Be Your Own Hero

I ran into my old therapist, Patty, in the hallway today.

We work in the same building now.

What started as a quick hello turned into a

surprise mini therapy session (pretty sure she didn’t even charge me).

She knows this season of my life has been one

of the hardest I’ve ever walked through.

She knows I sat beside my dad as he took his final breath.

She knows that just six days later,

I learned the man I loved had built our entire relationship on lies, manipulation, and emotional abuse, and that he was never the man he pretended to be.

She knows I’ve been leading the school board through an incredibly tough chapter, working full-time, showing up as a mom, and somehow still standing.

She checked in to see how I was doing, and I told her the truth.

Over the weekend and again yesterday, I rested.

Not because I wanted to, but because I had to.

My body and my spirit simply needed the pause.

We talked about all of it — the grief, the betrayal,

the pressure, the exhaustion, the healing.

We talked about how sometimes the people we trust the

most can also be the ones who hurt us the deepest.

And then Patty looked at me and said something I’ll never forget.

“Katherine, the world needs more heroes. Be your own hero.”

I teared up. Because I realized that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

Not perfectly. Not always gracefully. But consistently, quietly, fiercely.

I’ve been saving myself.

And I know I’m not the only one.

So if you’re out there trying to hold it all together.

If you’re finding your way through heartbreak, loss, or change.

If you’re standing in the rubble and still finding a way to rise.

You are not alone.

The world doesn’t just need more heroes.

It needs you.

The version of you who keeps showing up.

The one who won’t give up.

The one who learns to save herself,

and does.

By Katherine Tatsuda

Katherine Tatsuda writes from the fire—grief, loss, betrayal, survival—and from the quiet power of what comes after. Her work is rooted in radical vulnerability and the conversations most leaders and speakers avoid. She is the voice behind Reinvention Modeled, where clarity becomes strategy and healing becomes authenticity.