6:40 AM—Baltimore, at home.
It’s Sunday again! And lucky us, again.
It’s official snow emergency time and there is projected heavy snowfall all day today. I am grateful to be inside, and to be up doing what I said I would do. Proving myself trustworthy (to myself) felt a mammoth task once, but most of the time, I found the solution to be to make a smaller, more keep-able promise to myself whenever I did make a promise to myself. A smaller, tinier, mini-mini promise one can keep is more desirable than the major self-esteem damage born from not keeping grander promises to oneself. I find that often times, the Grand Promise is not actually possible to keep; it’s a promise made for the sake of making.
The not-keeping of this promise, however, always makes an entry in the logbook of lost dreams; the running list of all the times I said I would do something for myself and didn’t. I saw how I made a promise I couldn’t keep, proving myself to be an untrustworthy adult (like my father) and responding to the distrust by repeating cycles and seeking dynamics that mirrored the familiar (complex trauma from child abuse), often through the participation of another untrustworthy I would seek unattainable care and approval from (like my father).
I can’t say how different it is to experience capital R Realizings from a place where I’m steeped in compassion. When I turned 25 in the bedroom I tried to end my life in a decade before, my frontal lobe got done baking and the patterns did start patterning in a front-of-my-brain way. I call it a capital R realizing: when something—maybe a behavior of yours that you don’t love—has been on loop in in the back of your brain for a while, and then you turn 25 and one day that same realizing arrives with a capital R. Things just start clicking because for the first time, you have a full brain to work with.
This makes me think about how baby giraffes are born: brand new, welcome-to-earth style dropped from their mothers onto it, and walking within minutes. Human babies are grossly underdone by survival metrics by the time they are born. It takes nearly a full year in the best case scenario. Nine months of growing a human being. All this while the withstanding fact remains that a human body cannot grow a human baby to a well-done—survival-done?—quality while preserving the life of the human that grew it. All this while the United States of America continues the pathological lie of individualism. Imagine thinking that going it alone is how our species survived this long, with each of us arriving severely underdone upon entrance to the world.
In any case, there is an example of a capital R realizing (now to be written Realizing). The big picture clicks into place by some or other measure. It’s a pleasure sometimes, to recognize that having your full brain at your disposal is not quite like the movie Lucy (2014), but it does make accessible your most expansive level of consideration yet. You can Think Differently! And most of the time, you do anyway; this is the effect of time on a brain. This is your brain on time.
It is a lot easier to have hard Realizings when you can access self-compassion. This was my initial point: these days, because I like and love myself, it’s easier for me to look at a behavior I don’t like in myself, because I can do it compassionately. I can see a seventeen-year-old version when reflecting on a conversation where I sucked all the air out of the room, and I feel so much care and compassion for that girl while understanding my behavior to not be what I wanted. Self-compassion grants one access to a tremendous observational power. It teaches me I can hold both without having both. Both fill-in-your-own-blank. I can hold both happiness that I am brave enough to block my narcissistic father, and grief that is coupled with permanently shutting a door. I cannot have both my self-respect and an open-door policy with my primary abuser. I can steep myself in compassion like a double tea bag cuppa and zoom all the way out to the version at the other end of my life. I can hand off the zoom because, metaphorically speaking, her phone has 0.5 zoom and mine does not. I can lean into the thing that we share—a love and appreciation for all the versions that survived to be us—and have her drive the bus. It mostly looks like being the adult I want to be, to that version of myself.
A few months ago on Threads, a user asked what was up with adults who were theater kids that are irrevocably loud and talkative. Sometimes the mirror hits out of nowhere, and sometimes, it’s a rearview. Relief in the rear view and my explanation offered appeared as such:
If you had a reasonable desire to be heard as a child, and were not heard as a child, until you understand this core part of your behavior, the child in you will always be yelling above everyone else. This is because they need to be heard, because they have a desire to be heard, and because you are your adult. You are responsible for meeting your needs, whether you own that responsibility or not.
If an is adult focused on meeting their needs, and does so by repeating cycles of learned behavior, they meet the challenge of shame early on, knowingly or unknowingly. If they build a marvelous, full life powered by shame, the motor requires active self-loathing to run. If they want to stop the self-loathing, they meet the challenge of their shame-powered structure not standing.
If we are lucky enough to become adults, we learn how it is indeed true that your new life will cost you your old one.
If we are lucky enough to become our own adults, we learn how your old life and all its hard stuff—the sacrifices and false starts, the continual loss and resurrection, the gritted teeth and clenched jaws—bankrolls your new life.
If we are lucky enough to become our own adults (!) we learn how being brave enough to initiate and face loss in our old lives does indeed bankroll our new lives—and the confidence our future selves.
