— The Girl Who Tried to Escape

My first memory is of trying to leave.

I remember slipping quietly out the front door in nothing but a diaper and wandering through the cul-de-sac where we lived, trying to make it to the neighbors’ houses. I was so small I barely understood the world around me, but something inside me already felt emotionally restless. Unsafe somehow. Like I was searching for warmth I couldn’t name yet.

Looking back now, I think I entered this life deeply sensitive.

Nature became my first real emotional refuge. I felt safest outside — around dirt, trees, grass, wind, and sunlight. The natural world made sense to me in ways people sometimes didn’t. I could feel energy very intensely even as a child. I noticed tension quickly. I noticed sadness quickly. I noticed when people were disconnected from themselves.

I grew up Mormon in Utah inside a family that was trying its best while also carrying enormous pain.

My parents struggled deeply with their own emotional wounds, unhealthy habits, stress, instability, and unhappiness. Looking back now, I do have compassion for them. I believe both of them were carrying pain long before I was born. My mother likely experienced abuse herself. My father was brilliant in many ways — a talented web designer — but emotionally overwhelmed too.

There was love in our home.

But there was also heaviness.

I think children absorb everything.

The food.

The chemicals.

The stress.

The depression.

The emotional tension.

The exhaustion.

The unhealthy coping mechanisms.

The silence.

As I got older, I became obsessed with understanding why so many people seemed disconnected from themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Why everyone seemed inflamed, exhausted, anxious, numb, addicted, overstimulated, lonely, and sick.

That obsession eventually became the foundation for my entire life now.

People sometimes think my interest in wellness came from aesthetics or trends.

It didn’t.

It came from survival.

It came from watching people I loved suffer while nobody fully understood how deeply environment affects the human nervous system and spirit. I genuinely believe homes, food, air, stress, relationships, emotional safety, and the energy surrounding us shape who we become far more than most people realize.

As a child, I absorbed all of it deeply.

And for a very long time, I thought my emotional intensity meant there was something wrong with me.

Now I understand it differently.

I think I was responding to environments that hurt.