Linda Villines

Learn to know, love, and heal your authentic self—mind, body, and soul—with joy and ease.

Linda Villines is an author, healing teacher, trauma-informed certified holistic health and wellness coach, and certified Ayurveda counselor. She has over 10 years of personal and professional holistic self-healing experience and over 10 years of teaching experience. Specializing in the mind-body-soul connection, self-love, mindset, self-healing, and intuitive healing, Linda’s work bridges ancient and modern healthcare practices, psychology, spirituality, and science to make accessible a working and sustainable holistic model for lifelong health and happiness.

02/18/2026

People who have survived a lot of suffering, hardship, or trauma may develop a stance of "I'm not scared of pain", thinking it's resilience.
But what's underneath the armor is often a nervous system that doesn't trust being unprepared for pain.
That's why that attitude of resilience comes with expectations.
Expectations for disappointment or something good turning sour.
So you stay subtly prepared at all times, which is really constant guardedness.
It's not true resilience, discernment, or independence.
It's self-protection.
And that means you aren't actually relaxed around pain; you are still braced around it.
That constant vigilance isn't regulated strength.
It's a way to contain pain through trying to feel prepared for or neutral to it.

You don’t need to become "stronger".
You need to teach your nervous system that you can stay present through uncertainty and change.

02/16/2026

Most wounds and trauma happen in relationships because we are relational beings.
From the very moment we enter this world, we are in relationship, dependent on our relationship with our caretakers.
We are wired for connection and shaped by the nervous systems of the people around us.
So when your mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical safety is compromised or when stress accumulates, that usually happens in relationship.
That's why trying to out-think, out-journal, self-regulate, or heal your way out of relational trauma or wounding will only produce so much healing alone.
It also reinforces a harmful pattern that you have to handle everything on your own.
Self-healing doesn't mean you heal in isolation.
So if you're stuck in your healing, it's not because you have failed.
It's because your body is waiting for a safe, corrective relational experience in resonance with your authentic self that contradicts what it learned.
Yes, insight can name a wound, but only embodied, mutual connection can update your nervous system so there's resolution.
What you need isn't more inner work.
It’s allowing yourself to heal in the presence of someone who is safe for your nervous system.

Learn why you don't need to be fully healed to be fully loved in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source. Available on all major podcast platforms.

02/11/2026

Healing can become a way to hide yourself.
If at some point in your healing, you stop trying to love your whole self and start trying to perfect yourself, then you've stopped healing.
If you think that if you fix the right flaw or become confident with a certain insecurity, you’ll finally be your highest self, or the most lovable or desirable version of you, then you're not reclaiming your wholeness; you're denying it.
For many people, healing can become another way to abandon yourself.
Real healing isn’t about becoming more lovable or perfect.
It’s about learning to stop abandoning yourself so you can stop trying to earn or perform for love.

Allowing your uncertainty, your insecurities, and your contradictions to be seen isn't a liability to the life and love you want.
It’s actually how your nervous system reconditions its understanding of what it means to be safely seen and loved.
You don’t need to be more healed to deserve the life you want.
You need to stop disqualifying yourself even if you think you haven't completed your healing.

Learn why you don't need to be fully healed to be loved in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source. Available on all major platforms.

02/10/2026

You’re not alone, single, or having trouble finding your person because you’re unlovable or behind.
You’re stuck because historically, intimacy and love have conditioned you to abandon yourself in order to stay connected or be chosen.
So you learned to choose people who never demand your depth, who keep you at a distance so you never have to be vulnerable, or you remain independent because you think it's safer to be alone.
What seems like “bad luck in love” is really your nervous system trying to protect the parts of you that still believe being fully seen as your whole, authentic self is unacceptable and will cost you what you want.
But the life you want, that includes the love you deserve, can't be built by hiding your true self and staying small.
When you let the parts you’ve been avoiding move toward love and connection, even when you feel messy, imperfect, and unready, that's when you begin to heal the belief that you are not lovable as you are.

Learn why you don't need to be healed to be loved in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source.

