In This Issue:

What Dr. Gabor Maté Reminded Me (and 2,630 Others) Last Night [< 30 sec]
A Love Letter To You [2 min]
Quote Of The Issue

What Dr. Gabor Maté Reminded Me (and 2,630 Others) Last Night

I fangirled hard last Thursday night seeing Dr. Gabor Maté live ... - for the fourth time!

At this point I feel like he and I should be taking our relationship to the next level, like brunching on Sundays or something. But I digress.

A fellow mom gifted me a last-minute ticket, and there I was, swooning in a sea of 2,630 sold-out souls, scribbling notes like I was prepping for a pop quiz in trauma-informed wisdom. He reminded us—gently but firmly—that healing is not a checklist ... it's a coming home.

And that message?

It stirred something in me so deeply, I knew I had to pass it on to you.

So this one’s not a tip or a protocol. It’s a love letter—from my heart to yours.

A Love Letter To You

Dear Reader,

If I could sit beside you shoulder to shoulder in a quiet moment, I would speak the words you have longed to hear. I would whisper, not from a place of authority, but from deep knowing and kinship. I would say: you are not broken. And neither is your health challenge without meaning.

Dr. Gabor Maté, in The Myth of Normal, names what so many of us have felt but couldn’t quite put words to—that what society calls “normal” is often a masquerade, a numbing of our essence. In a world that demands your performance while starving your soul, to suffer is not a sign of weakness but of your humanity. Healing, then, is not a rebellion against your nature—but a sacred return to it. Should you have the time, I invite you to watch his lecture on why we get sick.

So allow me, just for a moment, to write to the softest part of you—the part that still hopes, still aches, still remembers.

Healing asks for truth

Not the hard-edged kind, but the kind that sits beside you, warm as candlelight. The truth of your childhood longings, your adaptive silences, your beautifully intelligent survival. The truth that you didn’t choose your pain, but you can choose to meet it now, with eyes wide open and a heart that dares to stay.

Healing asks for authenticity

For the wild, untamed voice beneath your well-rehearsed roles. You were never meant to contort yourself to be palatable. Your body is not malfunctioning—it is pleading for you to come home. To honor your “no.” To trust your “yes.” To remember that your essence is not a problem to solve, but a presence to reclaim

Healing asks for compassion

The kind that holds you, not just understands you. That whispers, of course you froze. Of course you fawned. Of course you fought or fled. Look how wisely you endured. You don’t need to prove your worthiness. You only need a love that does not flinch.

Healing asks for connection

Because we don’t heal in a vacuum or in isolation. Your nervous system craves attunment, resonance, safety in the gaze of another. When you are truly seen—not for what you do, but for who you are—something ancient inside exhales. The war within softens. The repair begins.

Healing asks for safety

The deep, cellular knowing that you are safe now. That there is space for your tears, your anger, your remembering. In safety, your body no longer needs to brace against life. It opens, it breathes, it lives.

Healing asks for agency

You are not a problem to be managed. You are the sovereign author of your own liberation. Each moment you choose truth over coping, softness over survival, presence over protection—you are laying the stones of your own sacred path.

So, beloved, let us not chase healing like it is something far away. Let us remember it. It lives inside you. It always has. And together, with tenderness and courage, we will walk the spiral path home—to your freedom and wholeness.

There is nothing wrong with you. There never was.

There is only the exquisite, brave unfolding of your return.

With reverence,

Dominika