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Can I speak freely? The thing about me is if I hear another perspective, I think it’s true because how can a perspective not be true? It’s like telling someone you’re not angry or not hungry or your bug bite doesn’t itch. I’m easily influenced, very easily. I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be someone who sees the world as a complete sentence. People make videos like they are god. Sermon on the mounted tripod. For me, life is much more squishy and transforming like cuttlefish shapeshifting, not just color, but texture. Someone told me that biting your nails is cannibalistic. I don’t eat myself anymore. It’s been nearly 6 months.

Can I speak freely? Probably not because speaking means thoughts and feelings have gone through a word filter. A symbol of an idea is not the idea. It also has a life of its own. The person listening to you has their own relationship to word symbols. Do you ever feel closest to people when you are together, and no one is talking? Like words break a spell. The person who asks you, what are you thinking? Keep that one around. That is true intimacy. They asked because they could feel you were thinking, but wanted more details. wow. hot. I would like to write a love song called FEEL MY THOUGHTS. I would like to write a breakup song called why can’t you feel my thoughts anymore?

Can I speak freely? I think we went a bit overboard in claiming that half the population is horrible. I actually think there are very few horrible people. Anomalies, really. Like when you go to a restaurant and the food is inedible. It can happen. It’s just not that often. Especially if you’re not so picky you can appreciate a side of fries even if they fucked up the eggs. I have this neighbor I used to hate because I believed he was hateful. So then I was hating him for doing something I was doing. It didn’t really make sense. And it went against my instincts. My instincts are not to hate people. But these days, that makes you a bad person. I think we are all just worried about getting in trouble. I think we are all scared children who don’t want to be punished.

Can I speak freely? They say it’s impossible in the digital realm. They say everyone is hiding and everything is performative. Last night I sat on my porch smoking a Parliament Light and asked myself, "What is it that I really want to say?” Maybe I’m not making sense. Maybe speaking freely means you won’t make sense. Maybe we are not complete sentences. Maybe we are just fragments. Unintelligible globs. Dreams we can’t remember. Minds sunbathing in another person’s lawn next to another person’s poodle.

On a bitterly cold Tuesday evening after my nightly skin care routine, I slipped into the warm pocket under my down comforter when I saw a notification on my phone. An email from my mom. All sense of relaxation left my body.

Two days prior, my mom received an early copy of my book in the mail from my publisher. I knew the email was her reaction to reading it—a moment I had feared for two years.

My book is about healing through the power of your Higher Self and it’s full of personal stories from my life and childhood. I wrote about my trauma. I wrote about witnessing my mother’s unhappiness. I wrote about my dad’s financial stress. I wrote about the homophobic things my parents said when I came out in high school. I didn’t do it for revenge. I did it for love. And healing. I did it for myself and for my readers.

Is she angry? Does she feel humiliated? Betrayed? Would she try to invalidate my experience? My heart started pounding. My stomach turned. My nervous system was time-traveling. I was a child again. Oh no, I am in big trouble.

It’s no secret that the hurt our parental figures put us through as children (intentionally or not) can unconsciously seep its way into our adult lives- from our romantic relationships to the pressure we put on ourselves to “make it” in the world.

The first time I started unpacking my own childhood wounds was nearly a decade ago, when on the heels of a long-term failed relationship, I went to therapy to figure out why I was apparently not good enough for someone to want to marry. It didn’t take long for my therapist to ask about my childhood, eventually drawing parallels between my fears of being incapable of being loved by romantic partners to the trauma in my past when I felt unloved by my parents. After the first several sessions, I’d walk out of my therapist’s office, head straight to the pub on the corner and down two shots of whiskey.

What is this ghostlike power my parents hold over me? I thought. This power to infiltrate my life from thousands of miles away without my consent? To show up unannounced and wreak havoc on my relationships and my confidence like some kind of psychological haunting? I should be over this. My parents had come around to accepting my queerness after I left for college. We get along fine now! So why are these memories still so painful?

Learning about attachment theory provided insight: our earliest experiences of being cared for are like a blueprint for our relationship style as adults. I’d also heard in spiritual circles that our souls choose our parents before we are born, like a karmic lesson plan to put us in the most optimal circumstance for enlightenment.

