​Who they say you are isn’t nearly as important as who you know you are.

Because the truth is, there will always be voices. Voices from your past. Voices from your failures. Voices that sound an awful lot like your fears. And sometimes those voices can sound convincing. Why wouldn't they - they’ve been rehearsed in your head for years.

But what matters most isn’t what you hear. It’s what you agree with.

The moment you agree with the wrong voice, you begin to live out a story that isn’t yours. You start making choices to defend an identity that was never yours in the first place.

How do you defend yourself against that, defend yourself against the noise?

Know who you are.

Because when you know who you are - like REALLY know it - the noise can no longer sway you. No one can apply a mask to a face that refuses to wear one.

Maybe it's our greatest superpower - being sure of who we are. The noise of the world will always be loud, but it only becomes deafening - defeating - when we start to listen to and believe noise that isn't ours to listen to and believe.

It's self-defense.

Defense against ever giving another voice the power to believe they know who you are better than you do.

They don't.

​In a recent podcast interview, Steve Bartlett asked Brené Brown, “Have you ever overcome anything?”

She answered, “Yes, I have overcome the belief that I will ever overcome anything.”

Those were timely and powerful words.

I am in the process of writing the final words of my book - the ending. And to be honest with you, I thought this would be the easiest part to write. After this long and often arduous process of digging up and writing the story of my life, I imagined that the words on the other side of all that digging would come easily.

They have not.

Why?

Because I’ve felt pressure - an internal pressure - to find some beautiful way to say look at all I’ve overcome while knowing, deep inside, that in many ways, I’ve overcome nothing.

I’ve wanted so badly to tell the readers who may find themselves in my story, readers who carry demons much like mine, here is how you overcome them.

Yet as I write this ending, here they sit. My demons. As present as they have ever been.

But as Brené Brown seemed to suggest, the story - our story - isn’t about exiling demons as much as it is about getting to know them.

Brown went on to say:

“I have overcome the belief that I will ever arrive. I am grateful for the skills that I have that keep me more aligned with the person, the mom, the partner, the leader I want to be. But I try to stay very mindful that I am scary when I’m scared. That I catastrophize very easily, and that’s painful for everyone around me. And that I don’t need to be liked—because now, the person I’m going to betray last is me. Now the person I’m going to betray last is me.”

And it hit me, what’s the point of writing the most honest version of your life you’ve ever written, only to finish it by hiding again? Why introduce the world to your ugliest and most haunting demons, only to end by giving birth to a few more?

We live in a world that wants every story to have a happy ending.
But does it? Should it?

What if life has nothing to do with arriving and everything to do with learning on the way to never arriving?

What if healing isn’t about getting rid of our demons, but about getting to know them - about becoming, somehow, more human to our demons than they are to us?

And what if the greatest pain a demon can bring is not in haunting us, but in pressuring us to pretend they’re not there, to keep betraying ourselves?

I really have overcome the belief that I will ever overcome anything. That no longer feels like defeat. Because the more I think and write about it, the more I realize - there is no happier ending to a story.

"Now the person I'm going to betray last is me."

​John Mark Comer says, "The dark underside of radical individualism is loneliness."

And what is radical individualism?

Radical individualism is the belief that the highest good in life is personal autonomy - the idea that freedom, identity, and meaning come from being completely self-determined and independent of others.

Sociologists often classify the U.S. as a "highly individualistic society" on the cultural spectrum. The U.S. consistently ranks at or near the most individualistic extreme in global studies, meaning American socialization, policies, and even marketing language tend to reinforce "I" over "we."

So yes - we are radically individualized. And while that’s given us remarkable freedom - not always a bad thing - it’s also left us relationally impoverished. We’ve become experts at building lives, but beginners at belonging.

And that has a cost.

I talk with people often about connection and loneliness. So I believe the following stats when I hear:

- 54% of Americans say no one knows them well.

- 36% report they feel lonely frequently or almost all of the time - and that number goes up to 61% when we're talking about young adults.

