Starting Where I Am: Living Real Aloha in Real Life

Because the only honest place to begin is the place you’re actually standing.

I’m starting this series from the exact middle of my life — not the polished version. Not the “all cleaned up and figured out” version. Just the real one.

The one where caregiving still echoes in familiar places.
Where grief shows up quietly in the in-between.
Where boundaries matter.
Where exhaustion and relief can coexist.
Where love and loss still sit at the same table.

And where I’m learning — again and again — that resilience isn’t about strength. It’s about realness.

Why starting where I am matters

For a long time, I tried to start from where I thought I should be — more organized, more healed, more available, more together.

But that place never actually existed.

Starting “there” was performance.
Starting here is truth.

Here is honest.
Here is enough.
Here is where the REAL Method lives:

• Recognize what’s true

• Embrace what’s real

• Align with what matters

• Live from a place that feels like you

This is Living Real Aloha.

This season feels different

This is my second Thanksgiving since losing Mom.
Last year was a blur — I barely remember anything except trying to get through the holidays by sleeping a lot and wearing a smile that masked the truth I didn’t have words for yet.

This year, I’m more awake.
More honest.
More aware of what I’m carrying and what I need to release.

Not stronger.
Just more real.

And that feels like a beginning.

What this series will hold

Over the next posts, I’m writing about:

• caregiving

• family dynamics

• emotional labor

• cultural roots

• holidays that hit harder

• boundaries

• grief that lingers

• moments that teach us something

Small stories.
Clear lessons.
Nothing dramatic — just real life, told honestly.

Starting here invites you to start where you are, too

Not where you “should” be.
Not where someone else thinks you belong.
Not where the holidays try to pull you.

Just… here.

Messy.
Honest.
Tender.
Alive.

Because the truth is, the only sustainable way forward — in caregiving, grief, life, love, holidays, or anything else — is the path that begins with this moment.

Not yesterday’s version of you.
Not the imagined one.
The one right here.

So today, I’m starting exactly where I am.

And you’re welcome to join me.

Living Real Aloha —
Resilience empowers authentic living.

Heidi