It starts close in

The edge of your truest truth

Apr 07, 2025

Hello sweet one,

I turned 33 on Friday. A sunshine day at the seaside.

Birthdays have never been simple for me. As a child, I learned to have no expectations as a way to protect myself from disappointment. And even now, I still notice the tender ache that arises each year—the mix of hope, grief, vulnerability, and reflection.

But I no longer resist this layered swirly feeling.
I let the tears come. I let the joy in, too.
And as I sit with it all, I feel something easing inside—a widening, a softening, a deeper homecoming.

Because the truth is, this work—what I’m calling building a home within—has been unfolding for most of my life.

The past eight years have been an especially slow, non-linear, sometimes quiet, sometimes earth-shattering, unraveling and reweaving of the parts of me that were never broken, just buried deep within.

This work starts close in.
Where the heart is tender and you’d rather not shine the light.
This is where the tenderness seeps from, like water escaping a paper-thin crack in a dam built to contain a wild and dancing river.

I was often afraid I’d find something monstrous in my shadowy depths, something that would swallow me whole.

But what I find instead, again and again, are all the parts of myself that make the complex, layered, wise, intuitive, and whole human that I am.

One of these cherished parts is my inner little one.
A child with wild, dark curls tangled in the Colorado mountain air.
Brown eyes full of knowing and longing.

With a strength twice her size, she has held more than she should have had to.

She built a fortress of control around herself and called it safety.
And for a long time, it worked—until it didn’t.

Until the walls began to close in.
Until the cost of hiding became too great.
Until a hairline crack formed in the structure she’d so carefully maintained.

And through that crack, a small stream of truth began to flow.

It started with grief. Then tenderness. Then the courage to ask:
What if I could hold myself the way I’ve always longed to be held?
What if control isn’t safety?
What if home is something I carry within me?

So I began there.
In the questions formed by the cracks.
With gentleness.
With tears.
With powerful releasing of unfelt rage.
With hard conversations and moments of deep remembering.
With fear, turned to reluctant hope, turned to trust, turned to surrender.

I didn’t set out to create something from this.
For much of this experience, I’ve felt wholly in the dark with no idea what was coming next if anything.

But like most bone-deep truths, it eventually asked to be shared.

Building a Home Within isn’t simply an offering I’ve decided to create—it’s the kind of support I longed for when I first began to see the cracks in my foundation that no longer aligned with who I was becoming, or returning to.

It’s the kind of space I feel deeply honored to offer to you.

Not because I have answers.
Not because I’ve reached some final point of clarity.

But because I know something of the courage it takes to step off the beaten path and onto the one that calls your heart forward.
Because I know the specific kind of gnawing fear that arises when we start to ask the questions we were always warned against asking.

And most especially, because I can finally see with wide-eyed clarity what becomes possible in a world full of heart-wide-open humans, so safe and held within themselves that their love radiates like waves of healing in all directions.

So many of us are standing at similar thresholds.
So many of us are tired of holding it all alone.
The world keeps speeding up and breaking down, failing us and those we love.

And somewhere inside, we know we’re meant to move differently. Together. Supported.

This world needs more people who are ready to say yes to themselves. Who are ready to begin within building inner resilience, compassion, and clarity. Knowing that when they do it for themselves, they do it for all of us, they do it for the world.

This offering is for the ones who feel the clear pull to return to themselves.
For those who want to stop striving for what others believe they want.
For those who are ready to locate their own intuitive knowing.
For those who want to be witnessed—not fixed.
Supported—not pushed.

For those who are ready to find out what wild-beautiful-OMFG! things are possible when they begin within and spiral out into the world from there.

Next week, I’ll share more about how I’m holding space for this work now and the details of this offering. I am so, so excited!

Until then, if you find yourself at a threshold…
If you are moving through a portal of grief…
If you are peering into the great unknown and wondering where the hell you are…
If you are longing to feel more at home in your body, in your life, in your own heart…
I see you.

You are not behind.
You are not too much.
You are not alone.

With love,
Raina
Finding Stillness

P.S. I’ve been holding this question close: What becomes possible when I stop trying to hold everything together, and begin holding myself instead?
If this question stirs something in you, I hope you’ll sit with it too.

Perched on the edge of the world—full of possibility.

OUR READING FOR THE WEEK AHEAD:

This week brings a gentle yet clear signal that rest is not only needed—it’s overdue. There may be a sense of weariness or overstimulation just beneath the surface, and Four of Swords reversed invites us to pause long enough to notice it. We may be feeling the pull to keep going, to tend, to do—but this week asks us to listen more deeply. Are you forgetting to honor rest as a sacred part of your rhythm, rather than seeing it as a luxury?

We’re moving toward the tender light of The Star, a card of healing, hope, and quiet renewal. After periods of contraction or inner struggle, The Star arrives like a deep breath—a reminder that you are allowed to soften, to trust the unfolding, to be held by something greater than your fears. At the same time, we’re releasing the Five of Swords reversed, letting go of old patterns of inner conflict, self-doubt, or the belief that we must fight to prove our worth. This week invites a return to gentleness—toward ourselves, our minds, and the path ahead. Let it be tender.

— An invitation for further inquiry: In what way can I soften and let myself be held this week?

Listening to: This song while driving with the windows down :) Oh how I love the changing of the seasons.

Experiencing:

Lindsey Wayland

’s Dear Sunday newsletter, a weekly treat. How I love the way she shares the magical winding road of her curiosity with us, offering pathways for us to wander down in our own minds.

Holding close: This morning, laying in bed with my little ones snuggled on either side of me. We listened to The Velveteen Rabbit from beginning to end—cheek to cheek, legs curled together, fingers entwined—rain falling outside the window. A flood of memories from my own childhood layered onto the sweetness of the moment: I’d curl up in a nest of quilts, listening to the same story on cassette tape repeatedly. I cried every time it ended and for a long while, I kept from listening to it because it hurt too much, that ache at the end. But what a beautiful story to return to now, with my own children. To love something—or someone—so wholly that it becomes real. To make it “real” through the act of loving it so much. So real that even if it loses all its hair, and original shape and color and it appears odd or old to others, none of that matters. Because to the thing loved into being, all that matters is the magic of the love that brought it to life.

With gratitude: For my sweet brother and the sweetest birthday package and note that arrived from him. I plan to read this each morning upon waking. What a gift to walk through this life with you.

One more thing: In two weeks I’ll be traveling to Italy!! Is there a special place I should make sure to visit in Florence? xo

INVITATIONS / OFFERINGS:

Creative Support: We are booking projects ready to begin in May! If you know of anyone looking for creative support, branding, design, copywriting, etc. please share the Finding Stillness Studio with them.

Integrative Coaching: A new offering coming soon!

Stille Shop: A wellspring of support for tending to the inner tides.

It starts close in

The edge of your truest truth

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