Thanks for reading my Sunday essay. Free essays are published every Monday. Beginning on February 15, 2026, Sunday essays will available with paid subscriptions ($9/mo or Pay What You Can).
★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★
That being said, I welcome you to the Sunday Special. Sunday essays will arrive with two sections: CARDS OF THE WEEK and Prompts or Playlist (POP). Both are pieces of my personal practice I now feel called to share, and the container here feels clearly correct. CARDS contains seven cards drawn for the week ahead, providing a piece of tarot medicine, as my teacher Lindsey Mack calls it, to root into in the coming days. I channel the cards and assign the days to the cards during that process. Then I look at the astrology for the coming week to see if there are any corresponding occurrences. I return to the card of the day as an anchor throughout the day and try to consciously call on its medicine when facing challenges and joys. POP will be either journal prompts, or a playlist, or both? I’m unsure what everything will look like long term but I have a lot more clarity about the tiniest piece of the bigger picture, and really, I am beyond grateful for it. I think it just enough; I have no desire to have a larger-than-I-need piece of the bigger picture. Thank goodness. That’s growth.
★ ☆ CARDS OF THE WEEK ★ ☆
MONDAY, JANUARY 26: The Hierophant (ruled by Taurus)
Current related astrology: Moon in Taurus
Medicine: The Hierophant is an omnidirectional channel. Connected to the divine, aware AND willing to take on the responsibility upon him to relay and uphold the integrity of the messages received. Often the Hierophant is related to Chiron, the asteroid of the wounded healer archetype. An omnidirectional channel is a wounded healer.
Reading: Chiron from Cosmic Cousins
TUESDAY, JANUARY 27: Temperance (ruled by Sagittarius)
Medicine: ‘To temper’ means to ease between extremes. A very gravity planet card: here on Earth, there are ups and downs, and you can count on them. The spirit of Temperance encourages an understanding of the long game, the patient alchemist transfers solutions between states until just right.
Reading: Reading the Decans: Express Delivery! [Sagittarius I] by T. Susan Chang
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28: V of Pentacles (ruled by Taurus)
Medicine: This card always reminds me of the fidelity of uncertainty in the human experience. Always, there is a difficult time to get through; always there is a light that appears to be both problem-solving power and just out of reach. Susan Chang calls this decan Sacred Doubt. Today, experiment with this doubt. Appreciate the certainty of its appearance. Sitting with worry makes worry feel welcome. Understanding worry stops it from invoking paralysis. Welcome worries are a lot less world-wrecking
THURSDAY, JANUARY 29: VIII of Pentacles (ruled by Virgo)
Current related astrology: Mercury conjunct Venus in Aquarius
Medicine: Today this card speaks to the mastery that comes from quiet repetition, especially as it relates to our behaviors and our ways of making things material in this world. Remember: there are not so many ways but to do it, and one learns to do it right by doing it until it is right. A great day for sending out your message to the masses, to shout your reasons for caring, beautifying, and loving from the proverbial rooftops.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30: The High Priestess (ruled by the Moon)
Current related astrology: Moon in Cancer trine North node in Pisces
Medicine: Heightened sensitivities abound. We are bookending the work week with two cards of similar archetypes: both seated between pillars, both holding immense knowledge, both in correspondence with the divine. The Hierophant obtains his position by living, learning, and teaching from studies and experience; the High Priestess invites us to harness our intuitive, body-held knowing and learn from it. What does your body tell you about your role in the collective right now? How are you showing up for and connecting to your home, the Earth?
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31: VI of Wands (ruled by Leo)
Medicine: Sandwiched between this week’s lunar and solar influences is a moment of assessment, and really, celebration (if we like what we see). We are invited to take stock of who we are, what our energy is currently like, and how much it took to get here! We are invited to celebrate ourselves accordingly.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1: The Sun (ruled by the Sun)
Current related astrology: Full moon in Leo
Medicine: During a full moon, the Moon is opposite the sun. During this full moon, the Sun is shining a huge light on how our self-leadership has contributed to our changing definition of a good time over the last six months.
★ ☆ POP PROMPTS – Sunday, January 25, 2026 ★ ☆
1. TO YOU, WHAT ARE SOME TRAITS THE IDEAL INNER LEADER HAS?
2. WHAT COULD LEANING INTO AND EMBODYING ONE/SOME OF THESE TRAITS LOOK LIKE IN YOUR DAY-TO-DAY LIFE? Go small! Bite sized change is chewable!
3. IS THE INNER LEADER DIFFERENT FROM THE HIGHER SELF? WHY OR WHY NOT?
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