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By Amanda de Cadenet
In case you missed my live with Dene Logan today here it is …..Weirdly it sounds like I have a lisp ( which i don’t ) so here it is, lisp and all.
We talked about all the things I love to get into; emotional honesty, inherited identities, the myth of certainty, and what it actually means to come home to ourselves. And if you’ve been in the thick of questioning what it means to belong (without betraying yourself), this one’s for you.
Here’s what stuck with me.
Emotional Honesty > Performing Perfection
Dene doesn’t flinch when she talks about truth. Not the kind you post on Instagram with a carefully curated caption—but the kind that lives in your body. The kind that makes you ask, What am I really feeling right now, and can I be with it?
She reminded me that emotional honesty isn’t a performance—it’s a practice. And it’s messy. But it’s also the only way to build a life that feels like it actually belongs to you.
The Cult of Certainty
So many of us are taught to seek certainty like it’s a moral high ground. But Dene calls BS on that. She says that growth doesn’t live in certainty—it lives in the not-knowing. In the pause. In the discomfort of being in-between.
And truthfully, that’s where most of my healing has happened, too. In the liminal space. In the questions, not the answers. It reminds me of what Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in Letters to a Young Poet:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves... Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Dene echoes this. We don’t need to rush the answers. We just need the courage to stay with the questions long enough to let them shape us.
Belonging Without Betrayal
This one resonated with me.How often do we shrink ourselves, soften our edges, or put on a mask just to be accepted? Dene calls this “self-abandonment in exchange for belonging.” And it’s so normalized, especially for women, that we barely even notice we’re doing it.
But there’s another way. A slower, braver way. One that invites us to reclaim who we are before the world told us who we should be.
Discomfort as Data
Rather than avoiding discomfort, Dene sees it as sacred information. It's the body saying, “Hey, something’s out of alignment here.” What would happen if we listened to that whisper before it had to scream?
The Work of Unlearning
We also talked about what it means to decolonize our sense of self. To untangle from systems that told us how to look, behave, and belong. Dene speaks to this with such grounded clarity—it’s not just about rage (though that has its place), it’s about responsibility. It’s about choosing who you want to be, again and again.
Healing in Community
Maybe the most important takeaway?
Healing doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens in safe, honest, tender relationships. The kind where your nervous system can take a breath and say, “Okay. It’s safe now.”
I left that conversation reminded that there’s no arrival point. No finish line. Just layers of truth waiting to be unearthed—and the bravery to be with ourselves in the process.
So if you’re in the weeds, questioning everything, feeling a little raw—welcome. You’re not broken. You’re waking up.
And that’s where the real discovery begins.
Keep having meaningful conversations.
Amanda X
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