We’re jumping right in. 🤣 No fluff. No polished opening. Just straight from the belly of winter and into this moment with you.
Most of my life, I’ve called myself a spring baby. I like the feeling of thawing out — letting my bones settle in the sun. Of witnessing new life, new growth, new ways of being in this world. There’s something about that slow unfurling that makes me feel like me again… like I’m preparing to be touched by the warmth of life on my skin.
But I never really felt winter until I moved to Aotearoa. Dunedin winters hit different. The southerly winds slice through you like ice — 7 degrees, but with wind chill, it feels like -1. It’s fucking freezing. And yeah, I know, East Coasters in the States or anyone in colder climates would probably scoff. They’ve got snow and salt and frozen driveways. But they’ve also got insulation. And central heating. And windows that do their damn job.
Dunedin is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived — wild, raw, full of soul. And yet, winter here carries a kind of weight. Not just in the temperature, but in the way the cold seeps into the corners of your life. Uninsulated homes. Single-paned glass. Hot water bottles clutched to your chest. Three jumpers deep just to sit at the computer.
It’s humbling. And sure — first world problems. But they shape how we move through the world, don’t they? How we care for ourselves. How we seek comfort. How we come back to our senses, one small act at a time.
That said, I’ve come to love this darker season. The cosy glow of the fire. The slowness that settles into my bones. The homebody rhythm that quietly rearranges my days.
I still get out — walk the dogs, greet the trees, touch the earth — but mostly, I’m indoors. Tending to my inner garden.
Reminding myself to take breaks. Peeling myself away from screens begrudgingly. Procrastinating weeding the winter beds. Planning, preparing, and planting seeds for spring — slowly, thoughtfully.
Savouring each extra moment of daylight we have at this darker time of year because it feels like a gift.
This is my season of solitude and reset. A time for deep reflection. An internal inventory.
A noticing of the residual patterns imbedded in my life.
Funnily enough, I was born in New Zealand but raised in Southern California. Spring always felt like home. But now, after 15 years of living in the south, I’m starting to resonate more with the changing of seasons. With autumn — that quiet nudge to shed what no longer serves, to prepare for the depth of winter. To gather your layers. Brace for the cold. And surrender to the stillness that brings us back to ourselves.
Where am I at? Am I still becoming the version of me I’m working toward? What needs to shift? What needs to be composted? What’s ready to rise?
It’s always a return to the senses for me. And with that return comes the gentle, uncomfortable truth:
Interrupting your patterns will not always feel good. It will feel foreign. Exposed. Like you’re trying to wear your skin differently, and it doesn’t quite fit yet.
But that’s the cost of choosing truth over the mask. Over the distractions. The pretty lights. The aesthetic of what we think life should be — and the reality of what it really is.
Truth looks and feels different for all of us.
Lately, I’ve been waking up to just how deep my patterns go. Not in a lightbulb, “ah-ha” way. More like a slow, cellular realisation that I’ve built a whole life on being capable. Needed. Available.
High-functioning codependency, Terri Cole calls it. I've gone down the rabbit hole with her podcast which may be worth a visit if these words resonate with you too.
You’re the one who remembers the birthdays. You hold space for everyone else’s chaos while quietly managing or deflecting your own. You don’t fall apart—you hold it the fuck together. You over-deliver. You “just handle it.” You say yes before your body even catches up.
And people love you for it. They don’t see that it’s eating you alive.
The pressure is relentless — and half the time, you don’t even notice it. You just carry it. Because that’s what you’ve always done. Until one day, you let go. And holy shitballs batman — you feel the weight of everything you didn’t know you were dragging behind you.
“Over-giving and codependent behaviour eventually lead to feeling empty because at the end of the day there’s nothing left for you. Are you really a constructive problem-solver if your blanket solution to life is I’ll do more? Nope. Because no one can do that forever. The way out of this hellacious, self-sabotaging trap is mindfulness plus self-care. To interrupt these ingrained patterns, consider yourself first, instead of giving to others first. Consider checking in with yourself before committing.”
― Terri Cole
I’ve had to ask myself some uncomfortable yet emotionally expansive questions:
When did I learn that love meant doing more?
How did I learn what love was? Who nurtured me?
Who taught me that value was earned by holding it all together?
When did I stop checking in with what I actually want?
These aren’t rhetorical. These are the kind of questions that get stuck in your throat until you answer them with your body.
The thing is — when our questions are answered somatically, they rarely arrive gently. Or they did, but we were too stubborn to listen to the early warnings.
They show up as exhaustion. Burnout. Depletion. Disease. Resentment. Unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Distractions dressed up as productivity, selflessness, or just “doing what needs to be done.”
Once we recognise that the source of our suffering isn’t just circumstance — but the deeply ingrained patterns we’ve been living by — something shifts.
And it’s not always a comfortable shift. But it can be an empowering one. We can decide to shift the narrative. We can take accountability.
There’s a moment (maybe you're in it now) where you realise: I’ve built this life with my own two hands. These choices, these situations, these dynamics — they didn’t just happen to me. They were created, one well-meaning step at a time. Out of love. Out of survival. Out of trying to belong.
News flash my friend. If you built this life — this relentless pressure — one decision, one habit, one “yes” at a time… Then you can unbuild it. You can renovate and repurpose. You can rewrite it. You can re-create yourself.
Not in one sweeping, grand transformation. But in the slow, brave return. One boundary. One pause. One deep breath at a time.
Maybe that’s part of the cycle. The holy ache of being human. The chapters, the initiations, the school of life that teaches through duality. The way we forget and remember. Fall and rise. Hold on and then let go.
Sometimes we write ourselves into corners. We paint ourselves into lives that no longer fit. And we tell ourselves we’re stuck.
