Hi friend,
Some people come into our lives as mirrors. They awaken old wounds, stir what’s been buried, and help us see the parts of ourselves that want to be brought into the light. They aren’t mistakes. They’re part of the path.
Along that path, you might bump up against the old fear that you’re hard to love or that you’re too much. The truth is, not everyone will know how to love you, or be able to meet the fullness of your expression. That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you, it simply shows you what’s ready to be healed.
Rather than demonize the ones who couldn't show up, or taking on the story that you're broken and unlovable, what if it's much more simple?
Can you thank all of the humans you've encountered from your past who reflected something back to you and led you to this moment in time?
Can you thank the versions of yourself you’ve been along the way…even the messy, chaotic, dark ones?
You don’t have to have it all together all the time. Being human is wild, unpredictable, and honest. And you deserve the kind of love that can meet you in all of it.
Love is like surfing. Some days the waves are gentle. Other days you need presence and intention just to stay afloat. Find someone willing to ride the waves with you. Someone who sees you and lets themselves be seen. Someone who’s becoming more of themselves, and who wants to see you become more of yourself through the healing power of your relationship.
Inside this week’s newsletter, you’ll find:
🎙️ Podcast: What To Do When Your Childhood Trauma Is Hijacking Your Relationship
I had the honor of joining Layla Martin on her podcast This Tantric Life. We talked about how childhood trauma shapes adult relationships, why we’re drawn to partners who mirror our wounds, and how to love your inner parts so they don’t hijack your relationships.
🌑 Scorpio New Moon Report
On November 19, 2025 at 10:48 pm PT, the New Moon in Scorpio arrives, inviting deep emotional renewal and inner transformation. This lunation asks you to meet your truth with honesty, release what no longer serves, and compost old fears into wisdom.
💗 Somatic Practice: Honoring the Mirrors on Your Path
A gentle, embodied practice to help you meet the people and moments that have shaped you. This practice guides you into your body, invites you to witness what has been reflected to you through relationships, and supports you in reclaiming the parts of yourself that were once hidden or misunderstood.
📲 New On Instagram: Recent posts and reflections from the feed.
🔥 What's New at Rising Woman:
The doors to my brand new LIVE program, The Soulful Offer Method, are now open for early bird enrollment! The first 40 to join will also receive a Custom Business Blueprint (value $197).
This program is for soul-led entrepreneurs, healers, and creatives who want to create an offer that feels authentic, sells with ease, and honors their depth.
Inside, you’ll:
Gain clarity on what you’re here to offer and who you’re meant to serve
Translate your unique gifts into clear, soulful messaging that actually connects
Build an offer that feels natural to sell and aligned with your energy
Walk away with a repeatable process you can use for every future offer
If you’ve been craving more clarity, confidence, and alignment in your work, this program is designed to help you bring it to life… and reach the people who truly need what only you can offer. Learn more and claim your early bird bonus.
🎙️Latest Podcast Interview on This Tantric Life with Layla Martin:
🌙 Check out our recent astrology report:
🕊️ The Latest Rising Woman Posts:
🌿 This Weeks Reflection
For the right person, you will not be hard to love. But with the person who's meant to awaken all of your past wounds, it will seem that you are. Learn to recognize that some people are just our mirrors along the way and others are our allies in healing. You deserve to know enduring love.
✨ Practice for the Week: Honoring the Mirrors on Your Path
1. Arrive in Your Body
Find a comfortable seat or lie down. Let your body settle.
Place one hand on your heart and the other on your belly.
Take a slow breath in through your nose… and an easy exhale out of your mouth.
Let your weight be held. Let your breath be simple.
2. Tune into the “Mirror”
Bring to mind someone who felt like a mirror in your life.
Not someone you need to fix or forgive, just someone who revealed something inside you.
It could be a past partner, a friend, a family member, or someone you crossed paths with briefly.
Notice what sensations arise in your body as you think of them.
Tightness. Warmth. Fluttering. Heat. Numbness.
Just observe without naming anything as good or bad.
You’re gathering information.
3. Hold Your Own Expression
Place both hands on your chest and gently spread your fingers, as if creating space for your expression.
In your mind, whisper:
“I’m not hard to love. I’m not too much.”
Let your breath move naturally beneath your hands.
Let your chest expand and release.
If emotion arises, allow it to move. If nothing arises, that’s perfect too.
4. Thank the Mirrors
Bring your awareness back to that person.
Then widen the lens and sense all the humans who have reflected something back to you along your path.
You might imagine them as silhouettes behind you, beside you, or standing at a distance.
Place your hands on your thighs or the sides of your ribs and take a slow inhale.
On your exhale, offer a quiet internal thank you.
Not for what they did or didn’t do, but for what you learned about yourself.
Repeat once or twice.
5. Honor Your Many Selves
Now bring your attention inward toward the versions of you you’ve been.
The younger you.
The overwhelmed you.
The messy, chaotic, tender parts.
The parts still learning how to be held.
Place one hand on your lower belly and one on your heart.
Say softly inside:
“Thank you for getting me here.”
See if you can feel even a flicker of warmth or softening in your body as you say it.
6. Surf the Wave
Imagine your breath as a wave.
The inhale rises.
The exhale falls.
Some waves are gentle.
Some require more presence.
With your eyes closed, sway your spine or upper body side to side very slowly, as if riding a small current.
Feel the steadiness beneath you.
Feel your body meeting each wave with openness and intention.
Let your nervous system learn the felt sense of being someone who can ride the waves of relationship, rather than collapse or brace against them.
7. Invitation for Future Love
Place your hands in your lap or over your heart again.
Invite in the sense of a future relationship, or a deepened existing one: where you are seen, held, and met.
Notice how your body responds.
Stay with whatever sensation appears: expansion, hope, discomfort, curiosity.
All of it belongs.
8. Close the Practice
Take one final nourishing breath.
Feel your feet, your hips, your spine.
Feel the support beneath you.
When you're ready, open your eyes.
Journaling Prompts
Who in my life has reflected something back to me that I wasn’t ready to see at the time?
What old story about being “hard to love” still lives in my system, and how does it show up in my current relationships?
What version of me from the past is ready to be thanked, honored, or forgiven today?
What qualities or capacities do I truly want in someone who rides the waves of life with me?
How do I behave when love feels calm and steady, and how do I behave when the waves get big?
When I imagine love that can meet me in all of my seasons, what images or sensations arise?
If I trusted that the love I want does exist, how would I move through my relationships differently?
What boundaries would shift?
What self-care would strengthen?
What would I stop settling for?
As you move forward this week, stay close to the truth that your worth has never been defined by who could or couldn’t meet you. Each relationship, each mirror, each version of you has been part of your unfolding.
Let this be permission to meet yourself with gentleness. To honor the parts of you that are still integrating. To trust that you are building the capacity for connection that feels secure, reciprocal, and safe.
You deserve relationships that can hold your expression. You deserve to be met with presence. And you deserve a love that moves with you through the calm and through the waves.
I’m cheering you on as you keep choosing the path that feels true to your heart and your body.
Love,
Shay
P.S. My team and I read every message that comes through. If something in this newsletter spoke to you, reply and tell us, we love hearing your stories.