Joelle Bangsund, LCSW, LLC

11/03/2025

Be the kindness. ❤️

“Tell her,” I whispered to my daughter as she pressed her body against mine.

She wrapped my free arm around her little shoulders while I finished loading the groceries onto the conveyer belt.

I smiled at the young cashier who had streaks of blue and purple swirling into her otherwise jet-black ponytail.

My daughter was right when she’d whispered to me, “Her hair is so pretty.”

“Tell her,” I repeated with a little nudge.

My girl only dug her pink cheeks deeper into my side as she nervously twisted the hem of my sleeve in her small fist.

The cashier looked down at my daughter, her expression mostly bland with a hint of concern.

“My daughter thinks your hair is beautiful.” I explained.

The cashier’s face lit up. “You do?”

This coaxed my little one from her hiding place. She looked up and nodded.

“Thank you so much! You made my day,” the cashier said with a smile brilliant enough to compete with her highlights.

My daughter returned it with a beaming smile of her own.

As I walked out of the store, holding my daughter’s hand, I stole a glance back at the young woman. Her energy was clearly brighter now than it had been when we first entered her line.

After loading my groceries in the trunk, I climbed into the driver’s seat. It was then that my daughter made a declaration, “Mom, I think I’m gonna start telling everyone when I like their hair.”

“You should, honey.”

And she did.

She still does.

It’s a rare occasion if we make a trip out in public without her telling someone that she loves their hair, or nails, or shirt, or shoes. To be honest, I think she even does so more than me. And it’s one of my favorite things about this girl.

She learned, at a very young age, the power in raising up others. She learned that by simply telling people when you see beauty in them, you elicit the beauty of human connection.

So maybe we should all take this lesson to heart. Maybe next time you see something you admire, whether it’s her hair, her clothes, or her actions… Maybe you should muster up the courage to tell her.

Because that small second of effort on your part could be the one thing that makes her entire day.

Just tell her. ♥️

©️ Mehr Lee
Raise Her Wild

10/31/2025

10/31/2025

10/25/2025

It’ll pass soon! And then, the next one…. 🤦🏼‍♀️

😂

10/07/2025

Stop wasting your energy trying to control or convince people.

When you Let Them, you see who they really are. And then you decide what happens next.

This is exactly what it means to use The Let Them Theory 💚 Learn more at LetThem.com

09/24/2025

Keep going, the world needs you!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CEh51Pt81/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Ernest Hemingway once wrote: The hardest lesson I have had to learn as an adult is the relentless need to keep going, no matter how broken I feel inside.
This truth is raw, unfiltered, and painfully universal. Life doesn’t stop when we are exhausted, when our hearts are shattered, or when our spirits feel threadbare. It keeps moving—unyielding, indifferent—demanding that we keep pace. There is no pause button for grief, no intermission for healing, no moment where the world gently steps aside and allows us to mend. Life expects us to carry our burdens in silence, to push forward despite the weight of all we carry inside.
The cruelest part? No one really prepares us for this. As children, we are fed stories of resilience wrapped in neat, hopeful endings—tales where pain has purpose and every storm clears to reveal a bright horizon. But adulthood strips away those comforting illusions. It teaches us that survival is rarely poetic. More often than not, it’s about showing up when you’d rather disappear, smiling through pain no one sees, and carrying on despite feeling like you're unraveling from the inside out.
And yet, somehow, we persevere. That’s the quiet miracle of being human. Even when life is relentless, even when hope feels distant, we keep moving. We stumble, we break, we fall to our knees—but we get up. And in doing so, we uncover a strength we never knew we had. We learn to comfort ourselves in the ways we wish others would. We become the voice of reassurance we once searched for. Slowly, we realize that resilience isn’t always about grand acts of bravery; sometimes, it’s just a whisper—“Keep going.”
Yes, it’s exhausting. Yes, it’s unfair. And yes, there are days when the weight of it all feels unbearable. But every small step forward is proof that we haven’t given up. That we are still fighting, still holding on, still refusing to let the darkness consume us. That quiet defiance—choosing to exist, to try, to hope—is the bravest thing we can do.
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What’s the hardest lesson you’ve had to learn as an adult, and how has it shaped you?

09/19/2025

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!

The world feels heavy right now.
It seeps into the news, into conversations, into the quiet moments when we scroll our phones late at night.
It’s okay if you feel it.
It’s okay if the weight makes everything feel harder.

I don’t know about you, but it’s the first time I’ve seen this much hate right in my own backyard.
And as a mom, I’m hardwired to want to make it stop.
To protect.
To shield.
To build a wall around my kids and keep the darkness out.

But the truth is—I can’t.

What I can do is choose love, over and over again.
I can make home a refuge.
I can create softness in the middle of a world that feels so sharp.
I can raise my kids to see kindness, to feel it deep in their bones, and to know how to pass it on.

I can’t change the whole world overnight.
But I can change the way my children walk through it.
I can raise them to meet hate with humanity,
to answer cruelty with compassion,
to hold tight to their light no matter how heavy the shadows get.

I can’t fix everything.
But I can nurture the future right here in my home.
And maybe—just maybe—that is where change begins.
Words by
Art saba.lashay

09/17/2025

Here you go. 🙄🤦🏼‍♀️