Once I admitted that I didn’t want to stop creating- that I simply didn’t want to perform anymore- the conversation took a direction I wasn’t expecting.
Someone asked me something so simple that I almost answered without thinking.
“If nobody ever saw another Instagram post from you... would you still write?”
There wasn’t even a pause.
“Yes.”
Of course I would. I’d still write. I’d still sit with a notebook. I’d still try to make sense of life by putting words on a page. I’d still search for metaphors whenever my feelings became too big for ordinary language.
I’d still write.
The answer came so naturally that I almost missed what it was trying to tell me.
Because if that’s true, then maybe writing was never about social media. Maybe it was never about content. Maybe it was never even about having something to say.
Maybe writing has always been something much more personal.
I sat there for a while thinking about that.
Then, almost without warning, my childhood came rushing back to me.
I remembered being a little girl.
Whenever life became confusing... I wrote.
Whenever my feelings felt too heavy... I wrote.
Whenever something happened that I couldn’t explain... I wrote.
Poems. Stories. Essays. Pages that no one else would ever read.
Not because someone encouraged me to. Not because I dreamed of becoming a writer.
Because writing was the only place where everything inside me finally made sense.
Some children process life by talking. Some by drawing. Some by playing.
I processed mine through words.
Long before I understood poetry, I was writing it. Long before I understood symbolism, I was hiding pieces of myself inside metaphors. Long before I knew that stories could heal other people...
They were quietly healing me.
As I grew older, those notebooks slowly became spoken word. I found myself standing on stages, sharing pieces of my heart with complete strangers. I eventually published a poetry book.
And almost every single time I shared something deeply personal, someone would come up to me afterward and say, “I felt like you were telling my story.”
Back then, I thought maybe that was just what poetry did.
Now I think it was something else entirely.
People aren’t looking for perfect words. They’re looking for someone who has the courage to tell the truth.
The conversation kept unfolding.
Then I found myself saying something that stopped me in my tracks.
“No one ever took care of me.”
The moment those words left my mouth, they felt true.
For a moment.
Then someone gently said, “Now listen to what you’ve just told me.”
At first, I didn’t understand.
Then they continued.
“As a little girl, whenever life became confusing... You wrote. Whenever your heart became too heavy... You wrote. Whenever you couldn’t make sense of your feelings... You wrote.”
I felt tears filling my eyes before I even understood why.
Because suddenly I saw something I had never seen before.
In a way, that little girl had been taking care of me all along.
She found a way to hold experiences that were too heavy for a child to carry. She gave shape to feelings that otherwise would have remained trapped inside me. She transformed fear into stories. Confusion into questions. Pain into poetry.
She couldn’t change what happened. She couldn’t stop the heartbreak that would eventually find me. She couldn’t protect me from grief.
But she refused to let me become numb to it.
Instead, she kept my heart moving.
She left something behind for the woman I would one day become.
A notebook. A pen. A lifelong refuge. A way home.
I don’t know why that realization broke me the way it did.
Maybe because I had spent so many years believing no one had ever held me.
When, in truth, a little girl quietly had.
She couldn’t rescue me. But she never stopped reaching for me.
Every time life became overwhelming, she left breadcrumbs. Pages. Poems. Pieces of herself waiting patiently for me to remember.
Maybe that’s why this whole experience feels like a full circle.
I’m not inventing something new.
I’m remembering something ancient.
I’m finally allowing the little girl who learned how to survive through writing...
...to become the woman who now leads through it.
That realization changed everything.
Because for years I had been asking, “Where does writing fit into Root to Rise?”
Should I have a blog? Should I keep the podcast? Should I post more? Should I start a newsletter?
Without realizing it, I had been treating writing like another branch of the tree. Something I did to support my business. Something extra. Another strategy.
But what if I had it completely backwards?
What if writing isn’t one of the branches?
What if writing is one of the roots?
I had to stop reading those words.
Because suddenly my entire life made sense.
Before I was a coach, I was a writer. Before I taught movement, I moved people through stories. Before I helped people understand themselves, writing helped me understand myself.
Writing wasn’t preparing me for social media.
It was preparing me for my life’s work.
And for the first time, I stopped asking myself how I could fit writing into Root to Rise.
Instead, I asked something entirely different.
What if Root to Rise grew from writing all along?