In this tender, end-of-year episode released on Christmas Eve, Talia reflects on loss, healing, and the sacred invitation to pause before moving forward. She shares vulnerably about how this time last year she was coming out of a season marked by depression, health crisis, and relational loss, and how the Lord used community, attachment healing, and deep inner work to restore joy, peace, and rootedness.
This episode explores Pete Scazzero’s Going Back to Go Forward pathway from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, examining why unresolved pain often shows up in our present until it is brought into the light with compassion rather than shame. Talia unpacks generational patterns, attachment wounds, and the importance of processing pain with safe, mature support, what Life Model Works calls a “bigger brain.”
You will also hear how somatic awareness, therapy, and EMDR played a role in healing her nervous system and reshaping everyday responses, along with a powerful reminder that healing is not about perfection, but about noticing sooner and returning to joy more quickly.
The episode introduces A Rooted Reflection, the first She’s Rooted Life resource, designed to help you reflect on your story, losses, wins, and rhythms with intention and hope as you move toward the new year.
This conversation is an invitation to slow down, grieve honestly, receive healing deeply, and partner with Jesus as you move forward more free, more whole, and more rooted.
Resources mentioned:
A Rooted Reflection:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P5xlZ_rbEbEZWEPBcYMfnJHId_cK7b_T/view?usp=sharing
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Genogram Workbook: https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/GENOGRAM-WORKBOOK.pdf
This episode was recorded in the quiet stretch between Christmas and the end of the year. That slow, tender space when time softens and reflection feels less like effort and more like invitation.
A year ago, I was coming out of a season that nearly took me under. A traumatic health crisis. A deep depression. The loss of a friendship that felt like sisterhood. As the year closed, everything felt thin. I was stretched across every area of my life, carrying grief I did not yet have language for.
If you are listening from a similar place, I want you to hear this first. What comes next does not erase what you have lost. But it can redeem it.
As January arrived, something unexpected happened. People from earlier seasons of my life began to reappear. Old friends. Former mentors. Safe relationships that remembered who I was before pain narrowed my world. They spoke courage when I had none left. They drew out parts of me that had gone quiet. They reminded me that healing does not happen alone.
Community is not optional when we are recovering. It is essential.
That season clarified something for me. My husband and my children are my people. I am irreplaceable to them. After years of pouring myself into systems and relationships that left me depleted and unseen, this realization became a turning point. I became deeply committed to getting well. Not just surviving, but healing.
There is a metaphor I return to often. A bottle of water costs very little at a warehouse store. The same bottle costs more at a grocery store, more at a restaurant, and significantly more on an airplane. The bottle does not change. The place does.
If you feel undervalued, unseen, or diminished, the invitation may not be to try harder. It may be to change environments.
Every person bears immense value. When we question our worth, we look to the cross. Jesus considered us worth dying for. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross so that He could be with us.
That truth leads into the heart of this episode.
The theme of this episode comes from a simple but demanding idea. Going back to go forward.
Healing requires us to look honestly at what shaped us. When pain goes unexamined, it does not disappear. It resurfaces in our reactions, our relationships, and our bodies. We replay the past in the present until it is brought into the light and healed.
Scripture calls us to lay aside what entangles us. But we cannot release what we refuse to examine.
Reflection is not about dwelling in the past or being defined by it. It is about telling the truth with compassion so that the past no longer controls us. Grief needs space. Anger needs honesty. Forgiveness needs time. Without reflection, we rush healing and bypass formation.
Our stories did not begin with us. Scripture reminds us that patterns of both brokenness and blessing can span generations. This does not mean we are doomed. It means we are invited into awareness.
Iniquity can be inherited or formed through pain. When the Lord saves us, He gives us a new identity and welcomes us into a family designed to heal rather than harm. But freedom often requires us to go back and name where those patterns took root.
Healing does not come through shame. It comes through compassion.
One of the most important distinctions in healing is the difference between reflecting and ruminating. Reflection brings clarity and peace. Rumination keeps us stuck, replaying the same pain without relief.
This is why who we process pain with matters.
The Life Model describes healing in the presence of a bigger brain. Someone who can remain regulated and connected while helping us face pain without amplifying it or minimizing it. Someone who does not join us in anxiety or offer quick answers, but helps us return to quiet, truth, and presence with the Lord.
One of the clearest signs of healing is the ability to tell your story without reliving it in your body. When the emotional charge has been released, the story can be shared from a grounded place. Not to seek meaning, but to offer hope.
If emotions feel overwhelming or hysterical, there is often something historical that still needs care.
Healing always leads us back into joy and secure relationship.
Our closest relationships shape our identity. We were designed for secure attachment, marked by both autonomy and interdependence.
Secure relationships are not free from conflict. They are marked by repair.
When we trust repair, we do not hide, numb, or explode. We stay present. We keep the relationship bigger than the problem. This is where maturity grows.
Over the past year, therapy played a significant role in my healing. With clear goals, I began learning secure attachment, returning more quickly to joy, and living more fully in the present. Within months, my nervous system was genuinely different. Not perfect, but more aware. More responsive. More gentle.
Somatic awareness taught me to notice stress in my body before it hijacked my reactions. Small moments became opportunities to pause, ground, and choose presence over panic. What once would have ruined an entire day became something I could move through and release.
This is what healing looks like. Not the absence of stress, but quicker returns to peace.
All of this work led to the creation of A Rooted Reflection, the first She’s Rooted Life resource. It grew out of a yearly practice my husband and I return to, reflecting on the year behind us and envisioning the year ahead.
Reflection can feel threatening, especially when a year holds loss or confusion. But beneath the surface, even in painful seasons, there are moments of growth, peace, and unexpected joy that deserve to be named.
This reflection is not about fixing the past or rushing meaning. It is about noticing what was forming you when life felt heavy or uncertain. It is about telling the story with honesty, compassion, and grace.
As this year closes, the invitation is simple. Do not rush your healing. Do not bypass your grief. Allow the Lord to go back with you so that you can move forward more whole, more free, and more rooted.
Healing is hard. It requires courage. But it always leads us toward deeper joy, clearer identity, and more secure love.
And you do not walk this road alone.
