A Gentle Place

Quiet Morning in Banff

Just peace.

There was a season leading up to this trip where I felt stretched in a lot of ways. Like most people, I was navigating life as best I could while trying to stay grounded through it all. What stayed with me most wasn’t the heaviness itself, but the realization that peace could still exist alongside uncertainty and imperfection.

My Heal Your Life® coaching experience taught me how to return to myself and gently let go of the pressure to have everything figured out. It reminded me that peace doesn’t come from perfection. Sometimes it comes from softening, trusting, and allowing ourselves to be human through every season.

That morning in Banff didn’t create peace for me.
It simply reflected back something I had been learning all along.

That a gentle place isn’t always somewhere outside of us.

Sometimes it’s the moment we finally soften enough to come home to ourselves again.

Maybe that’s why moments of peace can feel so emotional sometimes, because they remind us of who we were before life became so loud.

Perhaps you’ve felt that too.

Or maybe you need that reminder today.

Teresa

Where Hope Returns

Building the Sacred Strides Healing website has been a journey in itself. Believe me, there have been moments of excitement, frustration, second-guessing, and a whole lot of learning along the way.

What surprised me most, though, was realizing how much meaning was tucked inside the photos I chose for each section.

I thought it might be nice to share some of the stories behind them, beginning with the rainbow photo.

When I first looked at it, I remember thinking, “My goodness… this is life.”

Hope still shows up.

A muddy pasture after days of rain. Storm clouds still hanging in the sky. A horse quietly grazing in the distance. And somehow, right in the middle of it all, sunlight breaking through and a rainbow stretching across the horizon.

Truthfully, I think rainbows have always mesmerized me.

As a child, I used to run through the backyard trying to find the end of them and the pot of gold. And years later, as a teenager in a canoe with my best friend on a lake in Canada, I remember getting completely lost staring at a massive rainbow stretching across the stormy sky while the waves around us started rocking.

At one point she finally laughed and told me, “Quit staring at the rainbow and paddle.”

And honestly? That memory still makes me smile.

Maybe that’s why this photo speaks to me so deeply. It reminds me that even in stormy seasons, beauty still has a way of finding us.

Hope still shows up.

Maybe healing is simply learning to notice the light again, even while standing in the mud puddles of life.

One sacred stride at a time.

Teresa R. Hower

Sixty One

Tonight, at midnight, I officially turned 61.

Well… technically I wasn’t born until 5:22 PM.
But there’s something about midnight that feels symbolic… I imagine it as standing at the precipice of a new year of life, quietly looking out over everything behind me… and everything still waiting ahead.

This past year held grief, caregiving, healing, horses, hard conversations, sacred pauses, laughter, exhaustion, growth, and moments of unmistakable grace.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped trying so hard to become someone else and started walking myself home.

Tonight also happens to mark something else:
the quiet beginning of Sacred Strides Healing online.

And honestly… I’m a little surprised I’m still awake for it.

But this does feel momentous.

Not because of a website alone, but because of what it represents.

A lifelong longing.
A hard-won becoming.
A sacred space I’ve been walking toward for years, even when I didn’t fully realize it.

A website.
A journal.
A small sacred space built from real life, muddy boots, healing conversations, hope, and the belief that we do not have to walk alone.

At 61, I don’t feel anywhere near done.

I feel like I’m finally arriving to me.

Less proving.
More becoming.

Less rushing.
More walking alongside.

One sacred stride at a time.

~ Teresa