Courtney
Writer, mom, and licensed therapist exploring what it means to heal, unlearn, and rewrite your story.
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Happily ever after is right now.
What a year 2018 was. It was my first “full” year as a divorced woman. Wow, never thought that would ever be anything I would be. I would like to think that I have handled it well. I guess when I am writing for it to be read I want to put forward my best side. The ever optimistic “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” and “look at all the lessons I’ve learned” and the “I’m so much stronger for having survived this” and all the other beautifully penned cliches. I oftentimes tell my clients that I don’t want to hear their regurgitated therapeutic cliches and other bullshit. I…
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… but i should have known better.
This is a story that I have never told I gotta get this off my chest to let it go I need to take back the light inside you stole You’re a criminal And you steal like you’re a pro All the pain and the truth I wear like a battle wound So ashamed, so confused I was broken and bruised you know how you hear a song over and over again for years and yet you never really hear it? And then one day you hear it … like in your soul…. yea, that’s this song. I heard it for years but never really understood it….until it struck a chord…
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what i didn’t know six months ago
six months ago my life as i thought i knew it flipped upside down. it was my 30th birthday, that life milestone you spend your twenties simultaneously dreading and looking forward to. on one hand it is that “omg i’m so old” freak out moment… and on the other it is this unspoken life milestone i pictured as a marker of ending the uncertainty and panic that your twenties are known for. oh how unbelievably naive of me. instead of having the coveted “dirty thirty” celebration i spent my actual birthday telling my seven year old daughter her father and i were going to be “taking a break” and living…
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new beginnings
hi there! welcome to my imperfect little corner of the interwebs. i’m courtney. some of you may know me from what feels like a previous life over at journeyofadreamer.com. i spent years and years blogging about my life there. that courtney was an entirely different person. that courtney was a young and optimistic wife, mother, business owner, and health enthusiast. over the past few years life has happened and i’m no longer most of those things. i’m now a not as young 30 year old divorced mother and grad student trying to figure out the rest of the “who i am” question. second puberty is real, ya’ll. as i emerge…
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It’s just mine.
Just over month ago I turned 30. I had so many plans and dreams and expectations about what 30 would look like. I wasn’t one of those people who dreaded it. I expected to leave the struggles and uncertainty of my twenties behind me and embrace a new decade as a more powerful and confident version of myself. I wasn’t exactly wrong… but I wasn’t exactly right. I enjoy taking time around stereotypical life milestones to reflect on things leading up to that point, compare it with my expectations, and readjust as I move forward. As 30 crept up on me I hungered for that day to come and go, one to…
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Giving Voice To The Struggle
📌 Editor’s Note (2025):I wrote this at a time when I was unraveling—personally, emotionally, relationally. What I didn’t fully name then, but I see clearly now, is that this particular struggle wasn’t just about anxiety or overfunctioning. It was panic—panic born from the moment I sensed my relationship shifting. The man I loved had started pulling away, and somewhere deep inside, I knew. That awareness lived in my body long before it reached my mind. Back then, I was still calling it stress. Still blaming myself. Still overcompensating and shutting down in the same breath. I was neck-deep in high-functioning anxiety and didn’t have the language to describe it, much…
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Finding My “Why” Changed My Life
You know when you’re a kid and you think about what you want to be when you grow up? Astronaut, Doctor, Rock Star, Ballerina… Nothing is impossible. We don’t think about the logic or the path it will take to get there. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that in that moment that is what we are absolutely convinced that is what we were made to do. That thing brings us great joy to dream about. That dream may last a day, a month, or years. Maybe you still think about that even if life has taken you another direction. In those innocent moments of childhood we are so…
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Why I Became Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certified
I feel like a bit of an anomaly in the fitness world. I’ve lived and worked in this space for a few years now. Even as I have worked in this space I have still been on my own journey to discover what health and fitness means in my life. As I have come into a world dominated by people who have lived in health and fitness for most of their lives I felt like an outsider. Many fitness professionals have chosen their career because it was the easy choice, because fitness has always been easy for them. I didn’t end up in this profession because it was easy for…
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Healthy Mind, Healthy Body
Oh hey there. It’s been faaaaaar too long. I had a moment this summer when I realized that I was trying to juggle so many different things and doing none of them exceptionally well. I wanted so desperately to be good at everything and ended up feeling like I wasn’t good at anything. And while it was something I loved and worked so hard to build… the blog was something I had to let go of updating regularly. Who knew being a wife and mom, running (and expanding!) several businesses, trying to maintain my own health and fitness, and figuring out life with a kid now in school would be…
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Where does your food come from?
While I prefer knowing exactly where my food is coming from sometimes it just isn’t possible to spend your weekends at the farmer’s market or to grow your food. In this fast paced, on the go world I end up having to run to the local grocery store and do my best to make good choices. Having a local grocery store that cares enough to supply local homegrown food choices makes making healthy choices for my family a far easier process. There are far several benefits to choosing local homegrown food. One of the first that comes to mind are the health benefits. When crops don’t have to travel long distance they can…
