Mellara

For a long time I thought forgiveness meant returning.

Returning the call.
Returning the friendship.
Returning the relationship to what it once was.

Over time I’ve come to see that forgiveness and access are different things.

I can genuinely wish someone well and still recognize that our chapter is complete.

Not from bitterness.
Not from punishment.

But from clarity.

Sometimes healing looks less like reconciliation and more like accepting what the relationship actually was, what it taught us, and what is no longer needed.

🤍

Sometimes when we write about childhood, grief, loss, family, or old wounds, people assume we’re writing from a place of ongoing suffering.
Sometimes we are.

But often we’re writing from somewhere else entirely.

We’re writing from the scar, not the wound.

Not because it no longer matters.

Not because it didn’t leave a mark.

But because we’ve lived with it long enough to learn something from it.

I’ve noticed that when I write about my parents or my childhood, people will sometimes respond with concern, comfort, or reassurance.

And while I always appreciate the kindness behind it, what they’re often seeing is not where I am now.

They’re seeing the child in the story.

What they’re not always seeing is the woman reflecting on it.

There is a difference between revisiting a wound and reflecting on a life.

One is seeking relief.

The other is seeking meaning.

Both are valid.

But they are not the same thing.
🤍



A quiet reminder I’ve been practicing lately. 🤍

Recently, I found myself about to solve a problem that nobody had actually asked me to solve.

Before I understood what was being requested, I had already begun offering solutions.

The moment wasn’t dramatic.

But it revealed something.

For much of my life, I have been very good at including everyone else in the equation.

What I am learning now is how to include myself.

Not as an afterthought.

Not once everyone else is comfortable.

Not after every need has been met.

At the beginning.

A phrase arrived that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about:

“I am learning to consider myself not part of the equation, but the first part of it.”

Not because I am more important than anyone else.

But because if I am absent from the equation, then the equation isn’t complete.

Perhaps healing is not learning to place ourselves above others.

Perhaps it is learning that we were never meant to stand beneath them.

We were always meant to stand beside them.

Including ourselves.
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📸 Yoga and Photo 📷 Photographer

For a long time, I thought caring for others and caring for myself were somehow in competition.

What I am learning is that they are not opposites.

The real practice is remaining connected to ourselves while remaining connected to others.

Not disappearing.

Not abandoning ourselves.

Not waiting until everyone else is taken care of before considering what is true for us.

Simply including ourselves in the circle too.

🤍

Looking at this woman now, I do not see someone who had everything figured out.

I see someone learning.
Someone loving.
Someone trying.

At the time, I was simply trying to be a good mother.

Leela was little, Charlie was on the way, and like so many new mothers, I was making much of it up as I went.

I didn’t yet have language for healing.

I wasn’t thinking about breaking generational patterns.

I wasn’t trying to become a better version of myself.

I was simply showing up one day at a time.

Looking back, I can see that many of the changes we hope to make in a family rarely happen through grand gestures.

They happen in ordinary moments of staying.

Staying present.

Staying loving.

Staying when we’re uncertain.

Staying long enough to learn what matters.

And perhaps healing is often the same.
Not becoming someone new.

But returning, again and again, to who we have always been.

When you look back at an earlier version of yourself, what do you see now that you couldn’t see then? 🤍

📸 Coogee Beach, 2009. Age 33. Leela 20 months old-ish. Pregnant with Charlie. 🤍

Many people think Ahimsa, the yogic principle of non-harming, is primarily about how we treat others.

But over the years, I’ve become increasingly interested in how we treat ourselves.

Sometimes non-harming looks less like being kind and more like noticing.

Noticing the way we push.

The way we rush.

The way we speak to ourselves when we believe we should be further along than we are.

There have been moments in my own practice when the most compassionate choice was not going deeper into a pose, but listening to what my body was asking for instead.

Perhaps Ahimsa begins there.
Not in getting it perfectly.
But in learning to meet ourselves with a little more care and grace.

This reflection was inspired by my article Yoga Beyond the Shape, published in OM Yoga & Lifestyle Magazine OM Yoga & Lifestyle 🤍

Not unlike so many of us, I have had to move through many things.

An absent father.

A young mother doing the best she could with what she had.

Poverty.

Shame.

Self-doubt.

The longing to be loved.

The fear of being left.

There were years of acting auditions, waitressing late into the night, other strange jobs, uncertainty about where the path was leading, and many moments when it would have been easier to turn away from what felt true.

What carried me forward was not certainty.

It was a quiet sense that something essential was asking to be lived.

Over time, I have come to think less about becoming someone and more about returning to myself.

Again and again.

Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
But one honest step at a time.

The path has not always been clear.

There have been disappointments, losses, and seasons when I questioned everything.

Yet each time I found my way back to what mattered — awareness, practice, compassion, presence, writing, teaching — life became a little more aligned.

Not easier.

But truer.

And perhaps that is enough.

When I look at this little girl, I do not see someone who needed fixing.

I see someone who needed support.

Someone who needed protection.

Someone who needed to be seen clearly.

Perhaps that is part of what healing becomes.

Not creating a new self.

Not endlessly improving ourselves.

But meeting the parts of us that have been waiting patiently to be welcomed home.

And learning, little by little, to become the kind of presence we once needed.

So wherever you are on your own path, don't assume that confusion means you are lost.

Sometimes the path home begins with a single moment of honesty.

A willingness to stop abandoning yourself.

A willingness to stay.

The next step may not reveal the entire journey.

But it may reveal enough.

And sometimes enough is all we need.

🤍

Sometimes suffering comes not from what is happening, but from our attachment to what we wish were happening.

Whether it’s a relationship, a family member, a version of ourselves, or a dream we hoped would unfold differently, there is often a quiet grief in letting go of the story and meeting reality as it is. So true this has been for me at times in my life…

Not because we approve of everything that happened.

But because reality is where healing begins.
🤍