The Humble Pie
Trauma Recovery Coaching That Meets You Where You Are
The Humble Pie: Let’s Start from Scratch
Because healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken.
It’s about remembering who you are.
This framework borrows the shape of 12 steps, but it isn’t about one drink, one drug, or one diagnosis.
It’s a gentle structure for recovering from the parts of life that fractured us in ways we never had language for.
We’re not just healing from substances or behaviors.
Those are symptoms.
It sits in the same family as the original 12-step model and even stories like
Alice in Wonderland: a fall into chaos, a slow waking up to what is true, grieving what was lost,
and learning how to live differently on the other side.
We’re healing from the lies we were told, the shame we carried, and the betrayals that taught us to disappear.
Each step on this page has two layers:
The journal-style entries written from inside the experience,
and the Learning Library overview that explains what that step is doing in your nervous system, relationships, and story.
The Humble Pie is about coming back to ourselves, slice by slice, truth by truth.
You know her.
The one who’s reactive, demanding, can’t let things go. She shows up in viral videos.
But if we’re honest, she also shows up in our own worst moments,
when we can’t regulate, can’t soften,
can’t trust that things will be okay unless we control them.
Here’s what we don’t usually talk about:
That Karen part isn’t the enemy.
She’s a protector who learned to fight for what we need, or what we thought we needed.
She shows up when we feel unsafe, unheard, or disrespected.
She’s stuck in fight-or-flight, doing her best with the tools she has.
We all have parts of ourselves that developed to protect us.
The Karen part is often the one who refuses to be small anymore,
who demands to be seen and heard, even when her methods push people away
instead of bringing them closer.
Karenism is what happens when that protective part never learned it was safe to rest.
It’s the chronic hypervigilance.
The reactivity that hijacks you.
The exhausting need to control everything because nothing ever felt safe.
It’s also the moral injury of becoming someone you didn’t want to be just to survive.
And Karenon?
That’s the recovery.
It’s about healing the nervous system, understanding protective parts without shame,
and learning to meet your needs without harming yourself or others.
We still love our Karens, just like we love anyone struggling with pain they don’t yet know how to heal.
This work isn’t about condemnation. It’s about compassion and real change.
Read the full Karenism blog post here
What We’re Really Recovering From
Let’s talk about the Karen in all of us.
The Humble Pie Clarity Prayer
Every beginning needs an anchor. This one begins with a prayer…
Grant me the clarity to see what is hurting me,
The courage to walk away from what will not change,
And the wisdom to trust my truth above all else.
The 12 Humble Steps
These steps aren’t rules. They’re invitations...pieces of the journey.
You can enter from any doorway. Begin where you need to; there’s no single order.
How to Navigate This Map Back to Yourself
The 12 Humble Steps aren't a ladder you climb or rules you have to follow.
They’re invitations…doorways you can walk through at your own pace.
Start where you need to. Some days you may return to the same step over and over; other days you may skip ahead. There’s no wrong way through.
Under each step, you’ll find two layers: the journal-style entries that speak from inside the experience, and a Learning Library overview for people who want language and context for what each step is doing in their nervous system, relationships, and story.
This guide is here to remind you that healing doesn't move in straight lines. It moves in circles, pauses, and returns, always carrying you closer to yourself.
Step One: Admitting the Crack
The fracture we hid is the same place light gets in.
Explore Step One through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview, Moral Injury: When Your Conscience Wakes Up Before Your Life Does.
Step Two: Seeing Through the Fog
Learning to name what was once blurred or denied.
Explore Step Two through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Why Awareness Can Dysregulate the Nervous System.
Step Three: Turning Toward Ourselves
Choosing self-love after years of self-abandonment.
Explore Step Three through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview, Learned Patterns You Didn’t Choose (and Why Shame Shows Up).
Step Four: The Inventory We Were Never Allowed
Writing the story in our own words, without edits or erasure.
Explore Step Four through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Why Nervous System Collapse Is Not the Same as Giving Up.
Step Five: Speaking the Unspeakable
Letting what was silenced finally be said out loud.
Explore Step Five through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview, Why Relationships Feel Harder After Awakening.
Step Six: Unlearning Obedience
Breaking the spell of “be good” that kept us small.
Explore Step Six through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
How Systems Shape Behavior (Without Excusing Harm).
Step Seven: The Cost of Shrinking
Seeing the toll of making ourselves smaller for others’ comfort.
Explore Step Seven through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
The Cost of Shrinking: What Happens When You Make Yourself Small.
Step Eight: Repair Without Erasure
Healing without rewriting the past or disappearing ourselves again.
Explore Step Eight through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Step Nine: Choosing Ourselves
No more automatic forgiveness, only fair trials in our own court.
Explore Step Nine through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Choosing Ourselves in Recovery.
Step Ten: Telling the Truth in Real Time
No longer rewriting after the fact, speaking now as it happens.
Explore Step Ten through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Telling the Truth in Recovery: When You Were Trained To Stay Quiet.
Step Eleven: Letting Grief Be Sacred
Making space for sorrow as proof of what mattered.
Explore Step Eleven through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Step Twelve: Living Out Loud, Without Permission
Claiming our voice, our joy, and our place — unapologetically.
Explore Step Twelve through the journal-style entries and the Learning Library overview,
Living Out Loud in Recovery: Letting Your Life Match Your Truth.
A Slice to Carry With You
Healing isn’t something we do once and call it done. It’s something we return to, slice by slice, truth by truth.
The Humble Pie isn’t about reaching a finish line. It’s about remembering who you are, again and again. Take one step, or many.
Circle back as often as you need.
The reflections linked to each step are here to walk beside you. Come back whenever you’re hungry for clarity, courage,
or just the reminder that
healing those protective parts - and yourself - is possible.