Ok, sure, but what I didn’t get an answer for in spiritual gatherings or in my weekly (did I mention expensive?) therapy sessions, unpacking the narrative of my childhood like a not-so-fun game of show and tell, was now what do I do? Just being aware that this stuff happened didn’t make me better. In fact, I felt worse. Now I was “this person with wounds and trauma.” Oh, great.

Then one day in a moment of desperation or perhaps divine intervention, I got my answer.

I was at home picturing my younger teenage self, sitting in my bedroom sad and confused, Tori Amos playing on repeat, shortly after my parents told me that being gay was something they would never accept about me. They claimed their intolerance came from love; that they knew what was best for me. But they were actually withholding their love. It hurt so much. And yet, underneath all that pain, I instinctively knew my parents were in the wrong. How did I know that?

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This was the late ‘90s in suburban Texas, where I was taught that being gay meant there was something wrong with you. Still, there was something inside me that knew it was ok to love who I wanted to love, and to be my authentic self. There was a different kind of wisdom and acceptance within me beyond the acceptance and validation I had depended on from my parents for so long. My understanding of love was more expansive and inclusive than my parents' at the time, even though I was the child and they were the adults. Wow. I had been remembering my younger self as this victim, defined by my trauma, but I was so much more than that.

Now what do I do? I had asked myself about my childhood wounds. I began to realize there is nothing to do but love and accept myself for who I am. Just like I had before. I needed to stop identifying as this “person with wounds and trauma that needs to be fixed” and start identifying with the part of me that loves myself despite the suffering caused by my experiences.

My love is strong and courageous. I have always been whole. I’ve always been enough. And there has always been a part of me that knew that, despite what I was being told by society and by my parents. This inner love has always been with me. And always will be.

In all of us is a love and wisdom that exceeds outside validation; an inner awareness of our inherent value. It is our nature to love ourselves. But we have been taught that we need to prove we are lovable. So we began questioning our worth. Painful experiences where we were treated lovelessly put a narrative in our heads that was what we deserved. We were deceived.

You are not unlovable because someone didn’t know how to love you. That was their shortcoming, not yours.

Our parental figures are human beings, like us, who have struggled with their own self-acceptance and have wounds and trauma of their own; who were brought up in a culture that often told them in order to belong, you needed to fit in. And they unfortunately projected a lot of their own fears of inadequacy onto us.

Yes, it sucks to feel the pain of people’s unloving choices, but that could never change how worthy of love we all are. And when that pain comes up, we can love ourselves through it by reminding ourselves that nothing could ever diminish our value.

I used to think that healing meant letting go of the past. But now I see that the past is an experience. I don’t have to let it go, I just have to let go of the belief that those experiences define me.

Back in my bedroom, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that whatever this email from my mom said about my book was a reflection of where she was in her own journey of healing. I thought of her Higher Self, the love inside her, her wholeness, her worth. I reminded myself that my value was not determined by her perspective, just like her value was not determined by mine. She was a human with valid feelings just like me. My anxiety dissipated. My heart opened.

Her response to my book was a few paragraphs long. But it can be summarized in three short sentences.

“I’m sorry.” “I love you” and “I absolutely love this book.”

No matter what your childhood looked like, whether you still have a relationship with your parental figures or not—healing isn’t about needing to fix yourself, it’s about acknowledging that you have always been whole. Your Higher Self lives in your heart and is always speaking to you, reminding you of how worthy you have always been. The past is not your prison. You are free.

sending you so much love,

Bunny

P.S. If you haven’t gotten a copy of my book, please do! Book sales matter so much to any future publication endeavors (probably more than they should), so if you want to support me as an author, this is the best way to show your love. Get a copy for a friend, too! Or for a family member who might really need some Higher Self perspective.

Hello, Higher Self is currently 45% off on Amazon ! For other booksellers go here

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Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Also if you ha…

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I’d fall in love with someone for their poems or their confidence or their socialist worldview. It might sound trite to you, but these were the enchantments that drew me into another person’s aura and inspired me to desire a long-lasting connection.

