Begin by finding stillness.
Let your body rest in whatever shape it needs.
You don't have to be composed here.
You don't have to pretend you're okay.
You're allowed to arrive exactly as you are.
Shattered,
Scared or soft.
You made it here and that matters more than you know.
Now gently in your own time,
Let your breath arrive.
No need to deepen it,
Just notice it.
The small movement of being.
Proof that you are still alive.
Now close your eyes if it feels safe.
And imagine yourself standing on the edge of a high ancient mountain.
A place so quiet the only sound is the whisper of the gentle wind wrapping itself around you.
You're high above the world now.
So far from the noise,
The pretending,
The performance.
Just you.
Beneath you,
Steep cliffs fall away into shadow.
Yet you are safe.
Behind you,
The path you've walked.
Often rocky,
Brutal,
Yet in times beautiful.
Ahead,
Not answers but space.
You are standing in the in-between and here no one is watching.
You don't have to hold it together.
You can fall apart.
So go ahead.
Let those tears come if they need to.
Let them roll down your face like mountain streams.
This is not weakness.
This is recognition of what you've carried,
Of what you've lost.
Of how no one saw you crawling through the nights you thought might end you.
Maybe it was grief so heavy it pressed your soul flat.
Or pain in your body that made you forget what joy feels like.
Maybe it was a mind that turned against you.
Voices that lied and you listened because they were loud.
Or maybe it was silence.
The kind that makes you feel invisible in a world that moves on without noticing your absence.
You have been through something and you are still here.
Brave,
Brave you.
You didn't have to keep going but you did.
Even if it was messy.
Even if you wanted to stop.
Even if a part of you still wants to.
You made it.
You made it to this mountaintop moment.
Not because you conquered your pain but because you carried it with trembling hands and still.
You kept climbing.
So now let yourself be seen by you.
Not the version you show the world but the version that broke and healed in crooked lines.
The version that whispered just one more day when no one was listening.
Look at what you've survived.
Look at how brave it is to survive at all.
Not everyone will understand the shape of your suffering but I promise you are seen and your pain is recognized by those of us who have been there too.
You are not too much.
You are not broken.
You are not unworthy of peace because of what happened to you.
At this moment say what no one else has.
I see you.
I honor what you've endured and I believe you are brave just for being here.
Let your shoulders drop.
Let your hands rest.
Let your guard down just a little.
Now gently begin to turn inward.
Not away from your pain but toward yourself.
Toward the version of you that kept going who deserves not just survival but rest.
Not just existing but being seen.
Imagine now on this mountaintop you take a step forward.
Not away from your story but deeper into it.
Carrying everything you've been through not as shame but as proof.
Proof that you've lived.
That you've suffered.
That you've grown roots in the rockiest of soils.
That your courage does not always look like strength.
That sometimes it looks like waking up.
And that is more than enough.
Say this to yourself now if it feels true or say it anyway even if it doesn't yet.
I have been through something and I am still here.
I am allowed to feel the weight of it instead of hiding.
I am allowed to rest.
I am brave.
Not because I've healed but because I've kept going.
Let these words settle in your bones like warmth.
Like the hug that no one gave you because they did not see.
Maybe you did not say.
Stepping into yourself and closer to your story does not mean that you must relive your past but that you gave yourself the honor you deserve.
Life can feel so tiring especially with a veil over those broken parts.
The parts that need seeing.
That need caring for.
The parts that still hurt yet that have been pushed away.
For the world tells you that you must not suffer out loud.
But the world is wrong.
Those whose mouth those words fall from are not right.
They have not yet felt it.
They have not felt what you carry.
And they too have never carried the pain that you have.
You are brave.
Braver than you'll ever know.
And when you're ready just breathe one last time.
Not big.
Just enough.
And feel this truth.
You are not behind.
You are not broken.
You are not invisible.
You are brave.
Brave.
Brave you.
Namaste
