08/15/2026
The Courage to Be Seen
A longer reflection lives here today. 🤍
If you have a few quiet minutes, I hope you will stay for the whole thing. I think it is worth the read.
And if today only has room for a few swipes, the slides hold the heart of it beautifully, too.
It has been one week since we gathered in Elysian’s Sanctum on Lions Gate.
And somehow, the gratitude has not faded.
It has settled.
Gently. Beautifully. Deeply.
I have thought many times about what I wanted to say about that afternoon. I could thank every beautiful human who walked through these doors. I could talk about the trust it takes to lie down, close your eyes, breathe, soften, and allow someone to witness even a small part of your experience.
I could talk about Capturing the Heart of Elysian—the photo shoot that brought us together that afternoon—and the beautiful humans who helped capture, in photographs, a glimpse of what I have always felt inside these walls.
And I will forever be grateful for every single one of them.
But a week later, I think I understand something else that happened that day.
I was being witnessed, too.
There is a human behind Elysian.
A human who has been afraid of public speaking.
A human who has been afraid of being seen.
A human who still gets uncomfortable putting her face on a screen, turning on a camera, speaking her heart out loud, and allowing other people to witness it.
And I keep doing it anyway.
Not because I have overcome every fear.
Not because I have arrived somewhere on the other side of all of this.
But because everything I speak about here, I live.
Sometimes I may be living it in the very moment I am speaking about it.
I am not standing somewhere ahead of humanity telling anyone how to heal.
I am right here alongside it.
Learning.
Softening.
Challenging myself.
Being uncomfortable.
Finding courage.
Being held.
Loving.
Growing.
And becoming more deeply myself.
🤍✨🦁
That is part of what Lions Gate gave me this year.
Not an acceleration.
An expansion.
An expansion of a heart that was already beating.
An expansion of courage.
An expansion of compassion.
An expansion of my willingness to be seen.
An expansion of the love and affection I have for humanity, right alongside the love and compassion I continue learning to offer myself.
And holy s**t, have the ripples been beautiful.
Since that afternoon, the voice of Elysian has found new places to live.
I have sat in front of a camera and spoken words from From the Sanctum out loud.
I have watched those words leave this little room and find humans I will probably never meet.
And every time someone presses play, there is something incredibly vulnerable and beautiful about knowing:
They see me.
Not a perfectly polished version.
Not someone who has figured everything out.
Another human.
And maybe, somewhere in witnessing another human be human, we remember that we are not alone.
That may be one of the greatest gifts of being seen.
The love I felt inside this room last Saturday did not stay inside this room.
It rippled.
Through photographs.
Through voices.
Through words.
Through videos.
Through conversations.
Through humans.
And through me.
To every human who trusted me that afternoon:
Thank you for seeing me.
Thank you for allowing me to see you.
Thank you for trusting Elysian with something as sacred as your breath, your body, your vulnerability, and your humanity.
And to every human who helped hold me while I stepped a little further into being seen:
Thank you.
I feel your love.
I carry it with me.
And I hope, in every way I know how, I mirror that love right back into the world.
Lions Gate did not make Elysian something new.
It feels more like the gates opened…
and she fu***ng roared.
And because she is still very much mine—
me-fu***ng-ow. 🦁🐈⬛✨
Wherever this finds you today, may you know that you are worthy of being seen—exactly as you are. 🤍