Falling in love was like encountering magic in another person. And if I were lucky, they were drawn to the magic in me.

Some of these relationships were short stints, some would last years. But they always ended because one day the magic that had drawn us together was nowhere to be found. On occasion, it was a betrayal that killed it. One time, it was abuse. Other times, the magic just seemed to leave the room unexpectedly, and we’d fight with each other as if we were trying to summon its return, like a ritual to resurrect the dead.

Falling in love was easy. Staying in love was hard.

It’s kind of a cliché to say relationships take “hard work”. Personally, I always hated that phrasing. It makes it sound like love is a capitalist chore or a boring job or that you and your partner are each other’s bosses who must regularly fill out progress reports. “Work” sucks all the magic out of it.

When I fell in love with my current partner, 10 years ago, I wanted more than anything to make our magic last. But I had no idea how. Staying in love felt like a game of chance, and I hoped I had found a winner. Years into our relationship, we hit a particularly rough spot where I wasn’t sure we’d stay together. Out of pure desperation, we ended up in couples therapy. I guess this is where the “hard work” really began.

But what that experience taught me wasn’t that staying in love required hard work, but that it required healing. Because you have to confront the ways your partner triggers your deepest fear of being unlovable. You have to confront old resentments that have built up over the years of being together.

And yes, healing is hard, but rather than thinking of it as hard work, I prefer to think of it as hard magic.

Healing shows you what you couldn’t see before, such as the behaviors and perspectives that keep you trapped in conflict and suffering. Healing unearths the ghosts of your past, revealing how they have been pulling the strings and wreaking havoc on your relationships by projecting onto your partner. Healing expands your consciousness like a psychedelic potion, opening your heart up to new forms of communication, compassion, patience, and flexibility.

Did you know I started a YouTube Channel? Watch my first video essay: Your Breakup Is Your Awakening: here

After going through nearly a year of what felt like the dark night of the soul of our relationship, where we cried and yelled in therapy, had the most honest conversations we ever had outside of therapy, made drastic changes to how we talked to each other and the structure of our relationship, my partner looked at me one day when we were driving to the farmer’s market and said, I feel like we broke a spell and our relationship is new again.

I felt the same way.

If falling in love is easy magic, then healing is hard magic that keeps the flame of love alive.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all partners who heal together stay together. But I do think healing gets you to the truth of the relationship. And sometimes that truth means going your separate ways. But I don’t think it’s possible to stay in love without both people being willing to heal themselves and heal together.

Staying in love means choosing magic every day- both the easy and hard kind. I think this is what boomers mean when they say things like keeping the spark alive.

So I want to share with you a list of 6 most profound lessons I’ve learned in my quest to stay in love. Maybe you are having conflicts in your relationship; maybe everything is going great, and this could be more lessons in prevention. Maybe you are single and wondering just how much inner work it takes to keep the flame of love burning bright. If this newsletter is anything, it’s a healing skill share. I don’t believe in gatekeeping! And perhaps this list will keep you out of couples therapy (and save you hundreds of dollars lol).

1. Cultivating independence keeps you close. One of the most surprising paradoxes of staying in love is that in order to feel connected, you need separation. You need to spend quality time apart. You need to know who you are outside of the relationship.

   My partner and I lived in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn during the pandemic lockdown. We went from having relatively independent lives to spending every moment together within the same 800 square feet. Then, in 2021, we moved to a new city where neither of us had a solid friend group. At the time, I was writing my book and feeling extremely isolated. I depended on my partner to meet my emotional and social needs. And even though we were spending so much time together, it felt like we were becoming more spiritually distant- bickering often, on our phones all the time, stuck in a co-dependent domestic routine that was not fun or sexy. Eventually, when we both found community, it was like the spark came back. I realized that when we were so entangled, I not only lost a sense of who I was outside the relationship, but also of who my partner was independent of me.

