Too often, women think that softening their story means pushing it down where you refuse to think about it. This creates so much contention inside and results in avoidance and harsh judgement of ourselves and others. Most often the harshness and judgement is directed outward but the deeper underlying fear is a refusal to look at your own story... the unprocessed feelings and emotions... the fear that it will be too much to carry! What if, the softening actually happens when you decide to hold your story with gentle compassion!! When you stop avoiding the real and hard things and sit with the tenderness of your pain. Healing doesn't begin by changing your story -- healing happens by changing the way you hold it! Softening isn't pretending the pain didn't happen. It's choosing compassion over criticism. It's replacing judgment with curiosity. It's allowing your heart to whisper, "There was a reason I became this way—and now I get to learn a new way." When you soften your story, you create space for healing. When you soften your story, you reconnect with the woman beneath the survival. When you soften your story, you begin to bloom where shame once lived. 🌻 You don't have to fight your story anymore. 🦋 You can learn to hold it with gentle hands. Journal Prompt: Where in your story have you been the hardest on yourself? What might change if you responded to that part of yourself with compassion instead of criticism? You Were Made For More! xoxo, Verna

I am taking the liberty to cancelling tonight's Patio Chat - a dear friend of our is fighting for his life and my husband and I want to go sit with them tonight. Pray for his heart to start working and for the Drs to understand what is causing the problem. Pray for his wife and kids. Thank you for understanding!