The Five Thresholds of Coming Back to Yourself

Most women don’t wake up one day and realize they’ve lost themselves.

It happens gradually.

You give your energy to your children, your partner, your work, the steady needs of the people around you. You become skilled at noticing what others require before they say a word. You learn how to keep things moving, how to hold it all together.

And somewhere along the way, you begin to feel a little farther away from your own life.

Not unhappy, exactly.

Just numb.

Disconnected.

As if you’re present—but watching yourself live from behind a sheet of glass.

This quiet disconnection is often what brings women to my work.

Not a crisis.

Not a breaking point.

Just a persistent sense that something essential has gone offline.

When Self-Care Is New Territory

Many of the women I work with wouldn’t describe themselves as particularly embodied or introspective. They’re not coming in with a long list of tools or practices. In fact, self-care can feel foreign—or even indulgent.

They are often mothers, partners, caretakers, and helpers. People-pleasers who learned early how to put others first.

And while that devotion can be meaningful, it often comes with a quiet cost.

Over time, the body learns to mute sensation. Emotions get tucked away. Needs feel inconvenient. Desire itself can begin to fade into the background.

What’s left is a simple, aching longing:

I want to feel like I’m actually inside my life again.

The Five Thresholds

After more than fourteen years of working with women—and through my own ongoing process of losing and finding myself again—I began to notice a pattern.

Coming back to yourself doesn’t happen all at once.

It happens in stages.

Through thresholds.

Each one small.

Each one meaningful.

Each one opening the door just a little wider.

The five thresholds are:

• Recognition — noticing where and how you’ve disconnected

• Permission — allowing yourself to matter again

• Softening — releasing the armor that once kept you safe

• Listening — tuning back in to your inner signals

• Choosing — making choices that honor what you hear

  
  

These thresholds aren’t something to “complete.” We move through them again and again as life asks new things of us.

Why Permission Is Often the Hardest

Of all five, Permission is the place I see women get stuck most often.

When you’ve spent years overriding your own needs for the sake of others, choosing yourself can feel deeply uncomfortable—even wrong. There’s guilt. Resistance. Fear of being selfish or disruptive.

When this threshold isn’t crossed, resentment quietly accumulates. Energy drains. A woman’s vitality and feminine power remain constrained—not because she lacks strength, but because she hasn’t been allowed to claim herself.

Permission isn’t dramatic.

It’s subtle.

And it changes everything.

A Personal Word About Softening

For me, Softening has always been tender territory.

Letting go of vigilance and control sounds beautiful in theory, but in practice it often brings guilt. Old stories about responsibility. About staying strong. About what happens if I stop holding everything together.

Softening isn’t weakness—but it can feel risky when your identity has been built around being capable, steady, and reliable.

And yet, again and again, I’ve found that this is where the deepest return begins.

A Gentle Doorway Back

I created the Five Thresholds of Coming Back to Yourself as a free mini-course because I wanted to offer a real experience of this work—without asking for a large investment of time, effort, or energy.

This isn’t a promise of transformation.

It’s not a demand for change.

It’s a doorway.

Over ten days, you’ll receive one threshold at a time. Each includes a short, grounding reflection and a simple practice—about fifteen minutes per day—designed to help you notice subtle shifts in awareness and presence.

Nothing to fix.

Nothing to force.

Just space to notice what’s already there.

My hope is that by the end, you feel:

• more present in your body

• less numb

• more compassionate toward the parts of you that learned to disconnect

Not changed—but gently re-oriented toward yourself.

A Soft Invitation

If you’re feeling a little disconnected, and you don’t want another thing to manage or master, this offering was made with you in mind.

You can move through it slowly.

At your own pace.

In your own way.

If you feel called to begin, you can step through the doorway here:

The Five Thresholds of Returning to Yourself