Living Brighter
I believe our past doesn’t determine how brightly we can shine.
For much of my life, I believed being a good Christian woman meant being easygoing, teachable, loving, giving, and putting others first. Kindness was one of my greatest strengths—but without healthy boundaries and a strong connection to myself, it also became one of my greatest vulnerabilities.
After 22 years in a destructive marriage, two psychiatric hospitalizations, and ultimately divorce, I found myself questioning how I had gotten there. I loved God. I had tried hard to do the “right” things. Yet some of the messages I had absorbed about love, forgiveness, sacrifice, and submission had taught me to tolerate unhealthy behavior and abandon my own thoughts, feelings, and well-being in the process.
That realization began a new chapter.
Over the last nine years, I’ve intentionally worked to understand and change the patterns and programming that were bearing bad fruit in my life. I learned to recognize my high-functioning codependent tendencies—being highly attuned to the needs, feelings, and well-being of others while overlooking my own—and began rewiring those patterns.
I call that journey moving from overly kind to empowered kindness.
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Empowered kindness still loves deeply, serves generously, forgives, and believes the best in people—but it also includes wisdom, boundaries, truth, discernment, and self-respect. It means I no longer have to abandon myself in order to love someone else.
Today, much of my work is about helping other women do the same: recover from destructive or religiously harmful messages, recognize old programming that is no longer serving them, reconnect with themselves and God, and intentionally create lives marked by greater peace, purpose, success, love, and freedom.
Along the way, I’ve become a Life Coach, successful REALTOR®, host of the Live Brighter with Tara podcast, and founder of Hope Harbor Transitional Living, a nonprofit that provides rent and counseling assistance to people rebuilding their lives after destructive relationships.
Outside of work, some of my greatest joy comes from creating memories with my four adult children, two grandchildren, family, and friends. Nature restores me, whether I’m hiking, paddleboarding, or simply spending time outside.
I believe healing and change happen as we reconnect with God, ourselves, and others—1% at a time.
Our pain doesn’t have to be wasted. It can be redeemed.
And as we heal, grow, and become more fully who we were created to be, we bring more light and love into our own lives—and into the lives of the people around us.
That’s what it means to Live Brighter.
Tara
