Welcome to the Portal: The Safety to Speak™ Begins Here
Understanding the process
This Isn’t Just a Newsletter— It’s a Mirror
Let me begin with full disclosure. This portal is not safe in the way comfort-seeking parts of you might expect. This is not a place where you will always agree with me, feel good, or walk away unchanged. This is not about me. This is about you, your nervous system, and your patterns of perception.
You are entering a space designed to help you recognize how your body, mind, and relationships have been shaped by macro-level social conditioning and micro-level family dynamics and how those shape the way you listen, react, reject, praise, attack, or ignore what’s in front of you.
What You’re About to Encounter
This portal, this body of work whatever you want to call it—is a mirror.
And mirrors don’t just show us what we like.
They show us what we’ve been avoiding.
You may feel validated, seen, and relieved here.
You may also feel challenged, defensive, or even called out.
That’s not by accident.
If you find yourself scrolling through content with a hyper-activated nervous system judging, intellectualizing, labeling, trying to place me or even others in a category that keeps you “safe” then you’re already witnessing the work.
That is the pattern we are here to interrupt.
As therapist and trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk explains in The Body Keeps the Score (2014), “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.” But most of us don’t feel safe—we feel filtered, reactive, or like we’re constantly scanning for threat.
And on the internet? That tendency is amplified.
The Role I Play Here (and the One I Reject)
I’m not here to be your savior, guru, therapist, or perfect voice of reason.
Yes, I’m a licensed clinician. But that’s just the currency this world recognizes.
What matters more is that I’m walking this path with you. I’m naming the patterns we reenact—both in the world at large and in our most intimate spaces. These include family roles, nervous system reactivity, internalized belief systems, and the unconscious contracts we absorb about who’s allowed to speak, feel, or lead. Yes, these dynamics show up in culture and politics (what some call the macro), but they also appear in everyday micro-moments: the loudest person in the family being tiptoed around, the scapegoated sibling, the unspoken grief no one dares name. This isn’t about taking a political stance—it’s about recognizing the emotional blueprints/ patterns we carry and learning how to interrupt them
This work is deeply embodied.
It’s born of clinical knowledge, yes, but also from spiritual discernment, somatic healing, marriage, grief, inner child integration, and stepping fully into purpose while leaving behind social camouflage.
Why It Might Activate You
We live in a time of extreme cognitive laziness and emotional entitlement.
People don’t listen to listen. They listen to react.
People don’t read to understand. They read to evaluate, categorize, and dismiss.
Most of what I will say here will activate one of the following nervous system responses:
🧠 Defensiveness (because you think I’m attacking “your side”)
🧠 Projection (because you think I’m saying something about you)
🧠 Pedestal-ing (because you like what I say and now expect me to never disappoint you)
🧠 Dismissal (because the tone or structure didn’t soothe you enough)
This is why I say: This is a portal, not a performance.
What You’ll Learn to Do Here
Through posts, voice memos, video content, and deep reflective prompts, you’ll be invited to:
Identify where reactivity rules your relationships
Understand your nervous system’s unique imprint and defenses
Deconstruct the family system dynamics that shaped your emotional responses
Explore what it means to feel safe enough to speak, even when others don’t agree
Build discernment not defense mechanisms
Develop nervous system tolerance, not just self-soothing
Practice spiritual neutrality—learning to see, not scan
This work draws from trauma theory, memory reconsolidation, nervous system research, and family systems psychology, but it’s not a classroom.
It’s a mirror maze.
You’ll get what you’re ready to see.
What I Ask of You
Do not make me your god.
Do not make me your villain.
And do not make this portal your emotional escape room.
Come with curiosity.
Come with courage.
Come with the willingness to pause before reacting.
I’m not here to give you content. I’m here to offer consciousness.
Where to Start
If you're not sure what to read first, I recommend starting with:
📘 The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk
📘 Passionate Marriage — Dr. David Schnarch
📘 Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself — Dr. Joe Dispenza
📘 The Mountain is You — Brianna Wiest
I'll be integrating these references as well as many others throughout future posts, voice memos, and workshops. (Affiliate links will be included soon—thank you for supporting my work.)
Final Word: Taste It First
You don't have to agree with everything you read here. But I invite you to taste it first.
Let your body, not just your mind, interact with this portal.
Try it on for two weeks.
See what softens. See what stings.
See what shifts.
This is a place for people who are tired of the echo chambers.
People who are tired of their own shit.
People who want to build emotional muscle.
People who are ready to step into nervous system sovereignty.
Welcome to the Safety to Speak™ corner of the internet.
We begin now.