Ever feel like you're holding it together so well that no one suspects anything's wrong? Like you're calm, composed, even unbothered—but only on the outside? You’re the person people admire for staying grounded during chaos. But here’s the truth:

Your calm might not be calm at all. It might be freeze.

The Calm That Wasn’t Chosen

The freeze response is a lesser-discussed trauma survival state. While most people are familiar with fight or flight, freeze is what happens when the body registers t...

I was having dinner outdoors sometime in Dec last year - surrounded by trees and the sound of nature.

Out of nowhere, a cicada landed on me. It didn’t fly off immediately. It simply stayed for a while, still and unbothered. No panic, no confusion. Just presence.

And in that moment, I felt like I’d been handed a quiet message: not everything that matters is visible. Not every transformation needs an audience.

Cicadas aren’t showy. They spend most of their lives underground, unseen, growing. In...

You might think you're just tired. That you're burned out because of work, life, or responsibilities piling up. And while that's partly true, there's a deeper reason why everything feels so heavy, so relentless.

It’s not just fatigue. It’s emotional exhaustion.

And contrary to what you’ve been told—it’s not a sign of weakness. It’s a message from your nervous system.

Let’s unpack this together.

The Silent Weight We Carry

Emotional exhaustion isn’t always loud. It doesn’t always show up as c...

In Part 1, we explored the first ten subtle ways spiritual bypassing can show up in everyday life - often disguised as wisdom, strength, or even inner peace. But real emotional mastery isn’t about avoiding pain. It’s about being fully present with it, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Here are ten more ways you might be bypassing your emotional truth without realising it:

11. Judging others for being ‘low vibe’ instead of seeing your own projections

It’s easy to dismiss someone as negative, toxic...

Spiritual bypassing is often invisible on the surface. It disguises itself as maturity, grace, or wisdom. But underneath, it's often just avoidance dressed in spiritual language.

Many of us fall into it without realising. And while it might feel like protection, over time it erodes our emotional wellness and disconnects us from the real work of healing.

Here are the first ten subtle ways you might be spiritually bypassing in your day-to-day life:

1. Using “Everything happens for a reason” to ...

Most people think they’re following their intuition. But what if what they call “intuition” is actually a nervous system reaction - one rooted in past wounds rather than present wisdom?

We’ve all had those moments. A strong feeling hits, and we assume it’s a warning, a sign, an inner knowing. But here’s the problem: intuition is not fear, and fear is not intuition. The nervous system, if left unchecked, will push you into decisions you don’t consciously want to make—because it recognises its pa...

In Part 1, we celebrated the power of asking questions as a way to move beyond a simple, black-and-white view of life. Yet, even with all the benefits of asking questions, many of us hesitate to challenge what is presented to us. In this second part, I explore why so many of us prefer the comfort of familiar answers instead of facing the uncertainty that comes with deeper questioning. (Check out part 1 if you have not read it yet)

The Pull of What Is Familiar

For many people, there is a strong...

In a world that often forces us to see things in black and white, I have come to value the many shades of grey that truly define life. Simple answers may give us comfort and a sense of certainty, but they can also trap us in a narrow view that misses the full richness of our experiences. Only by continuously questioning our assumptions can we begin to explore the wide range of subtle details and hidden truths that surround us.

The Allure and the Risk of Black-and-White Thinking

From an early a...

We’ve all been there—left wondering why someone pulled away, why a relationship changed, or why someone didn’t show up in the way we had hoped. It’s human nature to search for answers, to try and make sense of it all. But in that search, we often lose ourselves in endless loops of overthinking, carrying the weight of things we were never meant to hold. The truth is, we can’t control what others do. Real peace begins when we stop trying to manage what’s outside our hands and focus on how we respo...

We all have moments when we feel fragmented—pulled in different directions by our thoughts, emotions, and physical needs. The journey of self-integration is about bringing these parts of ourselves into harmony, creating a deep sense of peace, stability, and self-acceptance. As someone who has always lived a holistic life and walked the path of shadow work and depth psychology, I’ve learnt that integration is not a quick fix. It’s a practice—a series of small but powerful steps that lead to lasti...