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matters of the heart
A sanctuary for reflection, reconnection, and remembering what matters most.
Welcome to Matters of the Heart—a quiet, nourishing corner of You Matter Holistic Healing. Here, we honor the many layers of your being with gentle offerings to tend your body, awaken your mind, and soothe your soul. Whether you’re seeking insight, presence, or poetry, this space is here to meet you.
May it feel like a deep breath, a warm blanket, a soft place to land. Come as you are. You belong here.
Holding the Holidays: Why This Season Feels So Big in Our Bodies
The holidays live in the body as much as the mind. Seasonal sights, sounds, and memories can stir tenderness, tension, and everything in between. Here is why this season feels so big, and how to meet it with gentleness.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Nov 193 min read
Locating the Me in the We: Healing from Family Enmeshment
Family enmeshment is often mistaken for closeness. It’s a pattern where emotional boundaries blur, and individuality becomes secondary to belonging. Love feels fused with responsibility. Connection feels conditional on harmony. Over time, the pressure to maintain that closeness can make it hard to know what you want, need, or even feel. There’s a tender line between closeness and fusion, between love and loss of self. This is the landscape of family enmeshment, where our sens
Shaelyn Cataldo
Nov 115 min read
Beyond People Pleasing: Understanding the Fawn Response and Reconnecting to Self
Many of us learned early that survival meant keeping others comfortable. What looks like kindness or empathy is often something deeper — a nervous system adaptation called the fawn response. When safety depends on harmony, we silence our truth to stay connected. Over time, this pattern erodes our sense of self. Healing asks us to reconnect with the body’s signals, to lead ourselves with compassion, and to remember that boundaries are not barriers to love but pathways back to
Shaelyn Cataldo
Oct 214 min read
When the Body Speaks: Learning to Rest Through Stillness
When life asks us to slow down, it is not failure but an invitation.
This piece explores what happens when the body becomes the teacher, how stillness can feel both messy and sacred, and how compassion opens the door to permission and rest.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Oct 145 min read
Dancing With Imposter Syndrome
Imposter syndrome often whispers through the inner critic and self-doubt, telling us we are not ready or enough. Yet these feelings can also guide us toward deeper integrity and growth. When we pause, get curious, and tend to what’s beneath the doubt, we uncover that the trembling at our edge is not proof of inadequacy. It’s actually evidence that we are expanding into who we are becoming.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Oct 94 min read
a-robe-ics: the gentle workout of comfort
Discover a-robe-ics — a playful, opposite-of-aerobics ritual born in 1999 that traded sweat for softness and performance for presence. Long before self-care was a trend, it offered radical rest and nervous system regulation. Learn how true comfort is not numbing but soothing, and explore simple sensory practices to self-soothe, feel safe, and come home to yourself.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Sep 303 min read
Witnessing vs. Fixing: The Power of Being Seen
When we rush to fix or advise, we often send the subtle message that someone’s feelings are not okay. True connection grows when we slow down, listen, and witness with presence.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Sep 165 min read
Learning to Celebrate the Unseen Wins: Why Healing Isn’t Always Loud
Not all healing is loud. This reflection explores how to notice and honor the quiet moments of growth like setting a boundary, softening a reaction, or finally saying no. Learn how to gently celebrate yourself, even when no one else sees it.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Sep 84 min read
Calm Is Not the Same as Regulated: Somatic Healing for the Nervous System
Regulation is about more than staying calm—it’s about teaching your nervous system safety. Through simple somatic practices like grounding, breathwork, and orienting, you can learn to meet yourself with compassion and expand your capacity to handle life’s challenges.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Sep 24 min read
What Do I Need Right Now?
Transitions stretch us. Even when they are chosen or welcomed, they can stir anxiety, overwhelm, and self-criticism. Instead of asking “What’s wrong with me?” this piece invites a gentler reframe: “What do I need right now?” Explore the categories of human needs, and learn how the simple rhythm of attune, respond, repeat becomes a path of building self-trust through times of change.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Aug 273 min read
Grieving the Living: Understanding Ambiguous Loss, Estrangement, and Disenfranchised Grief
Some grief is recognized with casseroles and condolences. Other grief lives quietly, with no rituals to mark it. Grieving the living is one of those hidden losses. Sometimes called ambiguous loss or disenfranchised grief, it is the ache of someone being here and not here through estrangement, dementia, absence, or unmet needs. This grief can feel confusing, lonely, and even shameful, yet it is real and deserving of compassion.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Aug 183 min read
Wholeness, Not Happiness: The Path to Living Authentically
Happiness is fleeting, but wholeness can hold it all including the joy, the sadness, the confusion, the clarity. When we welcome every part of ourselves, we create the space for true authenticity and emotional health.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Aug 124 min read
Attunement vs Hypervigilance: A Guide to Nervous System Healing
Learn the difference between hypervigilance and attunement, and how therapy can help you reconnect to yourself, regulate your nervous system, and build safer, more connected relationships.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Aug 44 min read
Why Constant Reassurance Feels Necessary and How to Shift It
Are they mad at me? Did I make a mistake? Did I upset someone? You might have caught yourself wondering that exact question. You may have...
Shaelyn Cataldo
Jul 295 min read
Sensitivity and Shame: Untangling the Two
Sensitivity is not a flaw—it’s a trait often misunderstood and shamed. In this post, we explore how shame becomes attached to sensitivity, especially for highly sensitive people (HSPs), and how trauma-informed, somatic therapy can help you reclaim your emotional strength with compassion and clarity.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Jul 213 min read
Healing the Parentified Daughter: How Emotional Caregiving Shapes Us and How We Begin to Reclaim Ourselves
If you’ve always been the one others relied on—the helper, the fixer, the one who never needed much—you may have been the parentified daughter. It’s a role that forms early and quietly, often without words, shaping how we relate to others, how we carry responsibility, and how hard it can be to rest, receive, or reconnect to our own joy. This piece explores what it means to grow up too soon and what healing can look like now.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Jul 144 min read
What We Inherit, What We Choose: unpacking your inherited beliefs
We all carry inherited beliefs—family sayings, silent rules, and assumptions passed down without question. But what happens when we start to ask: Is this actually true for me? In this soulful reflection on mustard, meaning, and becoming, Shaelyn Cataldo explores the tender process of individuation and what it means to choose your own path—not just the one you were handed.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Jun 302 min read
The Brave Art of Repair: Returning to Ourselves and Each Other
Emotional repair is the brave work of returning after rupture. It’s not simply saying “I’m sorry. It’s noticing. Naming. Taking responsibility. Offering empathy. And reaching toward reconnection.
Shaelyn Cataldo
Jun 244 min read
When All the Parts Speak at Once: An Invitation into IFS...
Understanding the Many Parts That Live Within You The other day, I sat down at my desk to start a project I’d been putting off. One part...
Shaelyn Cataldo
Jun 173 min read
Leaning Into the Stretch: Meeting Your Growing Edge with Care
There’s a moment—right before the growth—that feels like a tremble. A pause. A lump in the throat. A quiet no before the deeper yes. I...
Shaelyn Cataldo
Jun 102 min read
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