Category: BOOK

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From Where I Stand – Love, Wendy

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Childhood reflections:

“Little girls and little boys 

who grow up in a world of noise 

rather than experiencing the joys 

of a loving family

may find their heart and soul destroyed…

They have a heart that begins to roam

For a place that they may call their home

But find that they are all alone

And live an empty life unknown

to the experience of love.”

Wendy Blanchard, MS, INHC

EMPATHY

Instead of judging one who is exhibiting poor behavior and practicing unhealthy habits, ask yourself, “I wonder what it was/is like for them?”

This is known as a trauma informed approach.

There is always a reason why one displays anger, anxiety, depression, addiction, etc.

Showing empathy may disarm one who is experiencing symptoms of repressed emotions, and may encourage them to share and release as a first step to healing.

Empathy is putting yourself in the mindset and circumstances of another that you may not have experienced in your own life.

In my lived and field experience, I have observed others, and have experienced myself that when another loving human offers an opportunity for me to “unpack” or just sits with me as an active listener with EMPATHY as their gift, we DO begin to de-escalate and to consider taking the following steps to healing.

We should never stand in judgement of that which we have NOT experienced ourselves. Be kind. Be compassionate. Offer a hand, a shoulder and an ear. YOU can be the conduit to one connecting to their most inner emotions that catapults them into healing and recovery.

Happy Saturday. Stay warm, safe and KIND. Love and empathy is the antidote…

Love and blessings, Wendy

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The Human Condition:Soul Notes – Love, Wendy

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We all crave connection…seek validation and recognition whether in our personal relationships or in our professional lives.
It is the very essence of the human condition.

Connection is medicine for anxiety, and companionship calms the body in ways logic never can…

We can take a break from being “the strong one” when love is present.

Love and blessings,

Wendy

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Friendship:Soul Notes – Love, Wendy

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Sometimes gratitude stops me mid‑sentence, searching for language big enough to hold it. My heart swells with gratitude.

How do you thank a bestie who doesn’t hesitate when your child is hurting? When he offers support that is not offered out of obligation, but from the quiet place of presence, wisdom, and love…When someone willingly gives their precious time and hard‑earned expertise to help your child navigate a sudden, destabilizing moment…Some questions aren’t meant to be answered. They’re meant to be witnessed.

This is the language of a loving friendship…one that is reciprocal without keeping score, consistent without conditions, dependable without fanfare. It’s mentorship wrapped in compassion. It’s steadiness in a season of free‑fall.

And today, as my child faces loss, anxiety, and uncertainty, I am deeply aware that this kind of friendship is rare and sacred.

Gratitude feels insufficient…but love recognizes love. Friendship recognizes friendship. And sometimes, that is everything.

Love and blessings,

Wendy

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Clear Eyes:Soul Notes – Love, Wendy

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While participating in a book study of The Anxious Generation, and in my lived and field experience, I see that the same patterns of seeking constant validation, neediness, comparison, and dependence that present in children often show up in adults…sometimes subtly, sometimes very overtly.

Comparison culture doesn’t dissolve with age…it simply becomes more disguised. In adults, it often masquerades as productivity, sensitivity, or the need to be seen as misunderstood. A notification replaces a gold star; a like becomes reassurance of worth; silence feels like rejection.

Rather than building an internal compass, many adults “outsource” their self-esteem to external affirmation, scanning constantly for signs that they are worthy. When validation is delayed or attention shifts elsewhere, anxiety surfaces…not as curiosity or self-reflection, but as jealousy, control, or emotional dependency. In these moments, adult relationships can begin to mirror childlike dynamics, where one person is unconsciously tasked with soothing another’s unhealed insecurity, mistaking emotional regulation for love.

I have already raised my children.

Being asked to “hold someone until they get over their trigger” is not intimacy. It is emotional labor rooted in arrested development. When another adult expects to be soothed, stabilized, or emotionally regulated by a partner, the relationship quietly shifts from mutual adult connection to child care…

A hard pass...

