Hope with Holly

If you want a relationship to actually last, love is not enough. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

According to the Gottman Institute, successful couples protect their relationship with seven things.

One: they keep learning each other. They know each other’s fears, dreams, stressors, and inner world.

Two: they nurture fondness and admiration. They don’t let resentment erase respect.

Three: they turn toward each other’s bids for connection instead of ignoring, dismissing, or mocking them.

Four: they allow each other to have influence. Healthy love is not control. It’s partnership.

Five: they solve the problems that are actually solvable instead of turning every issue into a character attack.

Six: they work through gridlock by understanding the deeper dream, fear, or value underneath the conflict.

And seven: they create shared meaning. They build rituals, purpose, traditions, and a life that feels like “us.”

So no, a successful relationship is not just chemistry. It’s friendship, respect, repair, emotional safety, and two people choosing the relationship every day.

Patriarchy may have created the first male loneliness epidemic—and thousands of years later, it is still hurting men. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

Scientists call this period the Neolithic Y-chromosome bottleneck.

Around 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, male family lines began disappearing at a dramatic rate. At the most extreme point, researchers found that for every male family line that continued through future generations, roughly 17 female family lines continued.

This did not happen because women suddenly outnumbered men. It happened as human societies changed.

Agriculture allowed people to own land, store food, accumulate livestock and pass wealth from father to son. Powerful male families formed clans. Some clans gained more land, wealth, status and descendants, while smaller male family lines slowly disappeared.

Researchers believe warfare between father-centered clans may have played a role. Victorious clans may have killed rival men and absorbed the women. Newer research also shows that mass killing was not necessary: powerful clans could simply keep expanding while poorer clans lost land, status and the ability to build families.

That is why I call this an early male loneliness epidemic.

Patriarchy was never a system that benefited all men. It concentrated women, wealth and power in the hands of a small group of dominant men while pushing countless other men to the margins.

And it is still doing that today.

Men are taught that women are something they are entitled to earn, possess or control. Then, when women refuse to participate, those men blame women instead of questioning the hierarchy that taught them their worth depended on dominating someone else.

Patriarchy harms women directly—but it also destroys men by teaching them to compete for power instead of learning how to connect, cooperate and love.

“Why are you so angry?”

It’s a question women have been asked for centuries. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

Women are told we’re too emotional when we’re sad.
Too sensitive when we’re hurt.
Too dramatic when we’re afraid.
And too angry when we finally speak up.

Anger is not a moral failure.

Sometimes anger is what happens when you’ve been ignored, controlled, violated, dismissed, silenced, or expected to accept less than you deserve.

I don’t hate men.

I hate abuse.
I hate injustice.
I hate systems that tell women to stay small, stay quiet, and be grateful for it.

Feminine rage isn’t hatred.

It’s what happens when women stop calling injustice “normal.”

And maybe the question isn’t why women are angry.

Maybe the question is why so many people are uncomfortable seeing it.

Anxious attachment can confuse love with constant reassurance. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

Avoidant attachment can confuse love with extreme independence.

But healthy love is neither suffocating nor starving.

Secure relationships are interdependent: two people who can soothe themselves, communicate their needs, maintain their own identities, and still consistently show up for each other.

You can need your partner without making them responsible for your entire nervous system.

You can need space without disappearing or withholding affection.

Secure love is not constant access.

It is consistency, emotional presence, repair, freedom, and mutual care.

No one should have to chase for connection—and no one should have to lose themselves to keep it.

Women Were Never Meant to Do Life Alone
Follow Hope With Holly for more.

So many women are exhausted because they’ve spent their entire lives believing their worth comes from what they accomplish.

The career.
The house.
The marriage.
The kids.
The endless to-do list.

And then one day they realize they’ve checked every box… and still feel lonely.

Healing isn’t always found in doing more.

Sometimes healing looks like friendship.
Community.
Laughter.
Being seen.
Being understood.
Sitting across from another woman who says, “Me too.”

Your nervous system was never meant to carry life alone.

This is exactly why I host women’s retreats and created the Yourself Respect community—because healing happens in connection.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected, overwhelmed, or emotionally exhausted, maybe what you need isn’t another goal.

Maybe you need your people. 💜

Last night we celebrated the longest day of the year by dancing around a fire, twirling light-up ribbon wands, setting intentions, and saying goodnight to the sun. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

Healing is not only processing pain.

Healing is also play.

Trauma teaches us to stay guarded.
Play teaches our bodies that joy is safe again.

Sometimes healing looks like therapy.
Sometimes it looks like women laughing barefoot in the grass under the stars.

If you’re in the Charlotte, NC area and want to join us for more gatherings like this, details are at the end of the video.
Kaytlyn Trickett ✺ SoulHouse Return

I didn’t deconstruct because I wanted to sin.

I deconstructed because I read the Bible. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

Not the cherry-picked verses. Not the Sunday school stories. The whole thing.

And one question kept haunting me:

Why do women so often end up paying the price for men’s sins?

David sins, and God says David’s wives will be taken.

Israel disobeys, and one of the covenant curses is that another man will violate a man’s future wife.

Lot offers his daughters to a violent mob.

A woman is handed over to a mob in Judges 19 and r***d all night.

Thousands of virgin girls are spared after a massacre and kept “for yourselves.”

A captive woman is given one month to mourn her dead parents before the soldier who conquered her people can take her as his wife.

I was told the Bible revealed God’s perfect morality.

But when I read these stories as a woman, I had questions.

Questions many churches told me not to ask.

I still believe compassion matters.
I still believe truth matters.
I still believe love matters.

But I no longer believe that every action attributed to God in the Bible automatically reflects the character of God.

If God is good, then we should be brave enough to wrestle with the passages that don’t look good.

That’s not rebellion.

That’s honesty.

One of the biggest signs that you’re ready for a healthy relationship has nothing to do with finding the right person. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

It has everything to do with building a life you love first.

Healthy relationships are often built by people who have:

✨ Peace — They enjoy their life as it is.
✨ Purpose — They have goals, passions, friendships, and interests outside of dating.
✨ Poise — They can handle conflict, disappointment, and uncertainty without falling apart.
✨ Partnership — They want someone to share life with, not someone to save them from it.

A question I encourage everyone to ask themselves:

“If this relationship ended tomorrow, would I still have a life I love?”

If the answer is no, your work may not be finding a partner. Your work may be rebuilding your relationship with yourself.

The healthiest relationships aren’t built between two halves looking to be completed.

They’re built between two whole people who already have a meaningful life and choose to share it with each other. ❤️