HeyJaredLotus Flower Journeys
Perfectionism. Life's crossroads. Finding your way back to yourself. Honest writing for women ready to stop perfecting and come back to themselves. 🌿
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 8
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- Sep 11, 2026
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- Jul 16, 2026
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Kōnenki: The Japanese Word That Reframes Menopause as Renewal (opens the original)
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In English, menopause is often framed through what is ending.The end of fertility. The end of monthly cycles. The loss of youth. A door closing.That is not the whole story. Many women meet this transition with relief, clarity, strength, or liberation. Still, the language around menopause can lean toward loss: what the body no longer does, what has changed, what cannot be recovered.When we expect decline, that expectation can add weight. We may feel pressure to fight the body, return to a previou
I hope no one has convinced you that you are the one who is wrong (opens the original)
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When someone is always right in their own mind, it can become easy to question your own memory. Your own feelings. Your own sense of what happened.Over time, their certainty can begin to feel more reliable than your own knowing.For a long time, I waited for someone to change. Maybe this time they would hear me.There is a Japanese expression, 人生ははかない (jinsei wa hakanai). Life is fleeting.The seasons turn. Cherry blossoms open and fall. We find beauty in that impermanence because it is short-lived
There Was Never One American Way (opens the original)
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What do you do when the rules you came to learn turn out not to exist?Some words come easily in a new language. Others cost something.For me, the hardest word in English was small.One letter.I.In Japanese, a sentence can carry a full thought without it. You can speak of what happened, what was felt, what was hoped for, and never name yourself once. The listener understands. Context holds the meaning. The self stays quiet inside the words.Then came life in English. Every sentence seemed to ask fo
Presence is the only ground that does not shake (opens the original)
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Twenty-six years ago, I rolled a pickup truck on black ice.The airbag did not go off. I walked away. A couple of people did not walk away that day. I was lucky.I did not plan to lose control of the truck that morning. Nobody plans for the ice. You drive the road you drove yesterday, and then suddenly, it is not the same road.For a long time, I thought the lesson was about caution. Drive slower. Watch the weather. Stay ready.It took years to understand the deeper lesson: I did not control that mo
Waiting until you have it figured out? (opens the original)
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There is a moment, when something in your life is asking to shift, that you almost reach out.You sense you could use another perspective. A question you have not thought to ask yourself. Someone to think it through with.And then a quieter voice stops you. Not yet. Not until you have it more figured out. Not until you can bring the composed version of yourself, the one who has it handled.So you wait.I understand that rule, because perfectionism installs it early. Do not ask for help until you hav
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