Healing requires immersion in the inner work…facing unhealed insecurity, developing self-regulation, and learning to sit with discomfort and exploring solutions rather than outsourcing it. Becoming is the embodiment of both self-awareness and social awareness, grounded in healthy, sustainable practices. This inner exploration eventually leads to love that is regulated, reciprocal, and free from the expectation that one person must carry another’s unmet childhood needs.

Some adults say they are “doing the work” simply by sitting in reflection, but without accountability, insight, or consistent action, reflection alone rarely, if ever, produces real change. “Nothing changes if nothing changes.”

The patterns described in The Anxious Generation do not simply disappear as children grow older; in today’s world they often mature into more socially acceptable forms of dependence and comparison…UNACCEPTABLE. In this way, healing “the anxious generation” is not only about protecting children…it is about adults choosing to grow up, take accountability, heal forward, and model the human wholeness that we pray for the next generation to inherit.

Call to Action: Do your own inner healing, set a healthy example of self-awareness and love of self—and of others…and become part of the solution in guiding the trajectory of our young people.

Sat Nam (Truth is my name)

Love and blessings,

Wendy

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Ordinary Grace:Soul Notes – Love, Wendy

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I awake to warmth on a snowy morning in my comfy bed…

I get ready to go to work…a career that is meaningful to me, and that I am proud of and look forward to each day.

I open my cabinets each day and I get to choose which coffee I will drink, and which snacks I will eat, and in my fridge, is a smorgasbord of food to choose from because I went shopping to stock up for the week.

I take a warm shower, I drive my car to work…I may stop off for a bagel and coffee. I listen to my favorite music where Spirit guides me for the day…where I know I am being spoken to, that I am loved, and protected.

And I am connected to my children, my grandchildren and my dearest friends throughout the week that reminds me of how much I am loved, and that love is deeply reciprocated. We spend quality time together which fills my heart with love and feelings of connection to our history as we continue to create new memories.

My life is certainly very different from the “pampered, sheltered life” I used to live when I was married and living with mental health disorders including a substance use disorder to prescription meds…

My life today is what I have created after nearly fourteen years of wellness in recovery…

And sometimes I miss the “perks” of being married and having a husband to share things with…but there is something important to be said for my independence and appreciation for every single thing that I have acquired…self confidence, self respect, and self awareness at the front of that line…followed by complete wellness and the tools to navigate pain, disappointment and grief rather than numbing it out…a small, lovely home environment that reflects warmth, family, love and zen…and financial freedom which allows me to live gently, give generously, and choose intentionally where I live a life rooted in gratitude rather than fear.

As I prayed this morning after writing this blog, “Jesus Take the Wheel” begin playing on Pandora, which is meaningful to me as the night before I called for help to save my life nearly 14 years ago, I got down on my knees and prayed for God to show me the way out of my addiction. I was completely desperate and near death…

I promised God that I would follow any path He put before me and asked that the next song on the radio would tell me that God heard me. That song was “Jesus take the Wheel…”

This is a full circle, and very profound moment of personal symbolism and integration…

My present self met my past self and said: I kept going.
My life today is evidence that the prayer was answered…not just once, but every day since.

That’s the full circle.

I did not just ask for the way out 14 years ago…I have walked it.
And today, the song mirrors back the truth:
I am no longer asking to be saved.
I am living as someone who knows how to listen, how to surrender, and how to choose alignment.

As for love and a life partner…this moment speaks clearly:

Love that comes now will not be a rescue.
It will not be a trade for security.
It will not ask me to abandon myself.

It will meet me already awake.

If there is guidance embedded in this moment, it’s not “wait” or “strive” or “question yourself.”

It’s this:

I already know how to recognize the right direction…because I trust myself now.
Love will not pull me off of my path. It will ride alongside it.

