Emotional Support Blog

After a few rough nights of sleep, my brain is bouncing down a more negative track than I enjoy. So I’m doing a little light comfort blogging. A few bad dreams, a little peri-menopause-induced insomnia, and more late night doom scrolling than is good for anyone and I need a perspective shift.

So I’m going to write myself to one. Writers are transformation creators and healers and paradigm shifters, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Onward to a sweeter, less panicked, less anxious view of the day and of life and of the world!

Let’s start with some self-recognition. Because if you don’t recognize yourself, who will?

I got myself out of bed - good job, Amber! Started a fire - nicely done on not losing your ever-loving snit when the wood-burning stove door wouldn’t open, Amber! I even did last night’s dishes - PARADE OF GLITTER-FLINGING GIRAFFES FOR YOU, AMBER! After this impressive burst of productivity, I’ve made a nest in front of the fire, put extra maple syrup in my cacao, and fired up my blog for this experience of mental and emotional transfiguration.

As I was doing the dishes, I started talking to myself. This is healthier than it sounds, because I was saying things like “I plan on having a good day today” and “I am open to magic today” and “I am ready for good things to happen today.” It helps more than you might think.

The amount of work it takes to stay in a good mental space is mind-boggling. Sometimes circumstances support you - you had a good night of sleep, your hormones are doing the right things, or something nice just happened. That’s when it’s so much easier to keep your brain and emotions on a good-feeling track. But sometimes, circumstances just aren’t helping you out. So you have to talk to yourself in the kitchen.

Other things I do to help myself shift into something that feels better, things I will probably do a bit later, are morning pages (see Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way), tapping (look up ‘emotional freedom technique’ for more on that), writing out my intentions, doing some stretches and weight lifting, eating a nice breakfast (I made an apple crumble earlier this week that is delightful with a couple of pork sausages), and trying to convince the cats to cuddle with me. Breathing deeply, moving, writing, cleaning, anything to shift the energy around.

I’m doing my best to appreciate how truly lovely my life is, to keep myself on a steady course so that I can help in the ways I’m able.

Appreciation, pleasure, and love are some of the most powerful ways to shift, but it can take some work to get there sometimes. It takes practice. There was a long time when I struggled to access any of those things, and it was scary. So now I’m doing everything I can, as often as I can, to stay in the habit of feeling good.

Feeling good is a revolutionary act, my friends.

Tending My Quiet Corner of the Internet

One of my favorite things about writing here is that no one really knows this blog exists. It lends it the flavor of a personal diary. It feels quiet and safe. And that - at least in this moment in time - that feels very welcome. It allows me to practice writing again after so long away. It allows me to tune in with my heart and soul with zero concerns about what the reaction might be.

With all the noise and unhinged world events, I want to create a space that feels safe and supportive to everyone. So I’ll be quietly practicing here until it feels time to get bigger.

Here’s how my quiet corner of the world feels today:

It feels soft, yet expansive. California sun is streaming in the windows (I’m not complaining about the fact that it feels like spring, but it does worry me just a hair) and my nervous system feels relaxed because I’ve been supporting it like nobody’s business. We’re all walking around in a trauma echo chamber, so supporting your body and boundaries becomes a must instead of a maybe.

I’m drinking my winter support tea in front of the fire. Not to brag, but it seems to be doing its job. I’m still wearing real clothes, but my cozy slippers are on and I’m huddled under my noise-canceling headphones even though I’m the only one in the house except for the cats.

So much feels like it’s ready to shift* and I’m doing my utmost to help it shift for the better.

*Though I would like it noted that when I said I wanted a timeline shift, I didn’t mean back to T*ump.

How am I doing that, you might ask. I SHALL TELL YOU. By staying in the god zone (isn’t that a great phrase?), ruthlessly curating my thoughts and beliefs, breathing through any stickiness or fear that pops up in my chest, and planning as many lovely real world activities like rollerskating and time with family and friends as I can.

Take care of yourselves, my friends. It’s the best place to start when it feels like the world is in turmoil.

Fellow Early Risers Unite (Not to Take Over the World Or Anything But To Share Cacao Recipes)

Nothing is nicer than waking up in the cool dark of the early morning to make a fire in the fire place and read or write for awhile before the world wakes up. I turn on the classical radio station I’ve been listening to my entire life, and let the cats in or out, then out or in again. At least two - usually three or four - hot beverages make their way into my mug.

