Memorial Day has always carried a quiet emotional weight for me.

Growing up in Iowa, my father organized the local American Legion Memorial Day service each year. I remember the red poppies people pinned onto their shirts to honor those who gave their lives in service to others. It was a tradition rooted in remembrance, sacrifice, and gratitude.

As I’ve grown older, this holiday has come to mean something else for me too: the courage it takes to keep living after the life you knew falls apart.

Years ago, within the span of less than a year, my health collapsed. Then my career. Then my marriage.

Suddenly, I found myself a single parent on disability, staring at a future I no longer recognized. The life I had worked so hard to build disappeared almost overnight, and I had no idea how to rebuild it.

For a long time, I didn’t rebuild at all.

I survived.

I cried constantly. I questioned everything. I replayed every decision that had led me there and turned against myself in ways I would never have treated another human being. I searched everywhere for healing, exploring western medicine, eastern practices, holistic approaches, spiritual teachings, and anything else that promised relief from the emotional and physical pain that refused to go away.

Looking back now, I realize that season taught me one of the most important truths of my life:

I had spent years trying not to be abandoned by others while quietly abandoning myself.

At the time, I thought I needed to get my old life back. My health back. My marriage back. My career back.

But the one I really needed to recover was me.

The Beginning of Self-Solidarity

That realization changed everything.

The work I teach today through The Wheel of Self-Forgiveness™, The NO-MATTER-WHAT Way™, and the practice of Self-Solidarity was born from that season of collapse. Not from theory. Not from a book. But from desperately needing a way to stop turning on myself so I could survive.

Slowly, through small acts of self-forgiveness, I began learning how to stand with, by, and for myself.

Not perfectly.

Not dramatically.

Not all at once.

But enough to begin coming home to myself again.

And little by little, life started growing again too.

How Chesapeake Paradise Was Born

Eventually, that painful chapter became the foundation for something entirely new.

The woman who once could barely imagine making it through another month went on to create Chesapeake Paradise, a waterfront retreat where people now come to rest, reconnect, celebrate, grieve, heal, laugh, and breathe again.

Interestingly, Chesapeake Paradise began almost by accident.

I had renovated the upstairs of my home but struggled to rent it traditionally. I imagined it could maybe become a writer’s retreat or artist sanctuary someday. Around that same time, I discovered Airbnb when it was still brand new. That was Memorial Day weekend in 2009.

That same year, I also discovered the work of Byron Katie, whose teachings helped me question the fearful thoughts that had been keeping me stuck.

From there, I simply kept taking the next step.

I trusted the vision even when I couldn’t yet see the outcome. I fought to hold onto this sacred property through divorce and uncertainty, then slowly transformed it into a way to support myself while I was still too unwell to fully return to traditional work.

Sometimes I still walk around this property in awe that it exists at all.

I often tell my clients:

“Free fall into reality and let love catch you.”

And it does.

Love just doesn’t always arrive looking the way we expected. Sometimes it looks like chronic illness. Sometimes it looks like heartbreak. Sometimes it looks like losing everything you thought defined your life.

But sometimes those losses become the doorway into a more honest, more aligned life than the one you were trying so desperately to preserve.

Collapse Is Not Always the End

What makes Chesapeake Paradise meaningful is not perfection or luxury.

It’s the fact that it was built from the remains of a life I thought was over.

Every retreat held here, every family gathering, every quiet sunrise by the Bay, and every guest who tells me they finally exhaled while staying here reminds me of something important:

Collapse is not always the end of the story.

Sometimes it is the beginning.

That is what I want people to remember this Memorial Day.

Whatever regret you carry.

Whatever version of yourself you believe you lost.

Whatever mistakes you cannot stop replaying.

There is a way back from abandoning yourself.

Not by forcing positivity.

Not by pretending painful things never happened.

Not by waiting for the world to finally prove you are worthy.

But by becoming the one who stays with yourself through it all.

The one who says:

“I understand why you did what you did.”

“We can face what comes next.”

“I will not leave you over this.”

That is the beginning of Self-Solidarity.

And from there, lives can be rebuilt.

Businesses can grow.

Homes can heal.

Relationships can soften.

Bodies can finally exhale.

Peace can return to places that once felt permanently broken.

You Can Come Home to Yourself

This Memorial Day, I am honoring those who gave everything in service to others.

And I am also honoring the quiet courage it takes for ordinary people to choose life again after loss.

If you are walking through one of those rebuilding seasons right now, I hope you offer yourself more kindness than criticism today.

And if you ever find yourself staying with us by the Bay, attending a retreat, or sitting with me in a coaching group, I hope you feel what this place was always meant to hold:

You can come home to yourself.

No matter what.

If you’re in a season of rebuilding and want support learning how to stop abandoning yourself, I invite you to book a call with me. Let’s talk about where you are, what you’re carrying, and what healing could look like moving forward.