Zenfull Heart | September 8, 2026
Hey little Sherry
I have been thinking about you a lot lately. The little girl who learned way too early that love could be confusing, cold and painful and that adults could disappear, that home was not safe. And that sometimes the people who were supposed to protect you were carrying so much of their own shit that there wasn't enough room left for yours.
You learned how to survive before your first breath. Then you learned, how to watch people. You felt the energy and tension in a room. You knew when someone's mood would change everything, so paying attention mattered. I know now you had to adjust yourself depending on who was around you. You learned that being wanted felt important because somewhere underneath all of it was this little question that followed you for years.
Am I important enough for somebody to stay?
And sweetheart, I wish I could go back and tell you what I know now. People leaving was never proof that you were not worth staying for.
You spent so much of your life trying to find family, home, belonging and love in whatever form was available. Sometimes you found beautiful people who stepped in and loved you in ways they probably never even understood the importance of. Sometimes family came through people who were not family at all and you held onto those connections because you needed them, because having somebody nearby could feel safer than having nobody.
That followed us for a very long time. I know when I got older, I didn't necessarily understand how deeply it followed me. I could be lonely as hell while somebody was sitting right beside me and still think having somebody there meant I wasn't alone. I could live inside chaos and convince myself that at least I had a person. I could mistake familiarity for safety because my body understood familiar long before it understood peace. There were times in our life when being alone actually felt scarier than being somewhere that wasn't good for us. I understand that now.
How could you have known?
You were learning love from whatever love looked like around you. You were learning relationships before you had the ability to look outside of them and ask whether they were healthy. You were learning what to tolerate based on what you had already survived. Eventually that little girl grew into a woman who could withstand an unbelievable amount of shit. For a long time I thought being able to withstand it was strength now I know sometimes strength is leaving. Sometimes strength is saying this is fucking killing me and I cannot live like this anymore.
There came a point when our life looked like something people are taught to want from the OUTSIDE: The house. The relationship. The Vehicles. Businesses and all The things that came with a “normal life”. The picture of an American dream. But underneath it, I was disappearing and hanging on because I was lying to myself.
I was surrounded by fear that wasn't originally mine, scarcity and anger. I distrusted family, friends, people and the world. I lived around it my whole life, so I carried all of it as though it belonged to me. And somewhere inside of all of that, you were still there. Waiting. Probably wondering when the grown-up version of us was finally going to notice that we were scared.
I notice now.
I notice how many times you were begging me through our body to listen. I was wrong and talked myself out of my own knowing. I notice how desperately I wanted love to eventually become safe if I just loved hard enough, understood enough, forgave enough, explained enough, helped enough, waited enough or became enough. You spent your childhood wondering whether you were enough, and then I carried that question into adulthood and tried to answer it through other people. I am so sorry for that, not because I think I failed you. I was surviving with the awareness that I had. But I am sorry that it took me so long to realize what you were actually asking for. You weren't asking me to make somebody love us. You were asking me to stop abandoning us. That one hurts to admit. Because most days I knew something hurt and stayed. There were times I knew I was disappearing and kept trying harder. There were times I cared so much about whether everyone else was okay that I forgot to ask whether I was in need of anything.
I became really good at holding everybody else. I did not know how to hold you. But I do now. And I need you to hear something that might take us the rest of our life to fully believe. I am not going anywhere. If somebody doesn't choose us, I am still here. If somebody misunderstands us, I am still here. If anyone gets angry because we have a boundary, I am still here. If somebody decides we are too much, too emotional, too different, too spiritual, too loud, too honest or too fucking Sherry, I am still here. We are not sacrificing ourselves anymore just so somebody doesn't leave. If they leave, we stay. That might be the biggest promise I ever make to you. We stay! And look at what happened when we finally did. We left. We sold the house. We stepped outside of the life we had known without having any answers about what came next. We became home free. We got in that Highlander and started seeing what life looked like when nobody else got to decide what our day was supposed to be. And sweetheart, some of it has been lonely.
I am not going to lie and turn this into some beautiful spiritual story where I found myself and suddenly never wanted another person again. That isn't true. There are nights I still want somebody. There are moments I wish somebody were sitting beside me. There are times I miss having a person with me, even though I absolutely do not miss what I had to give up in order to have somebody there. There are moments when that old ache wakes up and I wonder whether somebody will ever really choose us, love us, see us and stay. WE still ask that question sometimes. But something is different now. I don't want somebody to save us anymore. I want somebody who can stand beside us and walk alongside us. There is a huge difference between that.
I don't want to disappear into somebody else's life. I don't want to take on somebody else's fears. I am not going to manage anyone’s emotional world just so everything stays calm. I don't want love that requires me to give away pieces of myself. I want to be me. If I want to drink coffee at five o'clock at night I will, If I want to nap because I'm tired no one will stop me. If I want to leave my dishes in the sink for days and laundry in the dryer, who will say anything? If want to travel whenever and where ever without fear I WILL! . I want to wake up and decide what each day looks like. I want to love somebody someday without having to surrender the freedom I fought so hard to find. And that freedom belongs to you too. You know what else we did? We found people and community. Not just one person but many who came in and magically filled the holes, We found people through meditation, retreats, travel and healing work who understand parts of us that used to feel strange or too much. We found people who can talk about energy and consciousness and healing without looking at us like we have lost our mind. We found laughter and hugs and conversations in places we never would have imagined when we were little.