02/04/2026

Good things don’t leave you because they aren’t real or aligned.
They don't last because your nervous system never learned you were safe receiving and keeping good things like love, success, being seen, or having wealth.
When your system is organized around loss, stability can feel temporary by default, so the moment something good arrives, your body braces for its disappearance.
That bracing changes your entire mental, emotional, and physical state, so your body tenses, your mind races, and your feelings are guarded.
All of that keeps you in closed-off hypervigilance mode, not an open receiving node.
You may call it being realistic or responsible, but you're actually future-dooming the present moment.
Because what your body is prepared to lose, it cannot fully inhabit.

Until your system learns that receiving good things doesn’t require vigilance to survive, every blessing (large or small) will feel like a threat, something you have to manage, test, or emotionally distance from, rather than something you’re allowed to let land and stay.

Learn why your expectations shape your reality and how to receive without bracing in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source. Available on all major platforms.

02/02/2026

Many people believe they’re being careful when managing their lives with expectations.
They think they're being responsible, self-aware, wise, or mature.
But what’s actually happening is deeper than surface-level discernment.
It’s a nervous system that learned safety was unpredictable and temporary, so it tries to control that safety.
In the past, if connection led to disappointment, if your needs were not met consistently, if stability disappeared without warning, then your body adapted by trying to stay one step ahead.
So control became the substitute for real safety.
Fear-based predictions replaced real presence.
And over time, that vigilance made you feel like you were being smart.
But really, you were being tense and controlling.

The problem is, tension is not the foundation of true felt safety in relationships and in all areas of your life.
If your nervous system and body are organized around control as default, then they are not available for genuine connection or intimacy, meaning they are not in a clean receiving state.
You can’t feel into what’s real when you’re busy managing what might go wrong.
Contrary to what you might think, regulation is not the result of certainty.
Regulation occurs when you have capacity, when your system learns it can stay present in relationship and in uncertainty without bracing.
You don’t lose your discernment then.
You actually gain clarity and authenticity.
Because you stop needing to stay armored, braced, prepared, and guarded to feel safe.
That’s when life stops feeling like something you have to manage, and you start feeling the freedom to flow and receive.

Learn how fear-based expectations prevent you from receiving what you want in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source.

01/26/2026

Understanding someone’s trauma doesn’t automatically make a relationship better.
Compassion might help you soften in conflict, pause before assuming, or empathize, but it will never change a relational dynamic that makes your body brace.
Because insight is not the same thing as transformation.
Emotional reflection is not the same as relational change.

Understanding their trauma may explain why they show up the way they do, but it does not replace repair, resolution, or evolution.
It does not justify emotional management or self-abandonment.
Your body doesn’t release stored tension and trauma when you understand something.
Your nervous system does not respond to potential.
It responds to changed patterns, with consistent felt safety, not cumulative insight.

Stop confusing empathy with stability.
Healthy, mature relationships are held together by more than a capacity to understand the other person.
They need mutual sovereign movement toward evolution.
Ownership of choices and patterns.
And personal initiative to change what needs to be changed.

Learn why you're feeling tense in your relationships, even after understanding your traumas, in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source.

01/23/2026

Being “chill” is often deemed a desirable quality in relationships, but in reality, it’s usually a nervous system strategy to keep the connection intact.
Most people don’t stay easygoing because they’re secure in relationship.
They stay easygoing because, in the past, they learned that conflict and tension are risky and could lead to abandonment or rejection.
So they shrink, minimize, and adapt to become someone who doesn't overreact or behave like they're "too much."
The relationship may remain intact, but the cost is their nervous system, body, and authenticity.

Being chill is not regulation.
It's self-abandonment.
You may tell yourself it’s not worth bringing up.
You may rationalize your discomfort.
You may try to remain "calm" even while your body braces and your resentment grows.
But then you're left with love that feels heavy and exhausting instead of safe.
The relationship doesn’t stay intact because it’s healthy, but because you keep minimizing yourself to make the other person "happy".
But your nervous system knows the difference between real peace and suppressed needs.

