Stone and Vine Design

10/15/2026

10/13/2026

Let’s talk about parent guilt. Nothing quite prepares you for parenthood like feeling guilty for needing a break and then feeling guilty for enjoying it or not enjoying it because the guilt is so heavy. Working, not working, losing our patience, saying no, needing a break, or simply wanting 20 minutes without someone asking for a snack.

Parent guilt gets interesting. Sometimes the guilt we feel isn’t actually about our children. It’s about the child we once were.

The child who didn’t feel heard becomes the parent who feels guilty when their child is upset. The child who experienced abandonment struggles with separation. The child who grew up managing everyone else’s emotions becomes the parent who feels responsible for everyone’s happiness.

We get so caught up trying to give our children the childhood we wish we’d had that we forget they’re having their own childhood, with their own needs.

Here’s the important distinction. Not all guilt is the same. Appropriate guilt tells us when we need to take accountability. When we lose our temper, dismiss their feelings, say something hurtful, break a promise, or make them responsible for our emotions, our children deserve an apology. They deserve repair, not an explanation of why we were stressed or overwhelmed. There are times we really did get it wrong, and acknowledging that teaches them something incredibly valuable.

Shadow guilt is different. It comes from old wounds, unconscious beliefs, and survival patterns. It shows up when our child is disappointed, upset with us, or simply having an uncomfortable emotion that we feel responsible for fixing.

The tricky part? Both kinds of guilt can feel exactly the same.

We aren’t protecting our children from pain. We’re protecting ourselves from the discomfort of watching them experience it.

Our children are allowed to be disappointed, frustrated, and upset with us. That doesn’t automatically mean we’ve done something wrong.

The work is recognizing when our guilt is asking us to take responsibility and when an old part of us is reacting to something it learned to fear. That’s the unconscious part I talk about often.

Our children need us to parent the child in front of us, not the child we used to be.

Understanding that difference changes what we carry and what we pass down.

This is why we do shadow work.

10/09/2026

What if the moment that changed your life began with something you almost overlooked?

Maybe it was a trip you nearly canceled, an unexpected friendship, someone who listened when you needed it most, or the first time you said no without apologizing.

For me, it began with a desire to make a positive impact on people’s lives. First with interior design and then with shadow work; I didn’t realize how deeply the journey would transform me, too. Along the way, I developed a deeper understanding of myself, my relationships, and the choices I make. I also discovered parts of myself that needed more attention than I had realized.

Transformation doesn’t always arrive dramatically. Sometimes, it unfolds quietly through an experience that finds us when we’re struggling, searching, or simply willing to look at ourselves a little more honestly. Often, we don’t recognize how much something has changed us until we look back and realize we’re no longer the person we once were.

10/08/2026

What if you could look at the child you once were with the same love and compassion you have for the children in your life today?

I wish you could see yourself the way I see you beneath everything you’ve learned to be. At the very core of who you are, there is nothing wrong with you. There never was.

Before the world taught you to protect yourself, before you learned to shut down, pull away, hide your feelings or pretend things didn’t matter, there was simply you. That little version of you is still there, worthy of love just as you are.

Your shadows aren’t who you are. They’re the parts of you that learned how to survive. The walls you built when being vulnerable didn’t feel safe. The ways you learned to protect your heart, even when those same protections now keep love at a distance.

That’s one of the most heartbreaking things about being human. Sometimes the very things that once kept us safe become the things that prevent us from experiencing the love we’ve always wanted. We can spend years protecting ourselves from something that isn’t even happening anymore, without realizing what it’s costing us today.

I don’t believe healing is about becoming a better person. I believe it’s about getting to know the parts of ourselves that learned they had to be someone else to feel safe, accepted or loved. It’s realizing that we can put down the armor without losing who we are.

Loving someone doesn’t mean their shadows won’t hurt us. They can, and they do. We can recognize that someone’s wounds aren’t the whole of who they are while still holding them accountable for how those wounds show up.

Imagine looking into the eyes of the child you once were. Would you tell them they needed to be different to deserve love? Would you ask them to hide their feelings, be less sensitive or carry everyone else’s emotions just to belong?

Or would you remind them that they were always enough?

You don’t have to become worthy of love. You already are. The work is learning how to let that love reach the parts of you that still believe they need protection.

That’s what shadow work really is. Not fixing what’s broken, but becoming the adult that child always needed and finally meeting the parts of ourselves that never knew they were safe enough to be loved.

10/05/2026

You can know exactly where your boundary is and still struggle to hold it. Because sometimes the problem isn’t that you don’t know how to say no. It’s what your body believes might happen after you say it.

Will they be angry? Will they pull away? Will they think differently of you? Will you still be loved?

So you say yes when you mean no. You explain yourself too much. You soften what you really want to say. You take care of their feelings before your own. And eventually, you start calling yourself a people pleaser.

But there may be something deeper underneath it.

Shadow work asks a different question: What did disappointing someone once cost me?

Sometimes the boundary isn’t the hardest part. It’s learning that you can disappoint someone and still be safe, loved, and connected to yourself.

10/04/2026

Healing is a privilege. And honestly, that isn’t fair.

There’s so much coming at us every day that it’s easy to scroll right past something that might actually matter. But if you slow down for anything I share, I hope it’s this.

There were years when I didn’t have the resources, mental clarity, opportunity, or enough love for myself to even believe I deserved the life I dreamed about. Unconsciously, of course. I was surviving.