We stood in Ajijic holding a free hug sign and hugged strangers without even knowing the Spanish language. Think about that. The little girl who spent so much of her life looking for love grew into a woman who literally stands in public and gives it away. Not because she has none left for herself. Because she finally discovered that love isn't something we have to beg somebody else to hand us. It moves through us. We built Zenfull Heart from that. Soul Messages, kindness, human connection, free hugs, words. shirts, ideas. A business that basically says, hey, human being, I know life can be hard as hell, but you matter.
Do you see what we did with everything we lived through? We didn't become hard. That might be one of the things I am proudest of. We could have. There were plenty of reasons to. Instead, underneath everything, we still hope people heal. Even people who hurt us. We believe in love. We truly believe people can change. We still believe life can become something completely different. But I am learning something important for both of us. Loving someone does not mean going back into the fire with them. Holding space for somebody does not mean handing them our life. Compassion does not require self-abandonment. And somebody else's healing is not our responsibility.
That lesson is for you, little one, because you spent so much time believing that if you could just make everybody okay, maybe you could finally be okay too. You don't have to do that anymore. You can put it down. I have it from here. I know we are still working some things out. I know I don't have everything figured out. I still compare myself to people on a screen and wonder why I am not further ahead. I worry about money. Sometimes I spend too much time scrolling instead of creating. I have huge dreams about coaching and writing and Zenfull Heart and helping people and then feel overwhelmed wondering how the hell I'm going to turn all of it into an actual life. Sometimes the woman who survived everything still doubts herself. Isn't that wild? But I am starting to understand that healing was never going to turn me into some flawless woman who never gets scared again.
Healing means when I get scared, I don't leave myself there alone. I come back. I sit with you. I listen. I remind you where we are. We are not back there. We are not trapped. We have choices. We have a voice. We have a vehicle. We have places we can go. We have people we can call. We have a whole life that belongs to us. And most importantly, we have me. I am the grown-up now. I know that probably sounds strange because some days I feel like I'm still figuring this shit out as I go and once in a while can’t even get out of bed, but I am. I am the woman you needed. Not because I always know what to do. Because I will listen to you now I will believe you when something doesn't feel right. will not tell you that you are too sensitive. I will not make you stay somewhere because leaving inconveniences somebody else. I will not force you to earn rest. i will not force you to earn love. I will not trade our peace for somebody else's approval. I will not hand you back to chaos because chaos happens to miss us. And I will not confuse being wanted with being loved ever again.
I know you are still searching sometimes. I know part of you is still hoping and praying and needing So I am not going to tell you to stop. You are human, you are allowed to want love an to want somebody's arms around you. You are allowed to want family, connection, partnership and home. You are allowed to want someone who looks at you and thinks, holy shit, how did I get lucky enough to love this woman? I want that for us too. But while we are waiting for whatever love still gets to meet us in this lifetime, I need you to look around. this is not the waiting room anymore. This is our life. Right now. The road trips. The animals we care for. The places we stay. The people we meet. The meditations. The retreats. The sunsets and rises we get to enjoy! The hugs. The ridiculous ideas. The shirts. The moments when I suddenly look around and think, holy shit, I actually did this “This Is Our Life”. And I don't want either one of us to miss it because we're still staring at the door wondering who is going to walk through it. Come sit beside me instead. There is so much I want to show you. There is a whole world outside of survival.
We are still learning how to live in it. And maybe that is what this chapter really is. Not finding somebody who finally comes back for the little girl. Realizing I already did. I came back for you. I chose you. I took your hand. And when staying was going to destroy us, I got us the fuck out. Maybe I didn't do it as quickly as I wish I had. I got lost a thousand times first. But I came. And I am still coming for you every single day So you can stop standing at that window. You can stop wondering who remembered you. I did. I remember you, I see every version of you. The little girl who needed somebody. The teenager who learned to take care of herself. The young woman who kept looking for home. the woman who stayed too long. The woman who finally left. The woman who climbed into a completely unknown life because something inside of her knew there had to be more than survival. And the woman sitting here now, still healing, still creating, still lonely sometimes, still hopeful, still alive. They are all of us, and I love every single one of them. Especially you. Because you are where all of this started.
You kept something alive inside of us that life never managed to take. Hope and faith that life could be beautiful After everything, you still believed there had to be love somewhere. You were right, sweetheart, there was. It was us. It was always us. And now that I know that, I promise I will never make you search for yourself inside somebody else again. You are home.
You are with me.
And this time, we stay together always! I LOVE YOU LITTLE Sherry
