New Directions For Life

03/09/2026

Trying to think if I’ve ever seen an exception. I don’t think so. 😞

Sexual abuse & assault can poison our beliefs about our body. It can condition us to believe our worth is in the physical pleasure we can provide others— and that our body is not ours to do with as we prefer.

03/08/2026

It is often assumed that the most difficult aspect of being a therapist is the horrific stories of abuse we are exposed to, but that has never been the case for me. Not only is this a beautifully done short story/animation, I do not think I’ve come across anything that illustrates the true challenges better. For those with a genuine curiosity, this captures the dynamic that has left me in tears at the end of many work days over the last couple of decades.

Nominated for the Academy Award® for Best Animated Short Film.An orphaned bear cub finds a home with a fatherly evergreen tree, until his hunger for trash le...

02/27/2026

I don’t know about you, but I have definitely stayed on some trains far longer than I should have.

And the truth is… if you’d asked me at the time whether I was making the right choice by staying, I would have had to admit that deep down, I already knew I should have stepped off.

Sometimes we stay because we can’t be absolutely sure getting off is the right decisions. We want to give it more time, more opportunities, more solutions. We stay for hope, for longing, because we feel stuck, because we can’t see a way off. We can even stay because we’ve invested so much and leaving feels like failure and defeat. The list goes on and on….

The “wrong train” is rarely dramatic at first. It’s subtle. Rationalised. Explained away. We tell ourselves to give it time. To try harder. To be patient. To endure.

But the longer we stay somewhere misaligned, the more it costs us in energy, in confidence, in peace, well being. We pay for it in the health of our mind, body and spirit.

So here’s the truth:
Getting off early is never failure.
Changing direction is not weakness.
Choosing yourself is not selfish.

It is wisdom.

You are allowed to step off.
You are allowed to reroute.
You are allowed to say, “This isn’t for me.”
You are allowed to change your mind.

Your life is precious.
Your energy is sacred.
And you are the only one holding the ticket.

So if you get on the wrong train, be sure to get off at the first stop. It’s hugely inconvenient but it’s easier in the long run.

With love,
Fiona
www.earthmonk.guru

02/24/2026

The only path.

02/19/2026

Mountains of credit! The vast majority still say “No!” even when the resources and opportunities to take this path are there. Over the years I’ve had many people vocalize their kind assumption that being a therapist must be so hard, and they assume it’s the terrible stories of abuse and trauma. Yeah, that can be tough, but it’s never approximated what’s hardest. For those therapists who’ve done what is described here, so they can be that necessary healing support, the rejection of that help, the avoidance, and the decision to willingly and knowingly let another generation carry the burden is what makes the job hardest by far! 😞

I read that line and had to sit down. Had to let it sink in. Had to feel the grief of it, not just for me, but for my mother. For my grandmother. For every generation of women in my family who learned that the only way to handle their hurt is to hand it down.

My mother wasn't a monster. She was wounded. And wounded people wound people. Especially the ones they love. Especially the ones who can't leave.

I don't have kids yet. But I think about this a lot. About how the only way to stop the cycle is to do the thing none of them did: heal. Actually heal. Not just survive and call it strength. Not just push it down and pretend it's gone. But face it. Feel it. Let it be as ugly and painful as it needs to be. And then, slowly, with help, with time, let it go.

Because if I don't, I know what happens. I'll be standing in my own kitchen one day. Something small will go wrong. And I'll open my mouth and my mother's voice will come out. Or worse, my grandmother's. And some small person who loves me will learn the same lesson I learned: that love isn't safe. That mistakes are catastrophic. That you have to be perfect to be loved.

And I can't. I can't do that. I won't.

So I'm doing the work now. The uncomfortable, expensive, exhausting work of becoming someone who can hold their own pain without handing it to someone smaller.

Not because I'm better than my mother. Because I have something she didn't: the language for what happened to her. The resources to heal from it. The understanding that breaking the cycle takes intentional effort.

She did the best she could with what she had. I believe that. But I also get to choose differently. I get to be the generation that stops. That says: this ends with me.

The bullying. The unhealed rage. The inherited wounds we pass down like recipes.
It ends here.

02/19/2026

Heartbreaking! 💔 …And liberating, as it goes with truth.

People compliment you for being “easy.”

You don’t ask for much.
You don’t need constant reassurance.
You handle things yourself.
You rarely make a scene.

You’re “chill.”
You’re “independent.”
You’re “so low-maintenance.”

But that didn’t start as a personality trait.

It started as a survival strategy.

There was a time - very early - when you did reach out.
When you did cry.
When you did need.

And the response was silence.
Or irritation.
Or overwhelm.
Or punishment.

So your nervous system adapted.

It learned:

Don’t expect comfort.
Don’t wait to be rescued.
Don’t rely.
Don’t lean too hard.

Because leaning meant falling.

So you became the one who carries everything quietly.

You learned to solve your own problems.
To talk yourself down.
To self-soothe.
To swallow disappointment before it turned into hope.

Not because you’re strong.

Because somewhere along the way, it became clear that if you didn’t handle it, no one would.

Now even when someone would show up, your body doesn’t quite believe it.

Support feels foreign.
Asking feels embarrassing.
Needing feels unsafe.

So you say, “It’s fine.”
Even when it isn’t.