I have written often about the ache of loneliness, the longing to be seen and known and held. Well, that ache isn't a flaw, it's the soul's memory calling us home. It's not punishment for being too sensitive or needy, that ache is evidence of God's divine architecture for our lives.

God created us with connection in our bones. In our hearts and souls and minds. Our earliest childhood development wires us to NEED connection, not have it as a lifelong bonus.

Radical individualism tells us to numb the ache - to prove we don’t need anyone. But when we deny that longing, we don’t become free; we become broken. The loneliness doesn’t disappear, it just hides beneath busyness, success, and self-reliance.

The truth is, loneliness isn’t a sign of something wrong with us; it’s something right within us trying to get our attention. It’s the soul whispering what God said from the beginning: It is not good for man to be alone.

But are we hearing the whisper?

I fear not.

The shouts of what's in it for me seem to grow louder by the day. The willingness to push others aside in the chase to have what's in it for me have become all the more forceful. And we seem to be blind to the reality that in actually getting what's in it for me, we are losing what is most critical to you and me.

Each other.

Connection.

Radical togetherness.

It always was and always will be our human design. Without it, the ache will only grow more hurtful and destructive.

​Storms.

It's so easy to see storms as thieves arriving in the middle of the night, intent on robbing us of hope.

But is it possible - maybe - that they arrive DELIVERING hope?

I know. That seems so backwards.

But how much time do we spend searching for hope in the good times, in the peaceful weather? The times that can feel like hope is just magically dancing all around us.

A gift given and not one sought.

If we're not careful, we can begin to focus on the dance and not the dancer. It is tranquil times that can lead us to believe that hope is found in our circumstances, in our situations, and not in the One who lives in us, unfazed by circumstances and situations, an endless and unwavering stream of hope.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him (Romans 15:13).

Paul reminds us here that hope is linked to joy, peace, and faith. It transcends our circumstances because it is placed in God’s unwavering nature.

Maybe storms come as a reminder of that. A reminder that the nature of hope has little to do with the nature of our lives, and everything to do with the nature of God.

Life can feel like an endless roller coaster of hope - up and down. But that is not life, that is us.

That is us wavering, not hope.

Not God.

​A dear friend recently said to me, "I get the impression that a lot of what you write is sometimes difficult but it's also incredibly inspiring to the rest of us."

Writing is healing for me. It's a large part of my therapy. In many ways it's my best friend; so often I wake up in the middle of the night excited to have coffee with my morning friend - writing.

But to be truthful, sometimes writing - that friendship - it IS difficult. Because many days I am writing about the most difficult parts of me. That has certainly been the case as I write the final chapters of my life story.

Writing about the hard things I've experienced.

Writing about my failures and endless flaws.

Writing about my fears.

Writing about the truth that life almost always feels more like a fight than a journey to me.

But I had coffee with a friend yesterday morning and I was reminded that's what best friends share - the hardest experiences, the failures and endless flaws.

The fears and the fights.

I have come to know this about my writing without any doubt: God gave me this gift. A gift not for me so much as a gift for others. Because God has given me the wisdom to so deeply understand the depths of my own struggles and pains, and the capacity to express them in ways others understand, it blesses me with the chance to let so many others know - I do truly understand your fights in life.

Many can not read what I write without feeling themselves within my words. To any degree that is healing or inspiring to others brings great healing to me.

I have been asked many times if I find healing in writing because it allows me to release my pain. The truth is, I have pains that I accept will never ever go away. Many of us do. But I've come to believe God is far more interested in USING my pain than RELIEVING it. And I haven't always been able to say it, but I can now; I love God for that.

God watched his son suffer in pain on the cross.

Because God's a fan of pain?

No.

I think it's because God needed us all to understand as clearly as possible that what people long for most in life is someone who can see beneath all that hides their pains, and into the hearts and souls so overwhelmed by them.

When Jesus says he understands our pain, because of the pain of the cross we have no reason to doubt him. And we have no reason to not find comfort in his understanding.