   The thing is, autonomy is attractive. And attraction makes you desire closeness. The attraction you felt toward your partner when you first met them had nothing to do with who they were to you. You saw them as their own person, and you loved it! You desired them, but you didn’t take them for granted. The energy of attraction requires a kind of separation, and ironically, it makes your time together feel so much more present and special. I have never felt so close to Khara, and I know a big part of that is knowing that I don’t need them for everything and vice versa. When we hang out now, we don’t take it for granted. We plan fun things to do together or exciting meals to cook. We feel inspired to be physically intimate because hanging out together feels renewed and novel. We don’t have to be the same old versions of ourselves together. We can still surprise one another. It’s hot to be independent! So now I understand that prioritizing my friendships and hobbies is not only good for me but also good for our relationship. It’s a win/win.

   So whether you are at the beginning of a relationship or 5 years in, prioritize your interests, curiosities, and friendships outside your coupledom. This is soooooo important!

2. You can’t really trust someone without believing you deserve their love. Ugh, this one is so huge. It’s going to be hard to explain clearly, but I will do my best. So you know how many of us have a fear that we are unlovable? Because we have been through hurtful things that put a story in our heads that we weren’t deserving of love and care? Well, even though I knew on an intellectual level I was lovable, and that my wounding created insecurities that weren’t necessarily real, I didn’t realize there was a part of me that still didn’t believe it. And it created distrust in my partnership. But the thing was, I thought I did trust my partner because I didn’t think Khara would betray me in a big way, like cheat on me. I didn’t realize that distrust also manifests

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I have wanted to create video essays on YouTube for a very long time. I kept putting it off by convincing myself it was a fruitless endeavor. (The truth was I was scared).

I think whenever we do something new, there is a frightened inner child that says, "They are going to laugh at you.” Well, I’m happy to report I finally decided to send my inner child a lot of love and begin this new endeavor anyway…

My first video essay is titled "Your Breakup Is Your Awakening” because the most transformative times in my life came on the heels of heartbreak. The loss of romance to the self-actualization pipeline is so real! I honestly feel like it’s the best breakup advice anyone could ever hear. (I’m serious!)

Please watch, comment, and subscribe :) I just uploaded it!!

big hugs and kisses

Bunny

WATCH HERE

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You know the old adage about imagining everyone naked when giving a public speech? The idea being that the audience is full of people with the same vulnerable parts and therefore nothing to fear? I have a similar ritual before I attend any social event, particularly ones where I won’t know everyone. Before I walk in, I remind myself that I am about to enter a room full of human beings, each with their own set of problems, insecurities, hopes, and dreams.

Which is why last weekend, before walking into my friend’s baby shower, I sat in my Subaru Forester Sport (lovingly named Sporty Spice) and did just that. Took a centering breath, reminded myself that the party would be full of humans, grabbed the gift I brought (a pink unicorn stuffie) from the passenger seat, and followed the sound of laughter toward my friend’s charming house on the edge of a hill.

Now it might seem glaringly obvious that the party I was about to walk into was attended by people, not goblins or gorillas or robots. It might seem like my pre-party ritual is a bit unnecessary or even extreme. But you have to understand, my friend, that in the past I spent the majority of parties seeing other partygoers not as humans but rather as mirrors of my own fears of inadequacy. Terrified of walking into a social event feeling judged as not good enough, my only fortitude was to see everyone else as a potential threat.

And so for countless birthday parties, engagement parties, work parties, holiday parties, and parties for no occasion at all, I shielded myself with emotional armor. I’d stay in close physical proximity to people I knew, wary of starting conversations with complete unknowns. I’d drink alcohol not for fun but more for self-defense, every tequila soda and Aperol Spritz a protective elixir against the dark arts of social humiliation. When I did find myself in conversation with people outside my social sphere of familiarity, I’d be in my head judging my performance like a sportscaster analyzing the play-by-play.

Now you might be picturing me at these parties with a look of pure horror on my face, but that would be wrong. No, friend, I knew how to mask my anxiety well: behind a slightly disinterested smile, an aura of too cool, and an extremely well put together look.

It’s not that I wasn’t aware of the armor I was wearing, I just assumed there was no other way to get through a party. And I’d managed to have fun from time to time, mostly between the second and fourth cocktail when the anxiety was soothed by a warm buzz and the music replaced the overthinking chatter.