Real connection isn’t built through people-pleasing or self-erasure.
It’s built through boundaries that protect your truth.
Boundaries that enforce that you will not abandon yourself to keep the love alive.
You’re not “too much” for drawing a line.
You're loving yourself instead of betraying yourself.
Being easygoing is not the relationship flex you think it is.
Boundaries are.

Learn what real relationship repair is in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source.

01/21/2026

When being misunderstood is a core wound, expressing yourself and your truth feels tense and risky.
Conversations require effort.
You brace to have to explain yourself before anyone has even questioned you.
You are sensitive to tone, word choice, and timing.
And if someone even slightly misreads you, you get frustrated, angry, hot, defensive, or shut down.
This doesn't happen because you’re insecure or bad at communicating, but because your system learned early in life that being misinterpreted came with negative consequences.
Your nervous system learned that misunderstanding equaled erasure, that if your reality wasn’t corrected fast enough, it could be overwritten, dismissed, or lost entirely to someone else's.
So clarity became survival.
Over-explaining became self-protection.
Self-editing became safety.
Now, as an adult, even in low-stakes moments, your body reacts as if your existence depends on being accurately perceived because it was repeatedly not mirrored back to you without distortion early in life.
Without being warped, diminished, or filtered through someone else's fears, unresolved trauma, limitations, and emotional state.

Healing the wound of being misunderstood isn’t about becoming more confident or articulate.
It’s about teaching your nervous system that your truth can exist in relationship without distortion and that you don’t disappear just because someone doesn’t get your true self.

Learn now to stop over-explaining and heal the wound of being misunderstood in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source.

01/07/2026

Talking about trauma can feel like progress.
You’re making sense of what happened and organizing the narrative.
And that has value.
But talking about your trauma keeps it in the past because it also only activates your thinking mind, not the part of you that learned to survive in that experience.
Talking about your trauma can help you explain what happened with greater clarity.
However, because talking doesn't engage your body, that's why you still flinch at a certain tone of voice, shut down in certain types of conversations, or brace for danger when nothing is actually wrong.
That doesn't mean you’re necessarily avoiding healing.
It’s because cognitive understanding does not complete a survival response.
Somatic release does.
Explanation may reorganize your memory.
But it doesn’t reorganize or change how your body responds to the trauma in the present.

Healing is holistic and thus requires more than talking, more than analysis and insight.
It requires letting your body finish what it started when safety wasn’t originally available.
That means feeling safe where fear once lived, not thinking your way out of fear.
Your nervous system only updates through felt experience, not mental insight.
This is why understanding your trauma doesn’t automatically free you from it, and why talk therapy alone can keep you looping in the past while your body remains hypervigilant and tense.

Healing is not about making new meaning of a story until it stops hurting.
It’s about teaching your whole system, in the present, that the threat is over, so your body feels safe.

Explanation is not resolution, and your body knows the difference.
That's why you've been in talk therapy for years but haven't healed.

Learn why you're still stuck in the same problems despite investing in therapy in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source. Available on all major platforms.

01/05/2026

Coping teaches you how to survive your life.
It helps you get through the day, regulate enough to function, manage your reactions, and keep things from falling apart.
And for a while, that can feel like healing.
Because you understand yourself more.
You are a little less reactive.
You can name your patterns.
But coping means you are still in a relationship with the problem.
A relationship that assumes the problem is ongoing.
Coping means you may be more intelligent, adapt better, and endure with more awareness.
But it’s still survival, not resolution.

Healing is different.
It is not management.
Because healing teaches your body that the threat has ended, which creates resolution.
You end the relationship with the problem because the problem no longer exists in your mind or body.
That means you no longer need to brace for impact, shut down, appease, freeze, or stay on hyperalert.
Healing is not the result of proper analysis, explanation, or insight alone.
It is the result of consistently felt and lived safety.
It happens when your nervous system updates its response in the present, not when your mind understands the past.
This is why so many people know exactly why they are the way they are and still feel the same inside.
Why real change never happens.
Why the problem persists.
Coping is not the same thing as healing.
Healing isn’t about managing yourself better.
It’s about letting your system finish what it never got to complete, so your body can finally return to baseline ease and joy.
That’s when life stops feeling like something you have to get through and starts feeling like something you actually get to live.