I am glad I don't have to suffer on a cross to say I see you all. I am thankful that God has given me another avenue to express that to you.

I am thankful that so many of you have given me purpose in my pain, for in that purpose, there is healing. Because as Pastor Larry Brey says, "Healing isn't the absence of pain, it's the presence of purpose."

It's something any of us struggling to heal might want to explore. Am I not healing because I'm waiting for the pain to go away? Am I not healing because I've come to believe there can't possibly be any purpose to this pain?

​For a long time, I thought mental health was mostly about what was happening inside of me - my thoughts, my emotions, my ability to cope. I thought poor mental health was the result of a broken mind. That if I could just think better, or be more disciplined, or pray harder, I could fix it.

But the more I’ve lived, and the more I’ve listened to stories - my own and others’ - the more I’ve come to believe that mental health isn’t just something that lives inside of us; it lives between us.

Because when you strip away the labels and the diagnoses, so much of what we call mental illness sounds a lot like loneliness.

We don’t always recognize loneliness for what it is. Sometimes it looks like depression. Sometimes it hides beneath addiction. Sometimes it wears the mask of busyness, or anger, or withdrawal. But at its core, it’s the same ache - the pain of feeling unseen, unheard, or disconnected from the people and places that give life meaning.

I used to think the worst kind of suffering was being broken. But I've come to believe being broken doesn't hurt nearly as much as being broken alone.

Poor mental health and loneliness often dance together, so closely it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. When we lose connection to our sense of purpose, to our faith, to our people, our minds start to turn on themselves. The world grows quieter, but not in a peaceful way. It’s the kind of quiet that comes in the middle of the night, when the only thing awake are the quiet whispers that you are awake alone.

And when we can’t find our way back to others, our brains start to do what they were never meant to do: they try to heal in isolation.

Over the last decade, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the biology of stress and trauma - how the body keeps the score, how the nervous system becomes our storyteller. But I think what I've discovered most is that as much as trauma is felt in the body, healing might be felt more powerfully.

Because when someone listens, really listens, our brains change. When someone shows up for us - not with advice, but with presence - our stress chemistry calms.

Our breathing slows.

Our body begins to trust that it’s safe again.

That’s not sentimentality; it’s neuroscience. Connection is regulation. Relationship is maybe our most powerful medicine, love our greatest form of therapy.

When people tell me they don’t have coping skills, I’ve learned that what they often mean is that they don’t have people - people who know their story, who notice when they disappear, who can carry hope when they can’t.

Because the truth is, we were never meant to cope alone.

These last ten years have taught me that the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. The opposite of trauma isn’t safety, it’s relationship. The opposite of despair isn’t happiness, it’s hope - and hope is almost always something reflected upon us through through the hope of another.

When we say we’re “working on our mental health,” maybe what we really mean is we’re working on our connections. We’re learning to trust again. We’re letting people back in. We’re remembering that we were never meant to heal in silence.

Healing is never a solo act. It’s a marriage between honesty and empathy, between pain and presence.

Today, when I talk about mental health, I don’t talk about fixing people. I talk about finding each other. I talk about the spaces between us where healing happens - the places where someone feels seen enough to come out of hiding, heard enough to stop screaming, and loved enough to keep going.

Mental health isn’t just about how well we think. It’s about how well we connect. It’s not measured by how calm our minds are, but by how known our hearts feel.

Because in the end, the mind can survive many storms, but that survival almost always looks like two or more holding hands in the storm.

So, on this World Mental Health Day 2025, maybe find a hand to hold. For your mental health and for theirs.

#WorldMentalHealthDay2025 

​I woke up in the middle of the night with a thought: "Glad I didn't do it".

It arrived as one of those thoughts I often get that refuses to let me go back to sleep until I pay it a little attention (and quite often end up giving it more attention here with you).

But as I lay there it felt a bit strange to be celebrating NOT doing something. That's because our brains are much more wired to celebrate actually doing something.

