Brain Dame

At the airport with Galen. ✈️

We’re headed to Cleveland to meet our grandson, Matthew Ray.

On Monday, our daughter Kassie will be induced.

For those who don’t know, Matthew was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a chromosomal condition that comes with significant medical challenges. The statistics are sobering. Depending on the study, we’re told he has only a 5-10% chance of long-term survival. In the Trisomy 18 community, parents are often encouraged to plan a funeral before they ever plan a first birthday.

As a mother, grandmother, believer, and trauma-informed coach, I find myself standing in two worlds at once.

One world is filled with faith, hope, prayer, and the possibility of miracles.

The other is filled with uncertainty, grief, and the reality that not every story unfolds the way we desperately want it to.

If I’m honest, I’m having to use my own coaching tools on myself right now.

The Brain Dame in me knows that courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is teaching your nervous system that you can face uncertainty without being consumed by it.

My brain wants to race ahead into every possible future. It wants guarantees. It wants certainty. It wants to know the ending before the story has been written.

But healing has taught me something different.

Stay here.

Stay in this moment.

Breathe.

Trust.

Today, Matthew is alive.

Today, his heart is beating.

Today, he is loved.

Today, God is still God.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that our suffering often comes from trying to live in a future we haven’t arrived at yet. The brain is a prediction machine. It constantly scans for danger and tries to prepare us for pain. But sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is gently bring ourselves back to what is true right now.

Right now, I am on a plane.

Right now, my family is together.

Right now, my grandson is being held in prayer by loving people all over the world.

Right now, God is with us.

And something beautiful has already happened.

Matthew’s precious life has drawn our family closer together. He has reminded us what matters most. He has inspired conversations, prayers, tears, hugs, and a deeper appreciation for each other. Before he has even taken his first breath outside the womb, his life has already made an impact.

Because love is always the answer.

Not fear.

Not statistics.

Not predictions.

Love.

No matter what the future holds, Matthew is surrounded by love. He is known. He is wanted. He is prayed for. He is cherished.

I don’t know what Monday will bring.

I don’t know what the coming days will hold.

But I do know this:

Fear is not faith.

Denial is not faith.

Pretending everything will be okay is not faith.

Faith is looking uncertainty in the eye and trusting God anyway.

So today, I choose faith.

I choose presence.

I choose hope.

And I choose to love Matthew with every ounce of my heart for however many days, months, or years God gives us.

Thank you to every person who has prayed, reached out, encouraged us, and carried our family in your heart.

Love is already writing Matthew’s story. ❤️

Are you a cycle breaker?

The women breaking generational cycles are carrying a kind of exhaustion most people will never fully understand.

Because they are not just raising children.

They are raising children while trying to heal the child they once were.

They are learning:
How to stay calm when nobody stayed calm with them.
How to apologize when nobody apologized to them.
How to create safety when they were raised in survival mode.

That is not weakness.

That is warfare. ❤️

Some women grew up around screaming.
Coldness.
Fear.
Guilt.
Chaos.
Emotional unpredictability.

And somewhere along the line they made a quiet, sacred decision:

“It ends with me.”

So now they pause before reacting.
They repair after mistakes.
They learn emotional regulation.
They go to therapy.
They pray through triggers.
They read parenting books while crying in the bathroom holding cold coffee and emotional damage. 😅

And although it may not look glamorous…

Heaven probably calls it heroic.

Neuroscience tells us children build their brains around safety, connection, and repeated emotional experiences.

Which means every hug…
every calm response…
every moment of repair…
is helping shape an entirely different future.

No mother does this perfectly.

But healing mothers do something powerful:

They become interruptors of pain.

So to the moms trying to give their children what they never received:

Your love is changing generations.

Even if today felt messy.
Even if you lost your patience.
Even if you’re one tantrum away from hiding in the pantry with chocolate and worship music.