But being on a healing journey changes you. You realize that how you experience the world is shaped foremost by your internal narrative. You begin to look critically at that internal narrative. And you finally start investigating its merit.

One of my most profound social humiliations was when I was 13 (the age where social humiliation is likely most rampant). On the first day of 7th grade, I walked into the linoleum hallway at Parkhill Junior High, only to discover I had officially been labeled the school slut. You see, over the summer, I had kissed a popular girl’s ex-boyfriend, resulting in a series of rumors, misinformation, and innuendo, no doubt fueled by the fact that I was one of the only non-white kids at my school, which made me an easy target. I had become a social pariah. Worst of all, even my best friend turned against me. I went from feeling relatively socially comfortable to being an outcast with no one to sit with at lunch. I was picked on and humiliated. Older girls threatened to beat me up after school. And while I eventually found a new circle of friends who were outcasts in their own right, this experience was a turning point for my social confidence. An entire group of people could just decide you don’t belong, and there is nothing you can do about it.

We all carry stories like these, experiences of social rejection that our nervous systems want to avoid repeating at all costs. And while I have compassion for my inner 13-year-old and the pain she went through, there came a point where I had to recognize this isn’t junior high anymore. My social anxiety manifested as a fear of being judged by others, but the truth was I was judging other people by assuming they weren’t kind and by projecting the immaturity of my junior high bullies on them. How unfair!

This judgment that I mistook for protection was a barrier not only to making new connections and fully enjoying new social experiences, but also to being genuinely kind to others (what I claimed I wanted from other people).

How to have fun at a party? Make a conscious decision to see the humanity in people and recognize that we all have insecurities. We all want to feel like we belong. And a party is first and foremost an opportunity to just be together in all our complexity and imperfections. To celebrate the truly bizarre reality of being human. We are so much more alike than our anxiety wants us to believe.

And if you do encounter a random jerk at a party, which can happen, just remind yourself that person’s experience is shaped by their internal narrative, and being in their head must not feel very good.

Nowadays, I use my pre-party ritual of reminding myself to see the humanity in others, not just for recreational social events but also for work meetings, large family get-togethers, public speaking, and basically any time I might get triggered into assuming people are judging me.

Does this mean I never get social anxiety? Of course not! Those old fears still pop up, but when they do, I have a plan. I remind myself again that the people around me aren’t bullies. I go back into my heartspace where I can sense their humanity.

The cool thing about a baby shower is that there are typically really delicious hors d'oeuvres, and my friend’s was no exception. There was a massive charcuterie spread, all kinds of dips (including pimento cheese dip, which I haven’t had in years), and 3 different kinds of cakes. I found myself returning to the food table whenever I felt a bit socially awkward. But I made a conscious effort to introduce myself to everyone I didn’t know and had some really nice conversations. And the times I found myself with no one to talk to didn’t feel nearly as uncomfortable as those moments have in the past. All in all, I had a really fun time.

All my love,

Bunny ❤︎

This post is free, but I’d like to invite you to join my intimate healing community as a paid subscriber. For $5/month or $50/a year, you’ll get access to my 4-day video course: How To Be Your Higher Self, be able to join our monthly Healing Club meet-ups on Zoom, watch and/or listen to my paid-subscriber-only podcast, and take part in our community chat. Hope to see you there! xo

Subscribe now

❤︎ Watch the latest episode of my podcast, Dear Higher Self

Below is the recording from yesterday’s Healing Club meeting :)

I gave a detailed talk and presented a cute slideshow on my most important insights and strategies for feeling empowered and creating boundaries online that actually help both as a content consumer and a creator. I talked about the struggles of comparing yourself to others, balancing staying informed with being overwhelmed with news, and the strategies I use to have a more joyful experience.

Social media can be difficult to navigate for everyone (including me) which is why it’s so important we help each other!

Thank you to everyone who attending the meeting and shared your energy!