Learn how management is not the same thing as healing in the latest episode of my podcast, The Simple Source. Available on all major platforms.

12/31/2025

Most people believe transformation is only real when it is met with constant momentum, fireworks, synchronicities, and ongoing confirmation that something is “working.”
But that is a temporary phase.
And when that phase ends, many people assume they’ve regressed.
But what's often happening isn't a setback.
It's coherence stabilizing.

Coherence doesn’t feel exciting.
It feels quiet.
And that quiet is uncomfortable for many people because we are conditioned to believe that intensity is synonymous with growth.
Healing is often measured by how much it hurts or how visible it is.

But the truth is, when your nervous system is no longer bracing, it no longer needs constant feedback.
Nothing is wrong.
You’re just no longer operating from urgency, so evolution stops feeling dramatic.
The constant high-low feedback loop that an external-validation-dependent nervous system creates collapses because it moves from insecure signal-checking to internal secure stabilization.
That's why self-mastery often feels anticlimactic.
You move past the point where you require reassurance that you’re special or progressing.
You are then required to root in your coherence without fireworks and without applause.

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Our Story

In my early 30’s I experienced a rapid descent of health, all starting with my gut. I took to the internet and researched my laundry list of symptoms until my eyes hurt, reading forums, threads, and medical papers. I became grain-free, sugar-free, started exercising 6 days a week. I did the FODMAP diet. The Paleo diet. The Whole30. The GAPS diet. You name it. I tried it. Then, in the summer of 2014, a couple of months after my husband Matt and I married, he was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer at the age of 37. Knees failed. Worlds crumbled. After Matt’s diagnosis, new symptoms started spiraling out of control. I unwillingly gained 30 pounds in three months, developed carpal tunnel, and brain fog. My digestive issues worsened. My energy level was non-existent. There was no relief from being unwell. After Matt’s nephrectomy, juicing, sprouting, raw veganism, and hours upon hours of research, we felt we had a soft handle on cancer (despite my carousel of dis-ease). Then in September, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. It took a year of thyroid medication before I started to feel remotely close to normal. Meanwhile, my husband’s cancer was spreading despite rigorous adherence to his treatment protocol from both his western and holistic team of doctors. Amidst all of that, I was diagnosed with SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), developed de quervain’s tenosynovitis, and fibromyalgia. After trying all the fixes – antibiotics, tenosynovitis surgery, steroids, acupuncture, physical therapy, detoxing, textbook adherence to the GAPS diet – all of it – I finally felt better, but not great. Why not great? I was doing everything right. In fact, I had been doing everything right from the beginning. I made great strides in ridding our home of toxins, regular detoxing, maintaining the cleanest of diets, and exercising daily… but i wasn’t 100%. Slowly but surely a subconscious inner awareness became lucid to me, the factors in my life I always struggled with – my long-standing relationship with stress, detachment from my true self, and attachment to negativity. I spent decades in a miserable emotional and psychological state. I was always a worrier, always an overachiever, always feeling alienated from my peers. My entire existence had in fact been filled with stress, avoidance, and illusion. Therapy and exercise helped, but what if it wasn’t enough? What if the reason i wasn’t getting completely better AND the reason I was unwell in the first place was all of this self-inflicted, unrelenting stress, illusion, and detachment from my true self? All in a rush of clarity, I decided to let it – EVERYTHING – go, rediscover myself, and balance all that was off-kilter. Matt passed two, arduous years after his diagnosis. We fought our sicknesses and despite his death, we both won. We lived and loved more deeply than either of us could have imagined. We were driven by hope and determination that life is a blessing, that our spirits are invincible, and love truly does conquer all. Today, I have never felt healthier and more at peace. I have lived through relentless sicknesses, trauma, death, and now grief. The gift of it is all is having irrefutable knowledge that even in the darkest of times – love, light, and hope will always give life.