People often say they want what’s best for you. They pray for your happiness, speak it sincerely, and mean it, at least in part. But woven quietly into that wish are conditions, boundaries, and unspoken limits. You can be happy, they say, just not that way. Not if it disrupts what feels safe, familiar, or … More When Happiness Comes With Conditions
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”— Proverbs 4:23 The people others turn to in moments of collapse rarely think of themselves as “safe spaces.” They are not offering shelter out of detachment or neutrality. What they offer is born of something far deeper, love, protection, and a willingness … More Love Without Pressure
Some people are made differently. Not louder. Not tougher in the way the world defines strength.Just wired to stay when things begin to fall apart. It took me a long time to understand that about myself. I used to think it was a flaw, caring too deeply, feeling what others are trying to outrun, not … More I Got You…
Christmas is the season where we talk about love the most, and often experience it the least. We decorate it. We sing about it. We wrap it in lights, gifts, and expectations. And yet for many people, Christmas quietly exposes something uncomfortable: the gap between how deeply we love and how deeply we are loved … More Christmas Love: What It Is; What It Isn’t
Every year, Christmas turns into a competition. Bigger gifts. Higher prices. More stress. More debt. We convince ourselves that value can be measured in dollars, boxes, and receipts, and somehow we forget something painfully obvious: Most people don’t need more things. They need to know they matter. I know what it feels like to believe … More The Most Important Christmas Gift Isn’t the One We Buy
People move through our lives in seasons. Some leave little trace.Others leave fingerprints that only become visible much later, after time, loss, and experience have done their work. There are people we love without realizing the full weight of it in the moment. Not because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t yet understand what … More When We Finally Understand What We Once Had
There is a shift that happens in a person’s life that few talk about, but many eventually feel. When people are young, intimacy is often viewed through the lens of pleasure, access, and personal satisfaction. Desire becomes transactional. If two people agree, the assumption is that no harm exists. What happens outside that moment, other … More When Maturity Changes the Meaning of Intimacy
Heartbreak is something every person eventually encounters, but we rarely talk about what sits beneath it, the truth that quietly connects all of us: Everyone who has ever experienced heartbreak has likely caused it for someone else. That realization hit me harder than the pain itself. It’s one thing to feel shattered by someone.It’s another … More We Are All Both the Wounded and the Wounding
There’s something strange and beautiful about the Christmas season.The lights go up, the air gets colder, and somehow the world feels both softer and heavier at the same time. The holidays carry joy, but they also tug on old memories, old wounds, and old versions of ourselves that we’re not always ready to revisit. And … More Why Christmas Calls Us to Forgive, Believe, and Hope Again
I’ve spent years studying transformation, writing about it, teaching it, and living it. And the more people I’ve worked with, the more convinced I am of one simple truth: Lasting change begins with just two decisions. Not ten. Not twenty. Two. 1. Be brutally honest with yourself. 2. Let go of the past you’re still … More The Two Decisions That Change Everything: Honesty and Letting Go
Troy P Zehnder 