You are still doing sacred work. 🌿

Tag a cycle-breaking mom who needs this reminder today. ❤️

With Dracia Jackson – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

The Moms Who Broke the Cycle

Some mothers gave us wounds.
Some mothers became healing.
And some women had to become the first safe mother their family line ever knew.

The first one to apologize.
The first one to listen.
The first one to stop screaming.
The first one to say,
“Ends here. Not with my children.”

That kind of motherhood is sacred work.

Not perfect work.
Not polished work.
Not Pinterest-board-with-organic-muffins work. 😅

Sacred work.

Because many women are raising children while simultaneously re-parenting themselves.

They are learning emotional regulation after growing up around emotional chaos.
Learning boundaries after being taught guilt.
Learning rest after a lifetime of survival mode.
Learning softness after years of bracing for impact.

That’s exhausting sometimes.

But it’s also brave beyond words.

Neuroscience tells us the brain repeats what is familiar until something intentional interrupts the pattern.

That means every calm response…
every repair after a mistake…
every moment of emotional safety…
is literally helping build a different future.

You do not have to be a perfect mother to be a healing one.

Sometimes healing looks like:
❤️ trying again
❤️ owning your mistakes
❤️ choosing connection over control
❤️ getting support
❤️ refusing to pass pain forward

To every woman breaking cycles nobody else was willing to confront:

You are doing holy, history-changing work.

And even on the days you feel messy, emotional, exhausted, overstimulated, or one spilled cup away from needing a prayer circle and a nap…

you are still building something beautiful. 💕

I think most mothers quietly wonder from time to time:

“Am I actually a good mom?”🧠✨

So I went digging into the research.

And the studies were incredibly comforting…

The “best mothers” are NOT the perfect ones. What a relief.! 😂👏

Good news for the moms who:
✔️ forgot spirit week
✔️ burned dinner
✔️ hid in the pantry eating chocolate
✔️ threatened to “turn this car around”
✔️ accidentally called one child by the dog’s name
✔️ and occasionally wonder if their nervous system deserves its own vacation package ✈️

Research consistently shows children thrive most under what psychologists call authoritative parenting NOT permissive parenting:

✨ Warmth + connection
✨ Healthy boundaries
✨ Emotional safety
✨ Consistency
✨ Encouragement
✨ Repair after mistakes

Not perfection.
Not fear.
Not control.

Just a safe, loving human who keeps showing up… and doesn’t give up.

One of the strongest predictors of emotionally healthy children was something researchers called maternal warmth.

That means:
❤️ affection
❤️ responsiveness
❤️ delight in your child
❤️ emotional attunement

In other words…

Your children probably won’t remember whether the towels were folded like a luxury spa resort.

And they truly do not care if your house looked Pinterest-perfect 24/7. 😂

But they WILL remember:
Did Mom feel safe?
Did she listen?
Did she love me?
Did she repair after hard moments?
Did she believe in me?

That’s the stuff that wires a child’s nervous system for resilience, confidence, emotional health, and healthy future relationships. 🧠✨

And here’s the part every exhausted mother needs to hear today:

Research shows children do NOT need a flawless mother to thrive.

They need a “good enough” mother.

A loving one.
A repairing one.
A growing one.
A present one.

So if you’re raising tiny humans while simultaneously trying not to lose your temper in the grocery store parking lot…

You’re probably doing far better than you think. 😂💕

🧠 Brain Dame Nugget:
Children are not shaped by perfection.
They are shaped by connection, safety, love, and repair. (A parent can mess up…and then reconnect.)

Happiest of Mother’s Day to all of you beautiful, big hearted Mom’s❣️

If this encouraged you, share it with a mother who needs this reminder today. 💕

Love, Brain Dame💕

What is your new meaning?

There come a time when healing from church hurt or spiritual abuse where you realize…

It was never about the books.
It was never about the music.
It was never about the “appearance.”

It was about this quiet, internal question:
👉 “Do I have to edit myself to be accepted here?”

