Hope with Holly

RECEIVE is a 3-night, 4-day restorative women’s retreat for women who are tired of carrying everything. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

Come rest, be cared for, reconnect with yourself, and learn practical, science-informed tools for your nervous system, thoughts, boundaries, relationships, self-respect, and the patterns you may have inherited from family, religion, culture, or patriarchy.

Your retreat includes:
✨ 3 nights lodging
✨ All meals, snacks & drinks
✨ Private 60-minute massage
✨ Workshops + guided experiences
✨ Meditation, breathwork, movement & reflection
✨ Long afternoon “Receiving Hours” for naps, nature, creativity, play, connection—or absolutely nothing
✨ Retreat gifts + RECONNECT Comfort Kit
✨ Private countryside retreat experience
✨ A small group of only 8 women

RECONNECT • REGULATE • REFLECT • RECLAIM

Come to learn. Come to rest. Come to laugh, eat, breathe, receive, and remember that you belong in your own life too.

Which religion has been responsible for the most religiously sanctioned violence?
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The strongest historical answer appears to be Christianity—not because Christians are uniquely violent, but because Christianity became tied to enormous political and military power for centuries.

The Crusades. Religious wars. Colonial conquest. Biblical defenses of slavery. Witch executions. Forced conversion.

Christian rulers, churches, and empires repeatedly used God, Scripture, and religious authority to justify violence and domination.

Islam also has a history of religious conquest and empire, and the Hebrew Bible contains stories of warfare commanded by Yahweh.

But Christianity had an extraordinary combination of religious authority, military power, empire, and global reach.

There is no honest way to calculate one exact “Christian death toll.”

But the larger lesson is clear:

Human beings become dangerous when they believe God has authorized their violence.

That is why religion should never be exempt from moral scrutiny.

One of the strangest stories in the Bible is hiding in 1 Samuel 28. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

Saul, the first king of Israel, is terrified because the Philistines are about to attack. He asks God what to do, but God refuses to answer him.

So Saul disguises himself, finds a female medium, and asks her to summon the dead prophet Samuel.

And according to the story…

it works.

Samuel appears.
Samuel speaks.
Samuel predicts Saul’s defeat and death.
And the prediction comes true.

Now, the Bible absolutely condemns Saul for consulting a medium.

But that still leaves a fascinating question:

Why does a forbidden ritual actually work?

The text never says it was a demon pretending to be Samuel.
It never says the medium was a fraud.
It repeatedly calls the figure Samuel.

For anyone who grew up being told that mediums, ghosts, and communication with the dead were automatically fake or demonic, this story raises some very uncomfortable questions about the supernatural world the biblical authors actually believed in.

1 Samuel 28.

Read it for yourself.

Women are often taught how to be likable long before we are taught how to be autonomous.
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We are taught to keep the peace. Be agreeable. Be chosen. Don’t be too loud. Don’t be too difficult. Don’t make people uncomfortable.

But adulthood requires something very different.

It requires self-trust.
Decision-making.
Boundaries.
Assertiveness.
Financial competence.
Emotional regulation.
Discernment.
The ability to tolerate disapproval.
Self-protection.
And an identity that belongs to YOU.

That is agency.

Agency means understanding that this is your life, you are responsible for what you do with it, and you do not need another adult’s permission to live it.

And sometimes becoming a healthier woman means becoming a more inconvenient woman.

More difficult to manipulate.
More difficult to intimidate.
More difficult to control.

You can be kind without being compliant.

You can love people without abandoning yourself.

You can have relationships without handing someone else authority over your life.

Your life belongs to you.

It’s time we act like it.

FREE RETREAT SPOT AVAILABLE Follow Hope With Holly for more.

I have one completely FREE spot available for my women’s retreat near Charlotte, North Carolina, October 9th–11th.

One of the women who registered had to cancel, and because her reservation was nonrefundable, she generously asked me to give her spot to another woman who could really use the rest.

Think of this retreat as a bed-and-breakfast for your nervous system.

Your weekend includes:

• 3 days + 2 nights on a beautiful private farm
• All meals, snacks, coffee, tea + drinks
• A private professional massage
• Guided meditations + gentle breathwork
• Nervous-system regulation tools you can actually use at home
• Workshops on stress, boundaries, self-respect + understanding your patterns
• Rest, nature, sisterhood + meaningful conversation
• Plenty of completely unscheduled time to nap, wander, journal, sit by the pond, laugh, create, or do absolutely nothing
• Retreat gifts + a cozy swag bag
• A small, intimate group of women

If you’d like to be considered for the FREE spot, comment below and tell me why you’d love to come—or nominate another woman who could really use a weekend where someone else takes care of her for a change.

You do NOT need to publicly share anything deeply personal or traumatic.

Please also like + share this video so we can get this donated spot to the right woman.

You must be able to provide your own transportation to and from the Charlotte, NC area.

💜 Want to guarantee your spot instead?
We still have 2 paid spots available for October 9th–11th, and we would absolutely love to have you.

And if next weekend is just too soon, our next women’s retreat is an expanded four-day retreat November 5th–8th.

Come rest. Come learn. Come laugh. Come be cared for.

For once, you do not have to be the one holding everything together.

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t figuring out whether you love him. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

It’s accepting that love may not be enough.

A healthy relationship needs more than chemistry, history, attachment, or good intentions. It needs emotional safety, accountability, repair, consistency, respect, and two people who are actually capable of showing up for each other.