And when you’re surviving, sometimes hope is the only thing keeping you going. But when you keep hoping the next thing will finally make you feel different, the next relationship, achievement, book, trip, change, or healing modality, and nothing really changes underneath it all, hope can eventually start to feel a lot like despair.

I spent years looking for healing. Things helped. Things gave me relief. Things changed pieces of me. But something underneath it all was still asking to be understood.

Then I found shadow work. I thought I was already healed. Boy, did I have no idea.

Shadow work changed my life in ways I still struggle to put into words.

How do you explain an emotion someone has never felt?
How do you explain freedom to someone who has spent most of their life surviving?
How do you explain the feeling of finally belonging to yourself?

This work showed me patterns I couldn’t see. Parts of myself I had abandoned. Why I struggled with boundaries. Why I reacted the way I did. Why I kept experiencing different versions of the same pain.

Slowly, it gave me something I didn’t even know I was missing. Freedom. Choice. Self love. And the incredible feeling of actually being myself.

That is where my passion for this work comes from.

I know how incredibly fortunate I am that I had the resources, opportunities, teachers, and education to go as deeply into this work as I have. I became obsessed with understanding it. I researched. I studied. I invested in my education. I kept going deeper because I wanted to become the healthiest, most whole version of myself. Not only for me, but for the people I love.

And somewhere along the way, that personal search became something bigger.

Because not everyone has the time, resources, or access to spend years searching for answers. Some people are still just trying to survive tomorrow. Some don’t even know there might be something beyond constantly chasing the next thing that promises to finally make them feel better.

I want to take what took me years of searching, learning, investing, and experiencing and make it available to someone else. Not because I have all the answers, but because I know what it feels like to desperately want an answer and not even know what question to ask.

That is why I do this work.

I was once the person who didn’t know this kind of freedom existed. Now I get to take everything I’ve been fortunate enough to learn and ripple it outward. I don’t take that privilege lightly.

If this makes you think of someone who needs to know another way exists, please pass it along. Maybe they aren’t ready today. Maybe they don’t need to do anything with it at all. Maybe just knowing another way exists gives them a little hope.

Because the freedom I spent so long hoping for was real. I just didn’t know how to find it yet.

09/26/2026

This photo was taken in Podstrana, Croatia, but it feels perfect for tonight’s full moon. 🌕

A light held over the unconscious, casting a silver path across the water as if showing us the way back to ourselves.

This Aries full moon asks us to notice where we have been keeping the peace at the expense of our own truth.

Its message is simple: You can love deeply, stay connected, and still honor your own truth. ♎️♈️

09/26/2026

Our brain is really good at filling in the blanks.

When something stirs up fear, hurt, or insecurity, we can start looking for evidence that confirms what we already feel. A pause becomes rejection. A change in someone’s tone becomes proof. And before we know it, our shadow has helped write a whole story from the parts we don’t actually know.

The feeling is real. But the story our mind builds around it may need a second look.

What am I feeling? What do I know for sure? And what might I be filling in?

You don’t have to judge yourself for the story your mind creates. Just get curious about it. Sometimes that little pause helps us see what belongs to the present and what might be asking for our care from the past.

P.S. You’re going to get a lot of Montana pictures from me for a while. Sorry, not sorry. 😂🏔️🌲

P.P.S. I say it all the time: 90% of our day is unconscious behavior. When we start noticing the patterns and healing what’s underneath them, we can choose how we want to respond. Getting to help people do that is pretty cool 😎🙋‍♀️

09/23/2026

At some point in healing, the thing that once made you feel comfortable starts making you more uncomfortable than the shift itself.

Staying quiet may have once kept the peace. People pleasing helped you avoid disappointing anyone. Pretending everything was fine kept you from having the hard conversation. Your nervous system called this safety, while your soul stood in the corner thinking, “Are we seriously doing this again?”

The shift begins when abandoning your own voice hurts more than speaking your truth. When resentment feels heavier than setting the boundary. When shrinking yourself becomes more exhausting than allowing yourself to be fully seen.

This is when you realize that familiar does not always mean safe, and comfortable does not always mean healthy. Sometimes it is simply a survival strategy that expired three versions of you ago.

What once made you feel safe but now feels too small for you? What truth are you finally ready to speak?

09/22/2026

I didn’t go to Montana to become someone new. I went to remember the woman I was before I learned to abandon myself to keep the peace, make others comfortable or hold onto love.

I came home softer. But not smaller. More open, but less willing to leave myself just to belong. I am learning that real intimacy isn’t losing myself inside another person. It is allowing myself to be fully seen while still staying connected to me.

The retreat is over, but the real work is happening now in my marriage, motherhood, friendships, home and the way I hold space for my clients. I didn’t come home completely healed. I came home more honest, more awake and more deeply me.

I will never stop doing this work. Not because I am broken or because I am still searching for peace. I already have so much peace within myself. I continue because there will always be another layer to understand, another trigger that can teach me something and another part of myself ready to be seen.

Healing is not a destination I am trying to reach. It is a lifelong relationship with myself. I will keep going deeper, not because I have to, but because I finally feel safe enough to.

The more I do this work, the more I realize how much there is to learn in this lifetime, and honestly, that excites me. There will always be more to uncover, more to understand and more ways to grow. I no longer see that as exhausting. I see it as one of the greatest gifts of being alive.

What is triggering you right now?

What might that trigger be trying to show you?

What part of you is asking to be seen, understood or healed?

The trigger is not the problem. It is the doorway.

The deeper I heal, the more safely I can help others do the same.