And for many of us, especially those raised in high-control or high control environments, our brain learned early:

Belonging = Conforming

So we scan the room…
We anticipate opinions…
We adjust before anyone even asks us to…

Not because we’re fake.
But because we were trained to stay safe through approval.

But healing introduces a new equation:

👉 Belonging that requires self-abandonment isn’t belonging. It’s performance.

And faith—real, grounded, Christ-centered faith—was never meant to feel like walking on eggshells in your own home.

Yes, people will have opinions.
Yes, some will project their convictions onto you.

But you are not called to:

* manage everyone’s comfort
* filter your environment to avoid judgment
* or shrink your life to fit someone else’s lens

You are called to walk in truth.
To live from conviction, not fear.
To be anchored in Christ, not edited.

And here’s the quiet freedom most people miss:

👉 You can love God deeply… and still think differently than the person across the table. We are all at different stages!

Declaration:
“I’m no longer curating my life to fit someone else’s convictions.”

Love, Brain Dame💕

When a church system tolerates something that it knows is evil within its own congregation, it becomes your idol. And your idol now becomes your god. And when tolerance becomes your god, you will tolerate anything. You don’t tolerate something that God has said is wrong. -David Jones, Bethel Community Church (Revelation Bible Study) Part 25 1:35:50

That quote hits like a truth alarm your nervous system can’t ignore.

From a Brain Dame lens, here’s the quiet danger:
When a system repeatedly asks you to override what you know is wrong… your brain adapts. It trades discernment for belonging.

At first, it feels like “grace.”
Then it becomes silence.
Then it becomes permission.

And that’s the tipping point…
because anything you have to numb yourself to tolerate is already out of alignment with truth.

God never asked us to tolerate evil to preserve a system.

He calls us to expose it… so people can be protected and truth can breathe again.

Not anti-church.
Pro-truth.
Pro-safety.
Pro-Jesus.

Hello, Grief, My Old Friend — But You Don’t Get to Move In
April 20, 2026
Rhonda Grillo, Neuro Coach

There are moments in life that don’t knock. They don’t wait politely at the threshold, hands folded, asking permission to enter. They arrive unannounced, wind howling, glass shattering, like storm systems with memory, as if they have studied the architecture of your soul and know exactly where to break through. March 2023 was one of those moments.

When the betrayal within our religious world surfaced, it didn’t feel like information; it felt like impact. A wall of fire. Sudden. Consuming. Inescapable.

As a survivor of child sexual abuse, the shock didn’t land on neutral ground. It ignited what had already been tender. And I was not alone. Thousands of us, people who had trusted, believed, and built our lives within this religious system, found ourselves reeling, not just from what had happened, but from what had been hidden for decades.

Deception has a way of rearranging reality after the fact.
What we thought was safe… wasn’t.
What we thought was sacred… had been mishandled.
What we thought was truth… had been curated.
And as we tried, slowly and painfully, to process what we were seeing, another layer came into focus.

This wasn’t only an institutional failure. It was spiritual harm.

A second wave. A deeper cut. Not just abuse of the body, but a distortion of trust, of authority, of the very lens through which we understood God.

It is a disorienting thing to love something and realize it has wounded you deeply. We loved our fellowship. We loved the people. We loved the rhythm, the familiarity, the sense of belonging. So naturally, many resisted the reality unfolding before us. Some turned away from it quietly, protectively, hoping it might all recede if left untouched. Others faced it head-on. I was one of them.

Out of that collision between truth and heartbreak, I stepped into advocacy. I founded Bridging the GAP on CSA, an effort to bring clarity, education, and accountability into a space that had long avoided all three. We gathered facts. We built a platform. We held meetings. We wrote, we listened, and we supported the wounded.
We hoped, earnestly, that truth would lead to change.
It didn’t.

After two years of effort, the conclusion became unavoidable. The leadership had no intention of addressing what had been exposed. Not meaningfully. Not structurally. Not in a way that would protect the vulnerable.

