When You're Standing in All the Rooms at Once

"It was like all the rooms that carried the disappointment I felt from her, I was in all of those rooms all at once." — The Room to Be Brave

Sometimes I am thrown back into rooms I thought I healed from. These are rooms that held significant trauma. Where I woke up from my coma on a ventilator, having no idea that I was fighting for my life from meningitis. The delivery room where I had my daughter and was bleeding out while they worked to save both of our lives. The room where my foot was gray and a limb preservation specialist told me she would do whatever she could to save my foot.

Hospital rooms are rooms of trauma for a lot of people, so I am no different in that way. I wonder how many people feel the weight of those rooms when they are facing a new medical diagnosis, a new, unexplained symptom, a feeling like something is wrong.

I know the weight of that feeling. I've sat in that room many times.

This is a room I am healing in layers. I have worked through what I think is the worst of it and in the day to day I'm good. Until I'm not.

As soon as there is a lab value that's red, or an impression on imaging that recommends further imaging… I am standing in all of the rooms I have been in. I'm 19 again, laying on my stomach on a table while the doctor takes samples from my kidney to run a biopsy and confirm my chronic kidney disease. I'm 22 again, looking at my hand for the first time after my fingers were amputated. I am in every room where uncertainty, my mortality, and almost always pain are overwhelming.

So, what do I do when that overwhelm hits? How do I handle the weight of all of those rooms?

I come back to the room I'm in.

I journal my thoughts to get the fears out of my system, reminding myself on the page that I am not in any of those rooms because I already survived those moments.

I meditate to clear the rapid onslaught of thoughts, the what ifs, the oh my gods.

I call a friend. I am between therapists at the moment so I let someone in and let the words fall on understanding ears.

I find my joy. Rather than look into my own thoughts, I look outward and find somewhere to put my hands. I write, I hug my daughter, husband or cats, I go outside and feel the air on my skin and take joy in each breath.

I do for someone else. I send a text to a friend telling them I love them, I buy my daughter a treat. Doing for someone else takes me out of the panic and stress of my own thoughts.

I don't do all of these every time. I'm not insane, I couldn't keep up with all of them. But I use the most accessible at the time. And they work. These tools pull me out of the layers of rooms that I have already survived and put me into my body, and into the current moment.

Heavy moments carry enough weight without piling the ones you've already survived on top of them.

Whatever rooms you're carrying right now, I hope something here helps you find your way back to where you are.

The Room to Be Brave: Sometimes the Way Forward Begins with Going Back is available now. Order your copy here

What rooms do you keep returning to? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

The Fear of Change

What are we so afraid of?

I have no research to back this up, but I’m pretty sure fear of change has to be right up there with public speaking and death. Change is terrifying. Even good change. Getting married. Having a baby. Getting a new haircut. Why does all of it feel so scary?

What the heck are we actually afraid of?

So let’s try this: I’ll show you my fear, if you show me yours.

The Room Where It Started

I’m mostly afraid of two things: failure and judgment. And I know exactly where both of those fears were born.

I’m twelve years old, standing in our kitchen in 1990, holding a cordless phone. A group of girls had invited me to a sleepover—or so I thought. When I called to say I could come, they laughed. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a joke.

I wasn’t wanted in that room.

That kitchen—with its marble-brown carpet and Formica countertops—became the room where I learned I wasn’t enough. Not cool enough. Not pretty enough. Not wanted. And I carried that belief out of that kitchen and into every room I entered after it.

Thirty-five years later, I was still standing outside of rooms, afraid to go in.

Fear of Failure

Who actually likes to fail? Certainly not me.

But here’s something interesting: if you asked me to list my biggest failures—ten of them, five of them, even two—I’d struggle. Not because I’m embarrassed, but because the things I once thought would ruin me forever barely register now.

At the time, they felt catastrophic. Looking back from my cozy home, with my beautiful family, I don’t see them as failures at all. Every choice I made—good, bad, and questionable—brought me here. And I’m grateful to be here.

My divorce. The drunken nights in my twenties. Even the time I got arrested. Were they my proudest moments? No. But without them, I wouldn’t be who I am today.

What I’ve noticed is that we use fear of failure as an excuse not to try new things, while completely ignoring a lifetime of successes that prove we’re capable. Why do we cling so tightly to the worst moments of our past, instead of standing on everything we’ve survived?

I have far more moments of success than failure. And I’m willing to bet you do too.

Fear of Judgment

This one’s a doozy.

For years, I avoided trying new things because I was afraid of being judged. And if I’m honest, most of that judgment wasn’t coming from other people—it was coming from my own insecurities.

I’d assume the thing I wanted to try was stupid. And somehow, I also assumed I’d surrounded myself with people who would agree.

Usually, neither of those things was true.

Not every interest will be shared or understood by the people around you. That doesn’t make it stupid. Sometimes the uncommon things are the most interesting. And while there are judgmental people in the world, you usually know who they are—and those aren’t the people you need to be sharing your heart with anyway.

When I started sewing, no one in my immediate circle was particularly interested. So I found my sewing people—online, in fabric stores, on YouTube. And those people were kind. They remembered being beginners. They celebrated my first crooked tote bag like it was a masterpiece.

Sometimes you don’t need permission from your current circle—you just need to find the people who are already doing the thing you want to try.

Ways I Work Through the Fear of Change

These are some of the strategies we use in my house—and the ones that have helped me the most.

1. Set reasonable expectations

You will probably not be good at something the first time you try it. Or the tenth. And that’s okay.

Beginner-level expectations take the pressure off. Being new at something is freeing. You’re allowed to scribble before you paint masterpieces.

2. Ask, “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

This is a game we play often. The more ridiculous the answer, the better. Shark attack. Covered in honey while bears are released. Will that happen at the dentist? Probably not.

The point isn’t realism—it’s perspective.

3. Find your community

When I learned to sew, my family was politely supportive. My sewing community? They got it. They celebrated the wins and helped me through the disasters.

Find the people who understand the thing you’re trying to do. They’ll bring you along.

4. Journal it out

Journaling has helped me untangle more anxious thoughts than almost anything else. Writing takes the power away from fear. You don’t have to journal every day—but when you’re stuck, it can shake things loose.

5. Go back to the room

This one changed everything.

I went back to that kitchen—not physically, but in my mind. I sat with twelve-year-old April and told her the truth: that those girls’ cruelty had nothing to do with her worth.

When we’re afraid of change, it’s often because we’re still living in an old room. A room where someone made us feel small. A room where we learned a belief that no longer fits.

When you heal what happened there, you stop carrying it into every new room you enter.

A Final Thought

Your life is built on survival, resilience, and quiet victories. Every hard day you got through. Every time you tried again. Every moment you didn’t give up.

Fear doesn’t disappear when you find joy—but it does lose its grip.

And when you go back to the rooms that taught you to be afraid, you often discover something surprising: you were always brave enough to walk through the door.

You just needed to stop listening to the voice that learned fear too early.

So try the thing. Step into the room. Find your joy.

You’re allowed to be here.

If this post resonated with you, my memoir The Room to Be Brave explores this same theme on a deeper level—the courage it takes to try, to fail, to keep going, and to finally face the rooms we've been afraid to enter. The book releases January 27, 2026.

Want more stories about finding joy, breaking cycles, and choosing courage? Sign up here to get updates about the book launch, and you’ll receive a downloadable guide to finding your own rooms that may be holding you in place.