I got some hard news today.

There are parts of my story I don’t usually share, especially not publicly (although small tidbits of my story are shared in my book, I don’t share deeply).

But to understand me, it helps to know this:

I was abandoned by my birth father.

Taken from my mother when I was one.

Abused and in foster care until five.

Adopted.

My adoptive parents divorced when I was eight.

My biological brother died when I was ten.

…

I’ve lived with a lot of loss, abuse, and abandonment.

From the outside, you might see someone strong, resilient, self-sufficient, caring, successful.

And that’s all true.

But there’s also a younger part of me that still feels pain when situations echo those early wounds.

The grown woman in me knows this:

I don’t need to shrink back into that pain.

I don’t need to harden myself to survive.

I will be okay.

And still…

What I do need in moments like this is space.

To sit with the feelings.

To let my body process them safely and honestly.

I don’t share this for sympathy.

I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.

In times like these, advice doesn’t help.

What does help is presence.

Gentleness.

Not fixing.

Not minimizing.

Not saying “you’re strong, you’ll be fine.”

Because you never really know what lives deep in someone’s core,

especially when you only know them as capable, resilient, and successful from the outside.

If there’s one thing I hope we remember as leaders, colleagues, and humans, it’s this:

Sometimes the most supportive thing you can offer…

is simply room to feel.

💚