Sending lots of love

Bunny

Zoom below:

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In this episode I talk about my relationship to God aka Divine Love, how cool it is that science cannot explain consciousness, some personal mystical experiences and the many ways we are all sacred and magical. I got deep here lol…

Would absolutely love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

thank you so much for being here ❤︎

Bunny

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Most people I know have a love/hate relationship with social media: they complain it's ruining society, but still spend hours a day scrolling on it. They resent how vapid and performative people are on the apps but get joy from funny videos and their favorite creators.

As someone who has been visible on social media for 10 years to an audience of hundreds of thousands, my relationship with it has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. There have been times I’ve just wanted to quit, times when I’ve been overwhelmed with criticism, times when I thought I’d walk away completely.

But I was always drawn back because social media is a conduit to have your voice heard, a place to share your creativity and self-expression, a digital archive of inspiring artists, comedians, activists and intellectuals.

I realized I could heal old wounds from bad experiences, empower myself with boundaries, show up with integrity and purpose, and cultivate a loving relationship with my “digital self”.

A healthy relationship to social media is a mindful relationship.

And I want to share with you all my tips, insights and hacks that took me years to understand so you can have a more empowering experience!

Which is why I’ve decided to make the theme of the next Higher Self Healing Club: Healing Your Relationship to Social Media

We will be discussing:

• using your voice online with integrity and purpose

• sharing your self-expression and creativity in the digital realm

• empowering your internet avatar and letting go of the fear of judgment

• implementing boundaries and resisting toxic dopamine hits

• building an audience without getting bummed by algorithms

and more!

As always I will be giving a talk, then I will open up the meeting for group discussion and Q&A, and finally we will journal together :)

See you Sat. May 2nd at 4pm EST. I will send an email to all paid subscribers with a recording of the meeting for anyone who can’t attend live.

See you soon!

love,

Bunny

Zoom invite below:

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This is a question I’ve thought about my entire adult life, throughout multiple long-term partnerships.

The Oxford dictionary defines compatibility as “two things able to exist or occur together without conflict”.

Ok, not helpful. No relationship exists without conflict!

What I have learned from my 10-year partnership is t…

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Dear friend,

You deserve relationships that don’t leave you guessing.

You deserve lovers who communicate how they feel about you and partners who do what they say they will do. You deserve friends you can confidently predict will show up when you need them, and friends that will tell you when you’ve hurt them.

You deserve relationships that don’t leave you in a perpetual liminal state of uncertainty.

When a therapist told me 10 years ago that I deserved clarity and predictability in relationships because it is a fundamental need that begins in childhood and never goes away, I didn’t believe her. In my experience, partners lie, family abandons you, and friends drop off for no clear reason. People were not predictable; they were ticking time bombs of inevitable heartbreak.

Which was why, at the time, I rarely reached out to friends unless they texted first. I told lovers I wasn’t looking for anything serious, even if I was seriously interested in them. In the words of 90’s folk queen Sarah McLachlan, I was an expert at “building a mystery” of my true feelings. It was how I felt protected from the uncertainty of other people’s behavior. I had been burned by relationships that left me guessing, so I became the one who left them guessing.

And friend, I know this avoidance of vulnerability is understandable when you’ve been hurt, but I also think our culture rewards and encourages this behavior. We have been convinced that relationships are a game you must strategize to win. So you hold onto your cards, avoid communicating with earnest sincerity and enthusiasm, and hide behind a veneer of too-cool.

It used to be that when you hadn’t spoken to a friend for a while, you had to reach out to them to find out what was happening in their life. Now, people just check their Instagram stories. We make assumptions (guesses) based on what our friends post on social media about whether that person really needs us or is too busy to hang out with us. We have an entire narrative going on in our heads about the nature of the friendship without actually connecting or revealing our true feelings.

It used to be that when you were romantically interested in someone, you had to call them on the phone, approach them at a bar or party, pass them a note before class…now technology minimizes the friction of enthusiasm and renders you emotionally unreadable, where an essential level of “guessing” is always at play. To the point where it’s pretty standard that a person you are talking to on the app will disappear mid-conversation, never to be heard from again. Where did they go? Are they still alive? Who knows??

And even when you do make a connection, the guessing game has become so normalized that it’s almost a faux pas to ask for transparency. It’s wild to me that so many people are afraid to have a conversation about feelings with someone they have had sex with multiple times. Clarity and predictability are treated as a rare gift, not a standard that we need to uphold for ourselves and each other.