So stop asking only, “Does he love me?”

Ask:

Do I feel safe being myself here?
Does his behavior change when I tell him I’m hurting?
Can we repair conflict?
Do I respect who I’m becoming in this relationship?
And if nothing changed for the next year… would I still choose this?

That last question will tell you a lot.

Don’t stay loyal to someone’s potential while their pattern keeps hurting you.

Choose based on what is actually happening—not what you keep hoping will happen.

In light of the allegations involving seven Cornell fraternity members, I think we need to have a much bigger conversation for educational purposes:

Why is s*xual violence so disproportionately perpetrated by men?

The research does NOT support the lazy explanation that “men have more testosterone and therefore can’t control themselves.”

Testosterone has only a weak relationship with human aggression, and research has not found s*x offenders to have higher testosterone overall than other men.

What researchers repeatedly find instead are things like s*xual entitlement, dominance, hostility toward women, acceptance of violence, rape-supportive beliefs, controlling behavior, and gender norms that teach men they should have power over women.

And underneath much of that is a dangerous combination of entitlement and dehumanization:

“What I want matters more than your right to control your own body.”

Biology does matter in one important way: men are, on average, physically stronger than women. Strength does not create s*xual violence—but when someone already feels entitled to another person and is willing to ignore their humanity, greater physical power can make it easier to overpower them.

So we need to stop teaching boys only, “Don’t rape.”

We need to teach them:

Wanting something does not mean you deserve it.
Being stronger does not mean you get to control someone.
Rejection does not take away your manhood.
And another person’s body never belongs to you just because you have the power to take it.

Because the problem is not that men are biologically incapable of controlling themselves.

Men absolutely can control themselves.

The problem is that some men have been taught to believe they are entitled not to.
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THIS VIDEO IS SATIRE. I do not believe men should lose the right to vote. No one’s civil rights should be taken away simply because of their s*x. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

That is exactly why I made this video.

Dale Partridge is currently promoting a book called 19 Reasons to Repeal the 19th Amendment. His publisher describes women’s suffrage as a “catastrophic mistake,” blames it for “emotionalism in governance,” and says it conflicts with “male headship” and “biblical patriarchy.”

So I simply reversed the argument.

I took real statistics about men and used them to reach the equally ridiculous conclusion that men shouldn’t vote.

Obviously, that conclusion does not follow.

You can find bad behavior, bad judgment, violence, corruption or emotional decision-making among members of either s*x. You do not take an entire group of human beings and strip away their political rights because some members of that group fit your stereotype.

A few bad eggs do not make the entire carton undeserving of civil rights.

What makes this especially striking to me is that these arguments are being presented as Christian.

Jesus had plenty to say about power. In Mark 10, he points to rulers who “lord it over” people and calls them tyrants. Then he tells his followers: “But it is not so among you.” Greatness, he says, means becoming a servant.

And Jesus also said, “You will know them by their fruits.”

So when a political theology produces arguments for taking political power away from women and placing authority back into male hands, I think it is entirely fair to compare that fruit with the teachings of the Jesus being invoked.

I cannot know these men’s private motives. But I can evaluate what they are publicly teaching. Religion News Service documents Dale Partridge, Joel Webbon and others in this small but growing network promoting explicitly patriarchal political ideas; Webbon identifies himself as a Christian nationalist.

Jesus did not teach his followers to become more powerful so they could rule everyone else. He told the people craving power to serve.

That distinction matters.

Talking about patriarchy is not the same thing as hating men. Follow Hope With Holly for more.

If I explain that men historically controlled governments, churches, property, education, and marriage laws in ways that restricted women’s freedom, I am describing history—not accusing every man alive today of personally creating it.

But psychology helps explain why some men hear it that way.

When criticism of a group feels like criticism of the self, people can experience what researchers call social identity threat. Suddenly the conversation shifts from:

“What happened to women?”

to:

“Why are you attacking men?”

And now we’re no longer discussing the history. We’re reassuring someone about their identity.

A secure identity doesn’t require your group’s history to be flattering.

I’m a white woman. I can acknowledge racism, slavery, and the role some white women played in oppression without believing someone is personally attacking me for being white.

Men can do the same thing with patriarchy.

You don’t have to feel guilty for what men centuries ago did.

But we do have to be willing to tell the truth about it.

Because understanding how a system was built is part of understanding why pieces of it still exist today.

History is not man-bashing.

And acknowledging what women endured is not hatred of men.

Sometimes the most mature response is simply:

“That happened. It was wrong. What can we learn from it?”

A boundary is not, “You need to stop doing that.” Follow Hope With Holly for more.

A boundary is, “If you continue doing that, here is what I will do.”

That difference matters.

You can communicate your needs. You can explain what hurts you. You can give someone an opportunity to respond differently.

But at some point, repeated explanations become self-abandonment.

If he keeps yelling, disrespecting you, disappearing, lying, pushing s*xual boundaries, or treating you in a way you’ve already said you will not accept, the next step is not always another conversation.

Sometimes the next step is action.

And no, that does not mean punishing him, withholding affection to manipulate him, or trying to control his behavior.

It means deciding what you will and will not participate in.

Boundaries are not about making someone behave.

They are about deciding who gets access to your time, energy, body, peace, and life.

You don’t need a better speech.

You may just need better follow-through.

What boundary did you finally learn to enforce instead of just explain?