November 2025

There’s a place between where you’ve been and where you’re going.

A liminal space.

That was very much my November.

When I first arrived in Croatia, I was staying in a cute little apartment with very little light, in a town just outside of Split. It was a sweet place I subleased, and I felt so taken care of by the older woman who lived next door, even though she spoke zero English. It’s funny how supported you can feel without words at all. A reminder that communication is so much more than language… it’s felt through energy, presence, and action.

Those first two weeks gave me space to really land in the holy fuck… did I really just do that? moment… Yes, I really did leave everything behind with no plan to return to it.. except my cat at some point of course.

Truthfully, the first couple of weeks were emotionally challenging. I spent most days inside, gently forcing myself out to the sea or walking the same streets aimlessly with no real destination. There were many days I found myself lying in bed or crying on the kitchen floor.

I was excited about this new chapter, but my body was still living in old patterns.

One day, I finally said to myself, “I need to change this.”

So I took myself on a hike up a mountain… alone, in a foreign country. Hiking alone terrifies me. But I was tired of my own shit, and in true Leah fashion, I figured there was no better way to break through the barrier than to just send it.

That hike changed so much about my perspective.

It reminded me that my experience is always a reflection of my choices. I could choose to stare at the same white walls or I could choose to go stare at the country of Croatia from the top of the mountain. Two totally different experiences that yield very different feelings in the body.

You might be like.. yeah duh Leah, you’re somewhere beautiful, go see it!

But sometimes the nervous system freezes. This happens after stress and trauma. And moving out of freeze doesn’t happen instantly, it takes time, patience, slowness, and gently pushing the edges of your capacity.

The last two years have been two of the most challenging and traumatic years of my life. I retreated inward. I locked myself away from the world. I needed that time to find myself again. And eventually, it led me to walk away from an entire life I had built my identity around in order to adventure as a digital nomad and choose what lit me up - traveling.

It’s important to have compassion for yourself in those seasons — the ones where you’re not as productive as the world says you should be, or as productive as you think you should be, or are used to being.

On the mountain that day, I reflected on what truly matters to me. On the things that fuel my soul, make me smile, and support me in thriving mentally, physically, and emotionally. I promised myself I would seek out more of that.

Daily meditation.
Reading.
Long walks by the ocean.

I was moving into the main area of Split a few days later, and I promised myself I’d find more women to connect with, a gym to work out at, new cafés to work from, spaces to dance, and opportunities to meet people for coffee and connection.

One of the ways I help my clients expand their nervous system capacity is by creating a plan of action ahead of time. When you know what supports you BEFORE you need the support, you can be more pro-active and more effectively reactive. I help my clients get clear on what experiences, rhythms, and environments help them feel calmer, more joyful, more connected, more loved, and more alive.

When I moved into the city, I immediately began implementing those things and within a week it started massively shifting my reality.

When emerging from a freeze chapter, and when shifting into a different identity, it can feel challenging in moments to take action. It’s a dance of not pushing your nervous system too far, but also expanding past the ‘safe zone’ capacity - the space where your nervous system has learned to stay in protection mode.

The truth is, life is what you choose it to be. If you want something different, you have to choose something different.

November was about choosing to leave behind an identity that once kept me safe, but was now keeping me small. That identity served me for a while and helped me reconnect to my power, trust my boundaries, and rebuild confidence. But it couldn’t come with me anymore. I call this time a sacred pause, and find it to be an incredibly important part of the threshold between who you were and who you are becoming, especially when trauma is involved. It’s not always about taking steps forward, sometimes we need to pause, or even take a few steps back to take a big step forward.

November required decisiveness. Choosing with discernment. Letting go of what could no longer come with me. When you’re intentional with your time and energy, you create more magic. And interestingly, the more aligned & on purpose my choices became, the more synchronistic life started to feel.

One place I let myself play with that edge was dancing in public. I’d put my headphones in, walk through town, find a spot, and move. It felt uncomfortable, but it also made me happy, WHILE nudging me outside of my comfort zone. When you can combine the pushing of the edges with an experience that floods your body with those ‘feel good hormones’ you’ve got a recipe for success.