If you’re wondering how many hot beverages one can possibly drink in the morning, especially because I’m avoiding coffee right now (not because I want to avoid coffee, but because my poor, beleaguered adrenals demand it), allow me to share the mania. I drink two cups of winter support tea with elderberry, rosehips, and ginger every day during the cold months. I usually have some form of cacao, either the basic version tossed into the little electric beverage heater-blender thing that’s essential when you’re as devoted to hot drinks as I am or the fancy version with cacao, dark chocolate, maple syrup, reishi powder, cinnamon, and cayenne. Then of course there’s tea, I’m digging peppermint right now, bought loose from Petaluma Coffee & Tea Company. And finally, as a symbol that it’s time to start being productive, the herbal coffee substitute I make using Lizzie’s recipe.

I need a lot of quiet time to myself and so the early mornings are sacred. Not sacred enough to set an alarm or anything but my inherited body clock wakes me up between four and five am everyday, like it or not. This worried me for awhile, until my mom told me that my dad used to wake up at four every morning and my brother does too. She was the only one in the family who escaped the relentlessly early mornings. Whenever I manage to sleep until six or even seven in the morning, it’s like a choir of angels descends from the heavens to sing hallelujahs over my head while I revel in the fact that it’s light and I haven’t already been awake for three or four hours.

But that’s not what happened today. Today, I get a fire and cats and cacao and blogging before I start my day. Maybe tomorrow will be one of those wildly blessed days of sleeping til actual dawn. We can only hope.

Throwing a Tantrum as an Adult

As a youngster, I was famous for my tantrums. If life didn’t look the way I thought it should - if my socks were wrinkled, if a brother who wanted to play with my toys suddenly appeared, if I got a guinea pig instead of a dog - I lost my ever-loving mind.

I thought I’d grown out of that, but even as a 46-year-old, if I get triggered hard enough, I am capable of absolutely losing it.

We could chalk this unfortunate tendency up to a few things:

Neurodivergence:

While I haven’t gotten a formal diagnosis, I seem to be one of those people who need a great deal of freedom but also structure, who feel things very deeply without always knowing how to express it, who gets wildly overwhelmed in social situations to the point of fleeing if enough tricky things happen in a loud space.

Interestingly, a lot of tendencies can also be explained by my…

Human design:

Who else out there has an open emotional (solar plexus) center? As someone who has been surrounded by suppressed angry people my whole life, this one is a real treat. Most of my rage has been absorbed from someone else and learning how to not do that - so far, my best plan is literally to flee so I can get as far away from their rage volcano as possible, thereby not feeling it as if it were my rage volcano any more. Fight / flight is a big thing for people with open emotional centers, and I’ve spent my forties reaping the rewards of lifelong adrenal taxation. As with anything named “tax”, it’s not at all fun.

ASTROLOGY:

Apparently, Cancers are in their villain era right now and I. Am. Feeling. That.

All this to say, I have had a couple of emotional meltdowns already this year. I did not have “losing my shit twice in one week” on my 2025 bingo card.

When I’m in a deeply triggered state, there’s not a whole lot I can do except breathe. Square breathing is a lifesaver in those moments: breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 4, hold for 4. It helps regulate me somewhat, and is much healthier than breaking things. I will genuinely think that I’m over this kind of reaction, because it won’t happen for months or years, and then hello, my old friend.

So the best thing I can do is 1) give my body what it needs (food, shower, rest, comfort TV), 2) not make any major decisions from this state, 3) work on healing and practicing better coping habits when I feel better.

If you also find yourself in a rage from time to time, I feel you. It’s okay. We aren’t terrible people. This world is just a lot, especially if you have a - shall we say - finely tuned nervous system.

Lots of love,

Amber

The California Fires

I struggle to process events like the California wildfires. As someone who lived in Santa Monica, whose brother was a California fire fighter, who was in Sonoma for the wild fires of 2017, my system is wide open to the trauma and devastation happening in real time. 

Humans aren’t built to process tragedies of this scope more than once, maybe twice, in a lifetime. But as more tragedies unfold every year, in a way that we can all watch on our phones, we have to evolve. We have to learn to regulate our bodies and hearts and nervous systems in order to stay present and open and loving and helpful. And that is no joke, my friends. 

Ten years ago, I lived in Santa Monica, just a few blocks away from where the Palisade fires are still - as of this moment - blazing with zero percent containment. Every time I get on social media, I see dystopian images of fire and animals fleeing, cars lying abandoned. It’s hard to process. Humans aren’t designed to process the kind of trauma and devastation we see on a daily basis now.

The amount of nervous system dysregulation that shows up in these situations - for those who have lost everything, for those who have been displaced, for those who are watching families, friends, fellow humans deal with this - is enormous.

To anyone who’s affected by the California fires in any way, I’m sending my love.