At what point is this not self-protection but PERFORMANCE? At what point are we just being fake?

And look, I’m not saying we should know what each other is feeling and thinking at all times in a relationship. I’m not saying that people aren’t allowed to change their minds. But if clarity and predictability are psychological hallmarks of healthy relationships, shouldn’t we at least aim for a healthy experience? Even if that relationship doesn’t last? Even when clarity and communication aren’t easy?

Shouldn’t we do our best not to leave people guessing how we feel about them? Shouldn’t we aim to be the lover, friend, and decent human being we want other people to be? And shouldn’t we expect that from the people we are giving our love, time, and energy to?

If more people broke the cycle of leaving others guessing, wouldn’t we create a new standard for what is culturally acceptable?

Not long ago, I saw a viral post from someone on Threads that said she loved the friendships where she could not text back for 6 months, and it was no big deal. And I couldn’t help but wonder: was it really no big deal to these friends who didn’t hear back or had they convinced themselves that was all they could ask for? Did any of them question if she cared about them or if the friendship was real? What had her friends gone through in those 6 months that they could have really benefited from her support? And I also kept thinking about other people reading that post and assuming this level of predictability in friendships was all they should expect.

Obviously, people go through difficult phases of life when they are less dependable. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be understanding of limitations. My concern is a culture in which we do not tell or show people how much they matter to us; relationships that feel increasingly distant despite technology supposedly keeping us connected, and romance where transparency and honesty are not prioritized.

That’s not the world I want to live in, so that’s not the person I am going to be.

I deserve relationships that don’t leave me guessing, and so do you.

All my love,

Bunny ❤︎

This post is free, but I’d like to invite you to join my intimate healing community as a paid subscriber. For $5/month or $50/a year, you’ll get access to my 4-day video course: How To Be Your Higher Self, be able to join our monthly Healing Club meet-ups on Zoom, watch and/or listen to my paid-subscriber-only podcast, and take part in our community chat. Hope to see you there! xo

Subscribe now

❤︎ Hello, Higher Self is currently 45% off on Amazon! For other booksellers, go here

❤︎ Watch the latest episode of my podcast, Dear Higher Self

Below is a replay of yesterday’s amazing Healing Club meeting :)

I gave a detailed slide show presentation on how to utilize the wisdom of your Higher Self to heal your financial wounding, let go of limiting beliefs and manifest a new money reality.

We also talked as a group and folks shared their own concerns and struggles and it was very insightful, loving and illuminating!

Finally, we closed out with a writing exercise.

Thank you to everyone who came to the meeting and generously shared your energy.

sending so much love and Happy Easter to all who celebrate,

Bunny

Video of Zoom below :

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Whenever we want to pursue new goals, passions and curiosities, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, unsure of yourself or stuck. It’s easy to self-sabotage and convince yourself you don’t have what it takes to follow your heart. That is why I have dedicated this pod ep to giving you my 5 top guidelines on how to get out of your own way and do the…

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I used to fear money. Avoid checking my bank account. Never take the time to understand what “interest” on credit cards really meant. I’d make a bunch of money in tips waiting tables and spend it immediately on things I didn’t care much about. Then spiral in anxiety about not being able to pay my bills.

I have vivid memories of being a little girl listening to my parents fight about money on the other side of my bedroom wall, feeling powerless as I played with my Barbies. I’d lie to friends at school about vacations I never went on or presents I never got. I didn’t want to be seen as the poor kid.

I never believed that money was something I could feel good about because my relationship to it was tied to so much wounding, stress and pain. I never believed I was someone who could make a lot of money and I carried that belief for many years.

It wasn’t until I began aligning with my Higher Self did I understand that I could heal my relationship to money and abundance even in a society where financial oppression is rampant.

The truth is there is so much money out there and you deserve it just as much as anyone else!

Spring is upon us, the season of growth and abundance in all its forms including MONEY. April is the perfect month to make the theme of our next Higher Self Healing Club: How to heal your relationship to money.