You say, “I’ve got it.”
Even when you’re drowning.

And people assume you’re just built that way.

But low-maintenance isn’t your identity.

It’s what happens when a child learns not to expect care.

And healing doesn’t mean becoming needy.

It means slowly teaching your body that you’re not alone anymore.

That someone can come.
That someone can stay.
That you don’t always have to be the one holding everything together.

You were never low-maintenance.

You were under-supported.

And that’s not a flaw.
It’s evidence of what you survived.

02/19/2026

Love it! ❤️ And, this simple instruction is the key to the better world we all want but don’t know how to create.

Once we realize that children are not property of adults, brought here to serve the interests of the adult world, and understand that this dynamic is completely backwards and that the adults job is to facilitate children’s capacities to bring their song to the world, nothing will improve at scale.

Children come into the world with their own rhythm.

Their own interests.
Their own voice.
Their own way of seeing things.

Our role isn’t to rewrite the music or force them into a tune that suits us better. It’s to notice what’s already there, to encourage it, and to give it room to grow.

Because when a child feels supported in being who they truly are,
their song gets louder all on its own. ❤️

Quote Credit: ❣️

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02/19/2026

Well said, and an excellent reflective exercise/question. I can’t tell you how common it is to hear people say how great their childhood was, while trying to create a completely different one, and they can’t see the disconnect.

Denial is a powerful defense, and a necessary one for children, but we have to learn to give it up and face the pain the truth contains once we’re adults or there is no healing and recovery option available.

I believe we tend to start here.
⠀⁠
“Was it bad enough?”⁠
⠀⁠
That question bridges our inner feelings of knowing something was up, but we tend to confuse ourselves for not having the following factors to guide us:⁠
⠀⁠
We don’t have a frame of reference about a healthy family system - only hints.⁠
⠀⁠
We don’t have specific help to guide us through figuring out what is abuse.⁠
⠀⁠
We don’t have the family we grew up being real or honest about what the family is really like.⁠
⠀⁠
We don’t have the support to go through the dark period of admitting to ourselves that we weren’t safe as children.⁠
⠀⁠
But you can ask yourself, would you put a child through what you went through? Your answer may be what you need to start your recovery.⁠
⠀⁠
What do you think?

02/17/2026

Many people get upset learning this, so the good news contained within often gets overlooked. Yes, many of us did not get all the right inputs and we may tragically still suffer those consequences, but we can use this wisdom to start finding ways of better meeting the psychological needs of children, so that future generations are less challenged, and that is my wish for the world now.

02/16/2026

More excellent stuff from The Self.

Interesting timing too… this was certainly behind the dynamic I discussed in the updated post on anger I out out yesterday.

There’s a reason you say “I’m fine”
with a steady voice
while your chest feels like it’s caving in.

There’s a reason you laugh
while explaining something that almost broke you.

There’s a reason you minimise the things
that actually haunt you.

It isn’t strength.

It’s training.

Somewhere early in your life
you learned that your pain disrupted the room.

It overwhelmed people.
It annoyed them.
It made them uncomfortable.
It made you “dramatic.”
It made you “too sensitive.”
It made you the problem.

So you adjusted.

You didn’t stop hurting.
You stopped showing it.

You became easy to deal with.
Low maintenance.
The strong one.
The calm one.
The one who handles it.

And the more you handled,
the more people assumed you didn’t need anything.

That’s the part that hurts the most.

You learned to self-soothe emotions
that were never meant to be processed alone.

You learned to swallow tears quickly.
To explain your pain gently.
To make sure no one felt burdened by what you were carrying.

Now even when you’re exhausted…
even when you’re grieving…
even when you’re barely holding it together…

Your reflex is still:

“It’s fine.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“I don’t want to make it a big thing.”
“Other people have it worse.”

Not because it’s small.

Because once upon a time
your pain cost you connection.

So your nervous system made a decision:

Protect the relationship.
Not yourself.

And here’s the quiet tragedy:

You became so competent at survival
that nobody realised you were surviving something.

Nobody saw the collapse behind the composure.

But here’s what changes everything.

Needing support is not weakness.
Being seen in your pain is not dramatic.
Asking for help is not failure.

The instinct to downplay your suffering
is an old adaptation.

You are not in that environment anymore.

You do not have to earn care
by breaking publicly.

You do not have to hit rock bottom
to deserve softness.

You don’t have to be the strong one
every time.

02/15/2026

This is an updated, two-part edition of the very first written piece I ever made public, this time with a prelude and a little back story as to where this and the site I started to put together years ago came from. Following the last two writings, I knew I was closing in on the original goal for the website from the beginning, but because psychedelic therapies are such the rage, I figured there would be one more on that topic. After several attempts, I realized much of that feels as though it belongs in the book, though you will get a sampling of tips and considerations in the prelude of this re-issue for now.

As I mention in this piece, I had a clear vision surrounding the function of the site from the beginning: a freely available repository containing the most useful sources I found over the years, along with my best articulations on the most pertinent lessons from my time inside the therapy room. For a project that has taken years, I am confident that anyone who wants it, now has a freely available, trustworthy therapeutic roadmap to guide them. :)

Prelude: What follows in the next section is a slightly modified and updated version of the first writing I ever made public, back in March…