Blackbird Diaries

  Let’s talk about one of the trickiest traps in the healing world: mistaking compassion for a get-out-of-accountability-free card. Shadow work means having compassion for your wound, but not weaponizing them. It means being gentle with yourself without turning a blind eye to the ways you avoid growth. And it means spotting the difference between true empathy and enabling your own (or someone else’s) BS. Here’s the deal: you can love yourself *and* call yourself out. That’s not cruelty. That’s integrity. “Compassion says, ‘I see why you did that.’ Accountability says, ‘But we’re not doing that anymore.’ Both are sacred.” It's imperative to recognize that sometimes we did things to survive because our options were limited. Sometimes we made choices we’re not proud of because we didn’t know there were better ones, or we hadn’t yet grasped the consequences. That is part of being human. However, as we grow in experiences, our list of options changes and expands, and we know b...

  -           Let’s get one thing straight right now: shadow work isn’t a mood, an aesthetic, or a dramatic photo shoot with candles and smeared eyeliner. It’s not an excuse to post cryptic quotes and spiral in public. And it’s definitely not a spiritual free pass to be a hot mess while calling it “doing the work.” Shadow work is about radical ownership. Not self-indulgence. Not ego fluff. Ownership. When we talk about the “shadow,” we’re talking about the parts of you that got pushed underground, usually when you were too young or too scared to process them. Shame, fear, insecurity, jealousy, control, judgment, people-pleasing, rage. These are all shadowy residents of the psyche, and they don’t stay buried just because you ignore them. They leak. They project. They sabotage. Shadow work is the process of coaxing that stuff into the light, not to banish it, but to integrate it. You’re not trying to “kill your ego” or “slay your sha...

  After a stretch of deep work behind the scenes, I’m thrilled to be back at the helm of Blackbird Diaries . You’ll start seeing regular blog updates again, some as stand-alone reflections and others as part of ongoing series. I’ve been holding a lot in the creative cauldron, and now it’s time to start pouring it out. What to Expect: Series + Standalone Posts Several posts will be published in series form, each one clearly titled to reflect which series it belongs to and its order in the lineup. These are designed to walk you through a bigger theme or concept one step at a time as bite-sized pieces that add up to deeper insight. You’ll still see occasional one-off posts as well, for the moments that don’t need a full series but still deserve a voice. Every post that’s part of a series is also being recorded for the Blackbird Diaries podcast. But I know many of you prefer to read, reflect, and revisit ideas in writing, so I didn’t want to make you wait. The written versions will...