Whose Footprints are in the Sand?

If you’ve ever tried to break a pattern in your family… you know how easy it is to believe you’re doing it alone.

I was talking to my therapist yesterday and had a breakthrough on that subject.

She gave me an exercise that has significantly shifted my perspective (absolutely gonna share that exercise here).

I’ve been stuck for weeks working through edits on book three. I thought I had finally found the way forward. I wrote for four straight days—10,000 words—convinced I had brought light into a very dark story.

My editor said: The new pages are so dark.

That one landed harder than I expected. I sat back and felt it spiral: Why am I writing this? Who do I think I am? Am I navel gazing to the point of blindness?

And then THAT feeling snuck up on me: I can’t do this. (You know the one.)

When you’ve spent so much time and energy and effort in finding your healing and your peace from some broken thing in your life and someone (in some way) just says: Nope. You’re not there.

The day after my editor meeting, still carrying all of that, I asked a friend: “Am I blind? Am I wasting my time?”

She said something that began to loosen my chaotic (and self-sabotaging) thoughts.

She told me that reading my book helped her understand why women don’t just leave destructive spaces. It helped her see how they get stuck. And then she said: Now you have to write the part about how someone gets unstuck.

And THEN she quoted one of my own supporting characters from book two back to me: “Who is your Elmira?”

(It’s always a little unsettling when your own work circles back around like that.)

Here’s a fun fact. Most of our “I can’t” moments are not actually “I can’t”. Most of them are “I won’t”— and most of them come along when we start to feel scared and uncertain.

I started to see my fear and my self-doubt. Through my editor. Through my friend. And finally through my therapist.

She asked me a simple question: Who brought light to you when you were trying to move forward?

I didn’t like that question at first. Not because I didn’t have an answer—but because I did. And those memories felt private. Like something that belonged only to me. Maybe I wanted to believe I was strong enough to face the world alone. I told her as much.

She said: Of course they’re private. But this conversation is not about what you’re writing. This conversation is about what’s keeping you from moving forward with the book.

She told me to write down the names of every person who helped me move forward. Just for me. As an exercise in both gratitude and acknowledgement. So I did. I went back as far as I could remember. Face by face. Moment by moment.

I started with the woman who picked me up in the hours after my sister died. I was six. I don’t remember her name. But forty-six years later, I remember exactly how she made me feel. Safe. Held. Calm in a moment that was terrifying and chaotic.

I thanked her this morning. Her and so many more in my own private space. And I understood. I had to hold the wound and its balm in the same space. Both exist. Both deserve my acknowledgement.

Five pages of names later, I realized something even more unexpected.

I have never been a lone wolf.

I’ve just told myself that I was.

When I looked back over the list, two things stood out:

Teachers. Ms. Green and her box of birthday toys. Mrs. Ushry teaching me calligraphy. Mrs. Chastain teaching sentence diagramming. Dr. Burns and his sonorous laughter. Dr. Melton saying don’t give up on what you believe in. Dr. Mauldin insisting on the very best of my musical self. From elementary school through adulthood— people who made me feel seen, safe, capable of moving forward.

And strangers.

The “man who…”

The “woman who…”

I don’t remember their names. But I remember their kindness like it was carved into me.

And I think that’s the part I needed to understand—not just for myself, but for this story.

We don’t get unstuck alone.

We just don’t always recognize the people who helped us move forward.

So now I’m curious—

When you look back through your story, who made it possible for you to keep going? Was it a teacher? A stranger? Someone whose name you don’t even remember?

I’d love to hear your story.