No Cost

What if there are no strings attached?

How do you describe a holiday?

Peaceful? Busy? Relaxing? Exhilarating?

There’s no wrong answer. But the word that describes my 17 days in Europe might surprise you.

Healing.

For seven years, post-cult, I’ve been tearing down layers of conditioning, brick by brick. I’ve stayed committed to the unlearning, even when it cost me everything: relationships, safety, certainty.

Yes, I lost a lot.

Yes, it hurt like hell.

Yes, I doubted myself a thousand times.

But there’s a quiet knowing underneath it all, a whisper of truth. Like a lighthouse in fog, even when you can’t see clearly, its light still reaches you.

I’ve had five little humans watching me, depending on me, as I’ve navigated uncharted waters, waters no one in my world ever dared to sail.

It was just me and them.

And slowly, one by one, people showed up. Not just watching… joining. Helping. Holding. Healing.

One of them is Rod Maldaner

He stepped aboard and simply said:

“I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

(He had no idea how much I could rock a boat 😏)

And yet, he held on.

He held me.

He patched wounds I didn’t know were bleeding.

He gave with no strings attached,

just thread… stitching my broken pieces back together with presence, patience, and emotional fluency.

When people ask about the trip, he says,

“It’s Bre’s trip.”

It. Is. Bre’s. Trip.

*cue dramatic faint

I don’t know how to accept joy, let alone enjoy it.

Because there’s always a catch, right?

A motive. A consequence. A cost.

But he asked,

“What if there isn’t?”

And for once… there wasn’t.

He stood beside me while I breathed in cultures and beauty I’d never seen. He watched me come alive. And I watched him see the world in a whole new way, even after seven trips to Paris.

Yes, it was a full-on Jasmine & Aladdin moment.

✨ A whole new world.✨

He healed me. And I, him.

The frame of the puzzle is finally in place.

Now comes the fun part: filling it in.

My confidence? Solid.

My foundation? Unshakable.

My direction? Forward.

Now let’s sail calmer seas, with a sangria (or three) in hand.