I did not need Jesus to take the wheel today. (This coming from a Jewish girl LOL)
I just needed to remember that I have learned how to drive…with grace, discernment, and faith…and that my Angels are always along for the ride.

Recovery brings so much to one’s life when one is willing to be patient, to dive into the inner work, and to appreciate the coffee, the music and the snow.

Love and blessings,

Wendy

https://a.co/d/4RlZcyq

Click the link above to purchase my book Write Pray Recover:A Journey To Wellness Through Spiritual Solutions and Self Care, and learn how to recover as I did, organically through spiritual solutions and self care.

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Imagine:Soul Notes – Love, Wendy

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Choosing compassion, empathy, and consistent presence reveals a deep desire for connection and commitment.

Meaning and intention become visible through behavior…quietly, honestly, unmistakably…

Signs of affection are offered without persuasion, urgency or demand…

When one has the capability and willingness to love.

Love and blessings,

Wendy

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Butterflies:Soul Notes – Love, Wendy

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There comes a point when you realize that some things in life do not respond to patience or reason. Like a fly that keeps circling your head…buzzing, distracting, disappearing just long enough to make you think it’s gone…only to return again.

You swat it away once, twice, dozens of times, hoping it will finally leave you in peace. But it never does…

It feeds on access, on hesitation, on your hope that restraint will be enough. And eventually, you understand that the only way to restore your peace is to stop swatting and take decisive action.

Not out of anger, but out of self-preservation. You let it die. You do not resurrect it. You do not explain yourself. You choose silence, stillness, and peace…and you breathe again.

I am partial to butterflies…they know how to glide and when the time is perfect, they land gently…with grace and presence.

Love and blessings,

Wendy

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It is all an Illusion – Love, Wendy

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Sometimes you have to learn to live with the realization that resolution never comes…and that more of us live with this truth than we admit.

There’s something you desperately want to control, something you believe will enhance your life, that no matter how hard you attempt to coerce it, never comes to fruition… although at times you feel you are “almost there,” which eventually reveals itself as an illusion.

Perhaps it is someone you have prayed would get out of their own way so they might experience true love and joy…someone you hope will one day realize that their patterns are diminishing their life experiences, and that they might finally meet your energy in a committed life together.

Or maybe you seek acknowledgment or validation you have been waiting a lifetime…or a “lovetime”…to hear. And of course, there is the familiar ache of trying to force an outcome, gripping the steering wheel tightly, to no avail…because it exists completely outside your sphere of control, far off the beaten path.

And so… patience has become a survival skill. Not the patience of watching desires finally come to fruition, but the patience of acceptance…one freaking day at a time.

Acceptance that complete surrender to external circumstances is where we take back our power…and our peace.

And the Universe will continue to assign this lesson until you finally internalize it… breathe it… speak it… sleep it… live it.

Release your grip.

It is all an illusion.

Love,

Wendy

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Death by Attachment…and Resurrection – Love, Wendy

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Attempted strangulation of any outcome

will most certainly result in death by asphyxiation.

Attachment doesn’t look like danger at first.

It disguises itself as love.

Attachment keeps one in a low-oxygen environment:

second-guessing oneself, waiting, shrinking one’s needs,

holding one’s breath for crumbs of certainty.

This kind of attachment doesn’t explode—

it erodes.

Quietly.

Over days…over months…over years…

Over a lifetime.

Attachment is a killer.

It cuts off oxygen.

A hard pill to swallow…

what is meant to be included in our lives does not require force…

Release your grip…

Release isn’t loss.

It’s resuscitation.

Resurrection of the soul…

Love and blessings,

Wendy

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Shallow – Love, Wendy

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Ready to dive in?!

You cannot steady a man who refuses to stop rocking the boat.

I remain afloat in the eye—steady and sheltered.

I am exposing the cultural lie that endless diving equals love, loyalty, or virtue.

I choose…

emotional buoyancy, nervous-system safety and spiritual sobriety.

Love,

Wendy