Finding My Way to People

In 2006, I graduated from University of California, San Diego with two bachelor’s degrees.

I finished my final classes days before I was married.

I did not want to attend graduation. Sitting in the coastal humidity listening to hundreds of names felt unnecessary. Especially with a wedding days later because of an unplanned pregnancy and miscarriage. It was a complicated season.

There wasn’t much celebration around that accomplishment. And I didn’t really pause to celebrate it myself either.

I moved straight into the next responsibility.

I wanted to be proud of earning two degrees.

I loved psychology — the study of how people behave and why. But UCSD’s psychology program was deeply scientific. It trained me to research, to quantify, to control variables. It gave me rigor. It gave me discipline. It did not spend much time inside the lived experience of suffering.

My political science degree did.

Political theory, philosophy, systems of power, the architecture of agency — it forced me to ask:

Who decides?

Who benefits?

Who has access?

Who does not?

Looking back, I am deeply grateful I studied both.

Science without philosophy can become mechanical.

Philosophy without science can become ungrounded.

Together, they formed the lens through which I would eventually see the world.

After graduation, I married.

I was a manager at Mervyn’s until days before giving birth to my daughter. I stayed home longer than I expected. We bought a house after the 2008 crash. My son was born. Life unfolded in diapers, mortgages, and grocery lists.

Eventually I began asking myself:

What should I do?

Not what could I do.

Not what pays well.

Not what sounds impressive.

But what should I do?

Then the question deepened:

What would change the world?

The answer came back steady and clear:

Agency.

Knowledge.

The power to decide.

Education.

But then I argued with myself.

If education is the key, why is it failing so many? Why are young people graduating without confidence, without direction, without empowerment?

My answer:

Fear.

Trauma.

Inadequacy.

Lack of resources.

Unresolved pain.

You cannot educate a nervous system that is in survival mode.

You cannot cultivate agency in someone who has never felt safe enough to choose.

You cannot teach decision-making to someone paralyzed by shame.

And you cannot expect people to step confidently into their future if no one has ever paused long enough to witness what they have already accomplished.

That realization surprised me.

Because I recognized it.

I had learned to move on quickly. To achieve quietly. To transition without lingering in pride. To complete something and immediately look for the next task.

Being unwitnessed doesn’t always create loud wounds.

Sometimes it creates competence.

Sometimes it creates self-sufficiency.

Sometimes it creates the kind of person who becomes very good at witnessing others.

That is when the path shifted.

I did not go into mental health because I was fascinated by diagnoses.

I went into mental health because I believe that restoring agency restores people.

If fear is the barrier — address the fear.

If trauma is the barrier — treat the trauma.

If lack of resources is the barrier — build the resources.

If no one has celebrated you — witness you.

If no one has reflected your strength back to you — reflect it.

That felt like upstream work.

There is an irony in this.

The very reasons I entered mental health — fear, trauma, lack of empowerment — are now often politicized, misunderstood, or weaponized. Labels can define instead of liberate. Systems can entrench instead of empower.

But my conviction has not changed.

If the root problem is fear — send me.

If the root problem is trauma — send me.

If the issue is lack of resources — send me.

Not because I have all the answers.

But because I believe deeply in agency, knowledge, and the power to decide.

And because I know what it feels like to move forward without being witnessed — and how powerful it is when someone finally says:

I see you.

That mattered.

You did something hard.

🌿 Good Beet Reflection

1. Where in your life have you moved on too quickly from something worthy of acknowledgment?

2. Who witnessed your accomplishments growing up?

3. Who did not?

4. How has that shaped the way you show up for others now?

5. What would it feel like to pause — just once — and let something be celebrated?

   
   

The Good Beet grows underground first.

But that does not mean it grows unseen.

Sometimes the most radical act is simply to witness.