn’t grow up thinking this is how my life would look, and I think that’s something I still catch myself processing every now and then, especially on days when everything feels a little heavier than usual and I just want to pause and ask, “Wait… how did I end up...
It’s Okay to Need Help Sometimes..Really
Yesterday was… a lot. It started with me getting locked inside my own bedroom. The doorknob decided to give up on life and somehow locked itself. I couldn’t open it from the inside. It couldn’t be opened from the outside either. It had to be dismantled. Not...
You’re Not Lost, You’re Between Selves
There is a moment in every transformation that feels like disorientation. Not because something is wrong, but because something old has stopped working, and something new has not yet taken form. Most people call this being lost. It isn’t. It is being between selves....
My Sunday Reflection: The Gift of Stillness
Sundays used to be the hardest. When the kids were little and the house was loud, I used to crave silence even just a few minutes to breathe. But when they started spending weekends somewhere else, the silence became deafening. I didn’t know what to do with all...
It’s Complicated
It’s a Saturday and it’s movie night, well, for me at least. My children have better things to do on their own with their thing than to spend time with me watching old movies. I stumbled upon this quite old movie called “It’s Complicated” with Meryl Streep, Alec...