Healing in the pancake moments. 💜🍀☮️

This morning, as I stood in the kitchen with my girls—pajamas still on, hair a mess, little hands flipping pancakes alongside mine—I found myself slowing down. Not just physically, but emotionally. These kinds of mornings have a way of doing that. They’re full of laughter, little spills, and sticky fingers… but they’re also full of something sacred. As I watched my daughters glow in their joy, I felt something stir deep inside me. It was both beautiful and bittersweet.

I was suddenly brought back to my own childhood. To the quiet ache of what wasn’t there. The mornings that weren’t filled with laughter or pancakes or a sense of safety. And in that moment, I couldn’t help but think—this is what I needed. This is what so many of us needed but didn’t get.

People love to say, “just get over it,” when it comes to trauma. As if healing is a switch you flip or a chapter you close just because someone tells you it’s time. But healing doesn’t work like that. It’s messy. It’s layered. It shows up in the most unexpected places—like while you’re pouring syrup or hearing your child giggle. That’s when the grief comes quietly knocking, not to ruin the moment, but to remind you how far you’ve come.

What really gets me, though, is how many people walk around thinking they’re “fine.” That what happened to them wasn’t that bad. That they’re unaffected, that there’s nothing to heal. But I’ve learned that if you haven’t looked within—really looked—then you’re probably carrying more than you realize. Numbness doesn’t mean peace. Avoidance doesn’t equal healing.

I’ve spent a lot of time asking questions that don’t always have answers. One that circles my mind more than I’d like to admit is this: What if my older brother had been my older sister? Would life have felt softer? Would I have learned to trust sooner? Would I have felt protected instead of on guard? It’s a heavy thought. Not because I want to rewrite history, but because sometimes, imagining what could have been helps me understand why I show up the way I do now. It reminds me of the importance of doing things differently.

Last summer, life peeled back another layer of truth for me. It was one of those seasons where everything comes to the surface—pain, memories, realizations. It cracked me open in ways I didn’t expect, and I’m still picking up the pieces, still learning how to grow through the discomfort. But that season, as hard as it was, reminded me that I get to do this differently now. I get to be the one who changes the cycle.

So when I find myself in the kitchen with my girls, making pancakes and giggling over burnt edges, I don’t take it for granted. These moments are more than just breakfast—they’re little revolutions. They’re proof that healing doesn’t always look like therapy or journaling or crying on the bathroom floor. Sometimes, healing looks like flipping pancakes with your daughters and giving them the love you never had. And that, to me, is everything.

My girls