Our brains love it - they reward us - when we take the leap, send the message, chase the dream, buy the thing. There's a chemistry behind the feeling of accomplishment. We are built to seek that next dopamine hit of DOING something.

But I lay there wondering, is there another kind of celebration worth practicing - one that doesn't come naturally (unless it's coming to one in a middle of the night thought).

Because some of the most important moments of my life aren't the ones where I said yes, but the ones where I finally had the wisdom or grace or just plain exhaustion to say NO.

Glad I didn't send that text.

Glad I didn't defend myself in that argument.

Glad I didn't reach for that short term comfort I know would have had long term cost.

Those wins are quiet. They rarely come with applause or adrenaline. But they do come with something else, something that feels a lot like peace.

That's what I woke up with in the middle of the night accompanying that thought - peace.

Isn't it rare, though, that we stop and give thanks for the decisions that kept us out of trouble, out of shame and regret, out of self-inflicted chaos? Our world celebrates productivity, not pause. Action, not restraint. But sometimes the wisest thing we can do is nothing at all.

And then celebrate it.

A wild thought came to me in my late night ruminating - the acronym for "Glad I didn't do it" is GIDDI.

Maybe we all need to get a little more GIDDI (or giddy) over the things we are wise enough to say no to.

I think I've spent too much of my life waiting on the right moments, the moments that are easy to say YES to, the moments that are going to bring the thrill of victory and life happily ever after. The moments that will make my life fully giddy.

But I lay awake wondering last night if it isn't my frequent inability or unwillingness to say NO that is actually standing in the way of those YES moments.

I wondered if it's my not often enough saying "Glad I didn't do it" that is standing in my way of having a life that leaves me feeling fully thankful to be doing it.

Chance are you already know how to celebrate the choices you're glad you made. Maybe you need a little practice celebrating the choices you need to be glad you DIDN'T make?

GIDDI.

Just get a little bit more GIDDI.

​I was at a large work gathering yesterday. I finished my lunch quickly and decided to return to the large conference room where we were meeting for some quiet time. Because there are times when we all NEED some quiet time.

But on my way there, I noticed a dear friend and colleague sitting in a chair in the corner of a nook in our conference area. She was alone, but something told me her alone wasn't out of a search for quiet time.

So I approached her.

I hadn't seen her in quite some time. So I asked her, how are you? The answer was quite evident to me before I asked, so I wasn't surprised to hear her say, I've been struggling.

She went on to tell me she'd been battling health issues.

I asked her if the health issues were significant. Looking back I wish I hadn't asked that. Her sitting alone in a chair and the worried look on her face was all I needed to know about significance. I should never pressure another to rate their struggle as significant or insignificant. Struggle is struggle.

With that said, though, my friend's health struggle is indeed significant and complicated.

As she told me what she is battling, I found myself taking one of her hands with one of my hands and placing my other hand gently on her head - much without thinking - and I told her that I am praying for her.

I was praying for her in that moment. I am praying for her in this writing.

I don't know what the answer to those prayers will be. But I could feel in our exchange that I was a momentary answer to her worries. To her anxiousness. I could tell I was a necessary reminder that her health is more important than her work - helpers are often the worst at slowing down and taking care of themselves the way they tirelessly encourage others to take care of THEMSELVES.

I am glad that on my way to chasing alone time God pointed me to someone alone who didn't much care to be alone.

We live in a world where issues and struggles are often loud and amplified. They are attacking and in our face. That makes it all the more important for us to be ever mindful of those quietly struggling. Those sitting in a corner far away from the fray but not far away from the fray of their own inner turmoil.

We live in times where it's easy to be grateful for the silence - for ours and the silence of others. I understand that. But we also need to understand that silence isn't always a desire, sometimes it's an invitation.

​I’m learning something about myself these days: I don’t have to be outraged by things that don’t outrage me.

That might sound obvious, but it isn’t in a culture where outrage spreads faster than the truth ever could. I saw it again this week. Jimmy Kimmel said something on his show. Hardly anyone noticed in the moment. But almost a day later, a few high-profile voices expressed their outrage, and suddenly it was everywhere.

