I use to believe that my needs didn't matter...

For years, I said yes when I meant no. I made myself small to keep the peace. I consulted everyone else before making decisions—and when they had differing opinions, I felt overwhelmed and lost.

I thought having needs was selfish.

Here's where that came from:

I grew up in a chaotic family where I became the responsible one. I was the oldest, holding everything together while everyone else fell apart. I had to be the one with good grades, the one who took care of my younger sister, the one who started working at 14—not because I was asked to, but because I felt like a burden if I didn't contribute.

I learned early that my job was to be useful, to not need anything, to make everyone else's life easier. I was deeply empathetic—always scanning for what someone else had going on, always feeling responsible for their emotions, always trying to fix things I didn't break.

Then church culture gave all of that a spiritual wrapper: "Be like Jesus. Lay down your life. Serve endlessly. Your needs don't matter—that's what good Christians do."

And I believed it. Because it matched what I'd already been living.

The problem? They left out the part where Jesus had boundaries. Where He said no. Where He rested. Where He didn't let people walk all over Him just to keep the peace.

So I kept abandoning myself—at home, at church, in my marriage—because I thought that's what love looked like. I thought that's what faithfulness was.

Until I realized: self-abandonment isn't biblical submission. It's survival dressed in theology.

I hit a breaking point where I couldn't ignore it anymore. The cost of staying silent, of saying yes when I meant no, of putting everyone else first while losing myself—it became unbearable.

So I did the work. Therapy. Coaching. Reading books. Untangling what I was taught from what's actually true. Learning to trust my own voice again. Having the difficult conversations I'd been avoiding. Discovering that I could honor God AND myself—that I didn't have to choose.

I spent years doing this work myself—not just learning about it, but living it.

I learned that sometimes healing means being misunderstood by the people who raised you.

I've made the hard choices that cost me relationships, reputations, and the approval I once desperately needed—but I kept my soul.

I created the PEACE Framework through my own painful journey—not from a book or a course, but from years of practicing these principles in my real life.

Now I help other women do the same...

Women who were raised in chaotic families where they became the parent.

Women who absorbed church messages that their needs don't matter.

Women who are exhausted from holding everything together and ready to come home to themselves.

Because you can honor God and yourself. You don't have to choose.