At the end of October, I met a man I began intimately relating with. It was a beautiful opening of my heart. For the last year, intimacy hadn’t felt safe for my body. This experience taught me so much. It taught me about communicating my desires, noticing where I bend or alter myself to be loved, finding my center when a lovers/partners anxious patterns trigger old wounds, and most importantly, seeing how well I can hold my boundaries.

Over time, I felt him pulling away, which sent my nervous system into a spiral (hello anxious attachment). But because connection felt good after a long period without it, I allowed the pattern to continue, and my anxiety continued with it.

Eventually, I realized the level of communication was no longer supportive and the interactions weren’t what I was wanting in romantic connection. I ended the connection… then briefly re-engaged and started texting him again.

I broke my own boundary.

And after feeling triggered again, it became clear: if I don’t honor my boundaries, I can’t teach anyone else how to honor them either. So I ended the connection (with love & gratitude) and continued on my journey.

On my mother’s side of the family, there’s a long history of accepting less, staying too long, and living in anxious, stressed states while accepting breadcrumbs in relationships. Ending this connection helped me see how I’m changing that pattern, and doing it faster than they had and faster than I had in previous relationships & friendships.

And that’s the thing: changing deep patterns isn’t about doing it perfectly. I try to remind my clients, it’s not about the pattern NOT happening… It’s about noticing sooner and acting faster. THAT is a sign of massive growth.

This was a big shift for me as a big part of the trauma over the last 2 years was due to me staying in many friendships wayyyy longer than was supporting me. It caused me an immense amount of heartache, stress, pain, and led to me sacrifice my peace again & again. This connection showed me how much that’s shifting. And although it comes with moments of frustration where parts of me question “whats wrong with me” and “why is it so hard for a man to choose me?” I know that this shift WILL pay off in the long run, and will lead to such beautiful connections in the future because I am setting a standard for myself… and honoring it with devotion to me.

At the beginning of November, I attended a workshop with Bella Divine that highlighted a wound of rejection rooted in fear of abandonment and not being chosen. It was interesting, and humbling, to see that pattern showing up again in my life.

It’s common for our childhood wounds to play out in the patterns of our own lives. Those unhealed wounds lead us to hurt ourselves or hold ourselves back.

Childhood wounds (especially core wounds) often replay themselves through our own choices until we choose differently. By choosing differently you can heal the pattern, which most likely has played out in multiple generations before you.

By the end of November, everything slowed down enough for me to really see what this chapter had been asking of me.

Leaving my old life.
Moving through freeze.
Choosing to step out of my comfort zone not just in my external environment, but my internal one too.
Practicing more clear boundaries in intimacy.
Letting identities fall away that once kept me safe but no longer expand me.

All of it was part of the same initiation.

This month wasn’t about doing more, it was about slowing down, listening more closely, and being more discerning with my energy. It was about noticing where my energy was going, where my nervous system was bracing, and where my aliveness was being drained.

At the end of the month, I attended a three-day 5Rhythms immersion in Zagreb. And over and over again, one phrase kept landing in my body:

Alive connection.

The kind of connection that makes me feel inhabited… present… ecstatic… passionate… lit from the inside.

As I danced, I realized how clearly my body knows the difference between what drains me and what nourishes me. How obvious it becomes, when I slow down, which relationships, habits, patterns, and choices expand my capacity & energy, and which ones shrink it.

So much of this month was about reclaiming that discernment.
Choosing my peace over everything else.
Choosing alignment over instant dopamine hits.
Choosing aliveness over old survival strategies.

Because the truth is, we don’t stay stuck because we don’t know what we want.

We stay stuck because we are pouring our energy into all the places that distract us from our passions. And that trains our energy, peace & nervous system, robbing us of our dreams, our aliveness & our expansion.

November asked me to look honestly at my ishhh
And it invited me to choose differently.

So I’ll leave you with this to ponder on:

• Where are you sacrificing your peace?

• If you put a price tag on it, what has your peace been worth to you?

• And what do you want it to be worth moving forward?

Id love to hear your reflections in the comment <3

Big love ❤️

Leah