Commentators dissecting it. Headlines amplifying it. Friends and strangers echoing it.

And I found myself wondering, how much of what outrages us actually outrages us?

I think a lot of us have become megaphones for outrage that isn’t even ours. We hear someone else raise their voice and we instinctively raise ours. Not because we felt the sting ourselves, but because silence feels risky. Because belonging to a side feels safer than standing in the middle. Because outrage, these days, is how you prove your loyalty.

I suppose I have been there, maybe I get drawn back into it from time to time, but I know I have no desire to any longer live there.

There’s a difference between outrage that’s really ours and outrage we just copy. Real outrage comes when something touches what we believe deep down, when it bumps into our own values or experiences. That’s the kind of thing that stirs you to speak or act because it matters to you.

The other kind is borrowed. That’s when we carry someone else’s anger even if it doesn’t actually come from our own heart.

The danger is that borrowed outrage exhausts us. It crowds out the things we are genuinely called to care about. It can even numb us to our own convictions. Worse, it makes outrage look performative - like a way of keeping score, or a way of being seen, rather than a force for meaningful change.

I don’t mean silence is always the answer. Silence has its own cost. Like I wrote yesterday, I’ve lived that cost. I spent years in a marriage believing silence was the healthy option. It wasn’t. Speaking up - early, honestly, and imperfectly - might have saved things.

Silence can wound just as much as words.

But here’s the distinction I’m trying to live into: not every spark deserves my fire. If I’m going to speak out, I want it to be because the outrage is mine and not someone else’s echo.

The world doesn’t need more megaphones. It needs more people who know the difference between a passing wave of noise and a deep call of conviction.

So I’m learning to let the waves pass. And when the deep call comes, I’ll know it’s mine.

​Hurt sucks, but hurt doesn't have to suck the life out of you.

Maybe I'm not the right person to be writing this to you. Not because I haven't experienced my fair share of hurt, because I indeed have, but because more than most - I think - I have let hurt suck the total living life out of me.

Literally.

Hurt is an event. An experience. A chapter in time. That is not the problem. The problem is when we allow the chapter to become the book. When hurt no longer defines an experience in our lives but actually becomes the story of our lives.

How does that happen?

We keep letting hurt tell the story about us instead of us telling hurt the story about our helper.

It is true that I've told stories of my hurt in many different ways. I can be creative. Often the same hurt, just different stories. Like:

The story of blaming others for my hurt.

The story of clinging tightly to the victimhood of my story.

The story of writing a false truth on my hurt that says experiencing ugly things surely means I'm an ugly person.

The story of believing that DOING horrible things makes me an unredeemable horrible person.

One hurt. Many narratives. Narratives that can circle around my hurts - round and round - forever. Like guards standing watch, making sure those narratives never stop circling long enough for me to cry out.

Cry out for help.

For God is the great interrupter of circles in my life. The God who is not the story of my hurt but the absorber of my hurt. The God who says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Maybe the opposite of going to God with my burdens is circling them all alone with my own creative stories. And maybe the stories I tell myself about my hurts are quite the opposite of the stories God will tell me about my hurts. And maybe—just maybe—that leads to hurts that never heal instead of hurts that become instrumental to a life journey that turns burdens to light.

That has been the greatest source of healing in my life. Letting go of the need to tell myself stories about my hurt that will make me feel better and handing it over to a God who wants only to make rest of that hurt. Rest of my every hurt.

I long to feel better; God longs for me to receive rest.

We can get so busy circling our hurts that we forget how to summon help. ~ Steven Furtick

For me, that help is God. Maybe for you it is not. But the message remains the same.

Chances are always better that crying out to a helper is going to do for our hurts what our own made-up stories never will. Crying out for help is always going to give us a better chance of breaking out of patterns of reliving our hurts and freeing us to move into new patterns of healing.

The way forward isn’t circling our hurts; it’s moving toward our helper.