So we made a decision that felt both necessary and devastating.
We walked away. From a lifelong religious identity. From a community that had shaped us. From a familiar way of fellowship we had grown up in and loved. And we chose to continue walking with Jesus, just not within the same structure that had failed to reflect Him.

It was not a clean break. It was heavy. Disorienting. Exhausting. The kind of decision that doesn’t just live in your thoughts, it settles into your body. My health felt it. My mind felt it. My spirit wrestled through it.

But slowly, over time, the sharpest edges of grief softened. We began to find our footing again. Not where we had been, but somewhere honest. Somewhere real. We were learning to live in acceptance.

And then February 2026 came. Another moment that didn’t knock.
Our daughter received the call. Genetic testing had confirmed what no parent ever wants to hear. Our precious grandson, Matthew, had been diagnosed with Trisomy 18 within the womb, first trimester.

And just like that, grief returned. Not as a stranger.
But as something eerily familiar.
A presence that didn’t need directions.
A shadow that already knew the rooms of my heart.
I found myself reaching for words, trying to name what had stepped back into my life.
And the echo that came wasn’t new. It was remembered.
From the song by Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence:
“Hello darkness, my old friend…”
But this time, the words reshaped themselves as they rose.
Hello grief… my old friend.

When the Diagnosis Rewrites the Future

Trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) is not just a diagnosis.
It’s a rearranging of expectations… a quiet unraveling of dreams you didn’t even realize you had already started knitting. It’s something we had never even heard of.

Here’s the reality many families face:
- About 1 in 5,000 live births are affected
- Over 90% of babies with Trisomy 18 do not survive to birth

Of those born alive:
- Roughly 50% live longer than one week
- Around 5–10% survive past their first year

Many who do survive face severe medical complications affecting the heart, brain, and other vital systems. These are not just statistics. They are whispered probabilities that sit beside you in the quiet, breathing down your neck. They are numbers that try to tell you how much hope you’re “allowed” to have. But love doesn’t speak in percentages. Love speaks in presence.

Grief Has a Memory — And Mine Is Well-Trained

Grief, for me, is not new terrain.
It has walked with me through the horror of child sexual abuse.
It has overwhelmed me through an extremely abusive childhood.
And recently, it has sat beside me in the unraveling of spiritual abuse.
It has lingered in the disillusionment of discovering that what was once called “truth”… was anything but.
And if I’m honest?
This new wave of grief didn’t just arrive.
It re-opened doors I had already fought hard to close.
That’s the thing about trauma…
It doesn’t politely stay in its lane.
It stacks.
It echoes.
It says, “Like it or not, here I am again.”
And suddenly, you’re not just grieving this loss…
You’re grieving everything your nervous system has ever learned to fear losing.

The Tightrope: Feeling It Without Becoming It

Here’s the tension no one really teaches you:
You can’t heal what you refuse to feel…
But you can drown in what you feel if you don’t anchor yourself.
I’ve lived both sides.
I’ve buried grief so deep it turned into numbness that became my norm.
And I’ve let grief flood so wide it felt like it would take me under permanently.
This time… I’m choosing something different.
Not faster denial.
Not forced positivity.
Not spiritual bypassing dressed up in Scripture.
But intentional grieving.
Grieving with awareness.
Grieving with boundaries.
Grieving with God… not without Him, remembering He will never leave me nor forsake me.

Learning to Land the Plane Without Crashing It

(You knew I’d bring aviation into this… because this right here? This is turbulence at 30,000 feet, and the pilot that I am loves to use flying metaphors.)

When a pilot hits unexpected turbulence, the goal isn’t to eliminate the storm.
It’s to stabilize the aircraft within it.
That’s what I’m doing with grief.
I acknowledge it: “Yes, this is real.”
I feel it: “Yes, this hurts.”
But I don’t surrender my identity to it: “No, this is not who I am.”
Because grief is a passenger. Not the pilot.