We will be discussing:

• disrupting the narratives of financial wounding

• the difference between a healthy and toxic relationship to money

• manifesting more money within the framework of late stage capitalism

• the energetic frequency of abundance

• how to utilize our Higher Selves to financially thrive

• and more

As always I will be giving a talk, then I will open up the meeting for group discussion and Q&A, and finally we will journal together :)

See you Sat. April 4th at 4pm EST. I will be providing a recording for anyone who can’t attend the live.

See you soon!

xo Bunny

Below is Zoom invite:

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If you have been feeling overwhelmed with the world you are not alone! In this episode I discuss why it’s easy to be hard on yourself when life feels out of control, the importance of self-nourishment, how nature can help us cope, why I can’t watch new movies and more!

Hope this ep is a soothing balm.

sending so much love,

Bunny

P.S. You can sen…

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I love feeling seen. I think it’s one of the greatest feelings you can experience. I feel seen when I tell a friend my deepest thoughts and that friend listens without judgement. I feel seen when I share a painful childhood memory with my partner and they hold me in their arms and let me cry. I feel seen when I share my art with someone who recognizes my effort. I feel seen when I am in a room of people who are genuinely kind and I feel comfortable enough to be my most dorky and silly self.

Feeling seen is a fundamental human need we all share.

But for a long time I confused the desire to feel seen with needing approval. So when I shared my authentic feelings with someone and they didn’t validate or understand them, I’d assume something was wrong with what I was feeling. When I’d tell romantic partners they hurt me and they reacted carelessly, I felt unlovable. When I shared my art online and it didn’t get praise or attention, I’d feel diminished and question whether or not I should be an artist in the first place.

Because when you don’t accept yourself, you mistake the need to feel seen with the need for approval.

Here is the fundamental difference: Feeling seen is about connection. Needing approval is about permission.

Needing approval is an attempt to validate yourself through the lens of another person. It’s asking permission to be yourself.

Wanting to feel seen is an attempt to connect authentically, to feel understood by another human and therefore connected on a soulful or spiritual plane.

Needing approval says: I am not enough unless you accept me. Feeling seen says: I know I am enough and I want to share my true self with you.

To truly feel seen you have to let go of the need for approval, which means you risk rejection. To truly feel seen you have to tell the truth which means you risk confrontation. To truly feel seen you have to embrace your weirdo self, which means some people won’t like you.

Ironically, to feel seen you have to see yourself first. Meaning you must accept that your feelings, needs and experience is valid. Otherwise, every attempt to share yourself will withhold an unconscious belief that there is something wrong with the way you are. You will withhold your authentic feelings, people please to avoid confrontation, and limit your creative self-expression for fear of judgement.

Over the years I’ve had to become more and more aware of the moments I am sharing myself with a genuine desire for connection (to feel seen) or I am sharing myself with others to seek approval out of insecurity.

Below are 6 transformative insights I’ve noticed along the way:

The hard part about feeling seen is that sometimes you try and it doesn’t work.

Not long ago a friend of mine unknowingly hurt my feelings. I didn’t want to tell her because I hoped that I would just get over it. I was also afraid that if I told her she would disappoint me in some way, either by not understanding or not being empathetic and apologetic.

But as hard as I tried to get over it, I just felt more and more distant from her. I also began feeling disconnected from myself because I was gaslighting myself into pretending everything was ok. Finally, I realized that my need to feel seen was more important than the risk of rejection aka losing my friend’s approval. I needed to tell her my truth.

I told this friend how I felt and her response was

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Below is the recording of our Higher Self Healing Club Zoom today :)

We discussed loneliness: why it’s so easy to feel isolated in our technological world, how to navigate relationships that don’t feel reciprocal, the challenges of finding new friends, feeling “too much” for people and more.

In a world that doesn’t teach us how to build community we need to learn from each other’s experiences. It was such a beautiful hang and my heart is so full.

Thank you so much for being here. Our next meet up is Sat. April 4th so mark your calendars!

Recording below:

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I recently posted a thread that asked, what makes someone cool? And got over 300 responses with some surprising findings!

Hope you enjoy :)

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