I promise you that we can walk in beauty again. We can come back to ourselves. One clear, courageous step at a time.
So where do we go from here?
Once the weight is named… Once the realisation lands in your bones… How do we actually begin to untangle the patterns?
It starts with self-awareness. With noticing. Without judgement, without shame — just gentle, consistent observation of how we move through the world.
And then, slowly… with self-agency. The reclamation of choice. Of the intentional pause between someone’s request and our automatic “yes.”
Because when you’ve spent a lifetime earning your place through what you do for others, saying no can feel like abandonment.
But here’s the truth: Every “yes” you give away without checking in with yourself is a small departure from your centre. Your own self abandonment.
Recovery, for me, has started to look like this:
Pausing before I respond.
Asking, Does this honour my own boundaries?
Giving myself permission to circle back later — or not at all.
Noticing what my body says before my mouth speaks.
Letting silence be an answer.
Want to try something radical? For the next 7 days, practice this one thing with me:
Pause before saying yes. To anything.
Even if it’s an obvious hell yeah. Even if you have the feeling you have to have the immediate answer. Let that tiny moment become a doorway back to yourself.
Notice what shifts. Notice the space you create for yourself. The time to respond instead of immediately react.
Don’t say yes straight away. Even if it’s something you care about. Even if you know you can make it work.
Say, "Thank you for asking. I’ll get back to you tomorrow."
"Let me check my calendar."
And then listen—to the guilt. To the urgency. To the tightness in your chest or the rumbling in your gut.
Notice what stories come up: If I don’t say yes, I’m letting them down. If I take too long, they’ll stop asking. If I disappoint them, I’ll lose connection.
But here’s the truth: The person you’re letting down most by constantly over-functioning… is you.
We can’t keep pouring from empty and calling it service. We can’t keep bypassing our own capacity and calling it love.
You deserve your own respect.
You owe it to yourself to acknowledge and adhere to your own boundaries.
And your genuine, soulful work in the world? It doesn’t require your self-abandonment. It requires your presence.
This gives us time to think of our origin stories. If you are resonating with these words, can you think of where these patterns may have began? When our auto pilot began to kick in and say this is how we prove we are worthy. This is how we feel validated in a world of uncertainty. Sometimes this is our easy way out of doing the real work, the inner mahi. Our outpouring of service masked as I'm not brave enough to work on my inner garden.
In my work, high functioning co-dependency can also be my super power. It is necessary to be sensitive to others needs and notice how we can be of service to others. We give until it hurts—because somewhere along the way, we learned that’s how you keep love. The problem is when we start to disregard our own needs, we become a blip our own radars and insignificant. It's easy to let our self care, our self agency slip away.
But that’s not care. That’s survival.
And we’re allowed to outgrow our survival strategies.
These moments of reflection is why I've come to have a deep appreciation for this heavy, dark and cold winter season. The season helps minimise these distractions and gives us space to expand internally. To clock our inventory and look at what needs shifting.
Start small. Come back to your body. Come back to your senses.
I mean that literally.
Wrap yourself in a blanket and feel the weight of it on your skin.
Light a candle and watch the flame. Practice box breathing while you gaze.
Drink your tea hot. Let it hit the back of your throat before you move on to the next thing. Stare into the void. Give yourself permission to just stop for a few minutes and not be in service to anything.
Don’t check your phone first or last thing. Put your hand on your heart instead.
We don’t need massive rituals to reconnect. We just need to notice. To create space. To listen to our own internal cues again.
That’s what “coming to our senses” is really about. A return to what’s true. What’s felt. What’s yours.
“So build yourself as beautiful as you want your world to be. Wrap yourself in light then give yourself away with your heart, your brush, your march, your art, your poetry, your play. And for every day you paint the war, take a week and paint the beauty, the colour, the shape of the landscape you’re marching towards. Everyone knows what you’re against; show them what you’re for.”
― Andrea Gibson
I’ll leave you with this:
Self-care isn’t always soft. Sometimes it’s the boundary no one else understands. The pause before the automatic yes. The choice to sit in discomfort instead of resentment.
You don’t need to justify your boundaries. You don’t need permission to honour what’s true for you.
If you won’t choose you — who will?
Our greatest responsibility is to find out what our truest, most beautiful life actually looks like… And then have the guts to live it.
From my wild heart to yours ❤️🔥 Kass
P.S. 🌿 Ready to go deeper?
If this work around pattern interruption, presence, and reclamation is landing with you... I’ve got a few ways to journey together.
📸 Rewild Portrait Experiences These aren’t just photoshoots. They’re sacred sessions of remembering. We’ll do the inner mahi first—unravel the stories, meet the truth, feel the shift—and then capture you in your wild, honest essence. If you’re ready to be seen fully, powerfully, and on your own terms…what are you waiting for? Let’s begin.
🗺 Rewild Self Discovery Expedition – March 2026 We have got 4 spaces left on this life-shifting journey. We begin the deep dive together online this August, weaving connection, embodiment, and self-inquiry across the coming months— and we celebrate in March with a full in-person immersion in the Marlborough Sounds for 6 days & 5 nights. Nature, sisterhood, healing waters, and your wildest self returned.
🔥 The Rewilding Mastermind – Coming Soon A 6-month container of devotion and truth. Weekly talks, creative writing prompts, somatic + meditative practices, and deep inner inquiry— culminating in an in-person retreat and your own Rewild Portrait Experience. Right now, I’m taking expressions of interest. If you’re feeling the pull, trust it. Reach out.
This is the heart of my work. The soul-level stuff.
🖤 You’re not here to live in survival mode. You’re here to embody your wild. I’d love to walk alongside you.
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” - Clarissa Pinkola Estés