I Refuse Another Two-Year Detour

The last wave of trauma… it cost me precious time.
The re-triggering from the church scandal set me back two years.
Two years of grieving, processing, and recalibrating.
Two years of finding my footing again before I felt like myself again, even though I will never be the same as before.
And while there was growth in that…there was also a cost.
I’m not willing to pay that same price again.
Not because I’m avoiding grief…but because I’m learning how to move through it differently.
Faster does not mean rushed.
It means less resistance, less entanglement, and less cognitive dissonance.
It means I don’t build a house inside grief anymore.
I walk through it… with intention.

Matthew’s Life Is Not Measured in Length, But in Impact

Here’s what I know, deep in my spirit, anchored beyond emotion:
Matthew’s life, no matter how long it spans, is not a tragedy. It is a sacred assignment.

Already, he is calling us into presence in a way that busy, distracted living never could. The kind of presence that slows time, sharpens love, and makes every moment feel weighty with meaning.
He is already changing us.

Our family, close as we were, has drawn even closer. Our love for one another has deepened and become more visible, more intentional, more alive. I have watched the men in our family, my husband, my son, my son-in-law, Jonathan’s dad, and his cousin, step in without hesitation to help this young couple with their home rehab, which was adding unnecessary stress and going to take a year or longer. They have given their time, their energy, and their resources, showing up in quiet, powerful ways to help this young couple move forward far sooner than would have been possible without that kind of support.

No spotlight. No recognition. Just love in motion, because that is what Matthew is already doing. He is drawing love out of us and making it tangible.

Some lives shout. Some lives whisper. But both carry weight in eternity. And Matthew, even now, is speaking.
We do not know what the future holds. But this we know:
We already love him.
And he has already left his imprint on every one of us.
A gentle but undeniable reminder…
That life is a precious gift.
And love is an action word.

Hello, Grief… But You Don’t Get the Final Word

So yes…
Hello, grief, you’re not my friend; you are a recurring subscription I never signed up for.
I see you.
I recognize you.
I even understand why you’re here.
But this time?
You don’t get to take over my mind.
You don’t get to hijack my body.
You don’t get to write my story.
Because I have learned something powerful:
Grief may visit…
but God remains as my anchor of possibility, hope and healing.
And while grief may shape moments…
It does not define my identity.

A New Way Forward

This is what I’ve always taught my clients who were suffering:
You can feel deeply without falling apart
You can grieve honestly without losing hope
You can honor pain without becoming imprisoned by it
And maybe most importantly…
You can walk through unimaginable sorrow…and still choose to live.
Fully.
Presently.
Faithfully.
But words, wisdom and coaching aren’t always embodied in the experience. It’s time that I practice what I preach! So now it is my turn to live what I have taught.
So grief knocked on my door again…but this time, I answered it standing, without collapsing and without fear.
I stood. Not because I am unaffected. But because I am anchored in trust, hand in hand with my Heavenly Father who always knows best.
And Matthew…our third grandchild, whether I hold you here… or meet you in eternity…
You are already deeply, fiercely, beautifully loved.
Thank you for the gift of you, precious soul.

Matthew Ray's CaringBridge Matthew's echocardiogram confirmed a large VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect) or "hole in the heart." The good news is this can…

There are moments when awareness isn’t enough…
when truth demands action.

I recently had the honor of sitting down with Alani Bankhead, an advocate who has spent her career as an FBI agent tracking down perpetrators and helping bring them to justice around the world.

Now, she’s stepping forward to take that fight even further, into a position where she can help change laws and policies to better protect survivors and hold offenders accountable.

For too long, survivors have carried the weight of systems that failed them—silence, loopholes, and lack of accountability. That has to change.

If you’ve ever said, “Something needs to change”… this is one of those moments where we get the opportunity to be part of that change.

Watch this interview. Share it. Support her.

Because justice doesn’t happen by accident…
it happens when people decide it matters enough to act!

Amplify Survivor Voices - Alani Bankhead for US Senate This is "Amplify Survivor Voices - Alani Bankhead for US Senate" by Alani Bankhead on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.