Pivoting Through Setbacks: The Reality of Building Willowjak Services I have the best intentions. There’s a schedule for my social media content, a calendar for my blog posts, and outlines […]
June 17, 2025
Stacey aka WillowjakMama
June 17, 2025
Stacey aka WillowjakMama
In the middle of trying to keep all the pieces together, something big has been unfolding behind the scenes, something many of us in the disability and caregiving communities have […]
Future Planning for Autistic Adults I never dreamed of starting a business. I was just trying to survive. For 20 years, I’ve been in survival mode—raising three kids, including twin […]
May 27, 2025
Stacey aka WillowjakMama
Hi, if we haven’t already met, I’m Stacey — longtime caregiver, founder of Willowjak Services caregiver support, and your new (virtual) friend. For over a decade, I’ve been navigating life […]
It has been 2.5 years! Can you believe it? Did you miss me? Don’t worry, because I’m baaaaack! I need to write. You don’t really need to know that. You […]
As we age, I think most of us have the same conversation at one point or another. The one where we have come to the realization that what they warned […]
I’m not the same person I was before. If you look at me now compared to photos from three years ago, there are obvious physical changes. The pandemic gave me […]
Making wishes can provide us hope when we need it most. Here are Willowjak’s wishes for 2022. Deb My wish for everyone is to find the joy in wherever you […]
After the two years we’ve had, it is more important than ever to share and promote our favourite small businesses. We hope you’ll check them out for some last-minute shopping […]
The Risk of Writing When I am in the habit of writing everyday, I think I’m living in the best version of myself. Creativity is alive and well; I’m working […]
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this! THIS! T-H-IIII-S! I go through this with every piece I put out there. And realized that when I don’t say what’s in my heart I am self-censoring my own truth just to avoid arousing others in my life. Which is NOT helpful to my long term development and learning. Or theirs, for that matter. I have kept things internalized til I thought I would burst, for fear of backlash.
In the end…I have realized that it is my right to speak about myself…MY feelings, MY opinions, MY experiences as viewed through the windows of my own principles, values and history…and that what anyone who is NOT me chooses to think or feel about that, is not my problem, it is their own issue to deal with. If we are speaking in terms of our own psyches and not calling out or judging another person’s behaviour as right/wrong, but simply in terms of what their actions or words created within us and how we processed that…that is storytelling, not blame-laying, defaming or accusing. It is neither right or wrong to state what is going on in our own souls as the result of another person’s actions or words…it just is. And you are so right that others may see themselves in our writing and feel comforted, validated or just plain seen. Which is also in part why we write. To connect. There are things that I have said or done in my own life that may have created negative feelings for others, we all do it, and I really do not have the right to deny their feelings in expressing that, just because it might make me look bad, weak, whatever. It is me who needs to own that, not the person on the receiving end…and vice versa. We are all human and it is not whether these things will happen, but what we choose to do about it after another person has made those feelings known, that defines us. Thank you so much for sharing this, you have helped me with the same issue in the past, and in the end, I have never regretted telling my story even if others may take offense with me for doing so. The truth we speak, if it comes from our true values, is always the right thing to express.