Hi, I'm Tanya.

If you ask my my family, they'll tell you I've never once done things the normal way. I've always beat to my own drum, felt everything a little too fully, and sensed there was more to life than the version everyone around me seemed content with. I still do. I probably always will.

I grew up believing in Jesus, but it took me a long time and a season I wouldn't wish on anyone to actually learn how to know Him...not just believe He existed, but let Him in close. There was a stretch of my life that nearly broke me, and I spent it doing what most of us do without even realizing it: bracing, controlling, striving, performing, holding my own life together with my bare hands because I didn't know there was another way to hold it. That part of the story — the real, unfiltered, dirt-still-on-it part — is something I only share with the women walking alongside me deeper (you can find that walk here if you'd like to be a part of it). But I'll tell you this much: He showed up, He woke me up, and nothing has looked the same since.

What I didn't expect was that getting free wasn't a one-time thing. It wasn't a moment I could point to and say there, I'm healed now. It was Jesus asking me, over and over, to lay down the patterns I'd built my entire identity on, to stop trying to white-knuckle my way into peace and instead let Him actually do the rewiring, piece by piece, the parts of me I didn't even know were still bracing for impact. I'm still in it. I don't think that work ever fully finishes, and honestly, I've made peace with that. Dying to the version of yourself that learned to survive, so the version He's actually calling you into can live, that's not a weekend. That's a walk.

Somewhere along the way, Jesus started asking me to put words to it. Not because I have it figured out, and definitely not because I think I'm here to teach anyone anything, I still don't fully know why He called me to this, or who exactly it's for. I just know I couldn't keep ignoring it. So this is me being obedient to that, showing up unpolished and honest and letting Him use it however He wants to use it, to reach whoever He's trying to reach. If that ends up being you, I'm glad you're here.

These days, my life looks like a farmhouse full of animals, horses I haul across the country for a living, quiet mornings, loud birds, and a whole lot of learning to live present instead of white-knuckling toward some finish line that was never actually real. I'm not here because I've arrived at anything. I'm here because I'm still walking it and I'm documenting it in real time instead of waiting until it's polished enough to hand you.

If any of that resonates, if you've ever felt like you were bracing for something, performing your way through your own life, or striving toward a peace you can't quite white-knuckle your way into, that's the ground I live on too. Come walk it with me.