Welcome,
Take a moment to settle wherever you are.
You don't have to sit a certain way.
You don't have to breathe a certain way.
You don't have to do this right.
Just be here.
I want to talk to you about something that you may have been carrying for a long time.
Something heavy,
Something exhausting.
The endless work of trying to make other people happy.
You know the feeling,
Don't you?
That knot in your stomach when you sense someone's disappointment.
The way you rearrange your entire day,
Your entire self to smooth things over,
To keep the peace,
To be enough.
And the apologies,
The endless apologies.
I'm sorry for being late.
I'm sorry for being early.
I'm sorry for speaking up.
I'm sorry for being quiet.
I'm sorry for having an opinion.
I'm sorry for not having an opinion.
I'm sorry for existing in a way that might inconvenience someone else.
You've probably apologized more times today than you can remember for things that weren't your fault,
For things that weren't even things.
Just sorry,
Constantly,
Like a verbal flinch.
And no matter how much you give,
No matter how carefully you tread,
No matter how many times you say yes when everything in you screams no,
No matter how many times you apologize for simply being human,
It's never quite enough.
Here's something that took me years to learn,
Years of giving until I was completely hollow.
The people you're trying to please,
They will never be pleased.
Not because there's something wrong with you,
But because their hunger isn't something you can fill.
It was never about you being good enough.
It was about their own emptiness.
An emptiness that no amount of your sacrifice can satisfy.
Think about it.
When you met their expectations,
The bar moved.
When you worked harder,
They found new faults.
When you bent yourself into impossible shapes to accommodate them,
They simply demanded different shapes.
You were running on a treadmill that someone else controlled and they kept increasing the speed.
Let me ask you something.
When was the last time you did something purely because you wanted to?
When was the last time you said no and didn't feel guilty about it for hours afterwards?
When was the last time you felt enough,
Just as you are,
Without earning it,
Without proving it,
Without performing it?
I want you to understand something.
The people who truly love you,
Who genuinely care about your well-being,
They don't need you to be perfect.
They don't need you to anticipate their every need.
They don't need to keep a running tally of your failures.
Real love doesn't keep score.
But the people you've been exhausting yourself for,
The ones who always find something wrong,
Who always need more,
They're not keeping score either.
Because in their game,
You were never meant to win.
I know that might be painful to hear.
You might have spent years,
Maybe decades,
Believing that if you just tried harder,
Gave more,
Were better,
Then finally,
Finally,
You'd be worthy of their approval.
But their approval was never truly on the table.
What was on the table was your continued service,
Your continued depletion,
Your continued shrinking so they could feel large.
So here's something I want you to consider.
What if you stopped?
Not stopped caring,
Not stopped being kind,
Not stopped being you,
But stopped pouring yourself into vessels with holes in the bottom.
What if you redirected even a fraction of that energy,
That beautiful,
Generous energy,
Back towards yourself?
You've been keeping everyone else's fires burning while yours has gone cold.
You've been so busy making sure everyone else is comfortable that you've forgotten what comfort feels like.
You've been so focused on being needed that you've neglected what you need.
And I know,
I know,
That the thought of stepping back feels terrifying.
What if they get angry?
What if they leave me?
What if I'm being selfish?
But consider this.
Being selfish would mean taking from others without care.
What you're contemplating is simply no longer being selfless,
No longer erasing yourself,
No longer treating your own needs as optional.
That's not selfish.
That's survival.
That's wisdom.
That's the first step toward actually being able to give from abundance rather than depletion.
The people who love you will adjust.
They might even be relieved to see you stop running yourself ragged.
They might have been worried about you all along.
And the people who don't adjust,
The ones who rage against your boundaries,
Who punish you for finally having limits,
They've just shown you who they are.
They've shown you that they valued what you do for them,
Not who you are.
And that's painful,
But it's also clarifying.
Here's what I want you to carry with you from this moment.
You are not on this earth to be consumed.
You are not here to shrink so others can expand.
Your worth is not measured by your usefulness.
You are allowed to rest.
You are allowed to say no.
You are allowed to disappoint people.
Even people you love.
You are allowed to stop apologizing for being human.
You are allowed to stop proving yourself to people who will never be satisfied.
Because here's the beautiful secret.
The energy you've been spending on an impossible task,
On filling a bottomless well,
On pleasing the unpleasable,
That energy could be spent on you.
On your dreams,
On your peace,
Your healing,
Your joy.
And when your own cup is full,
Truly full,
You'll have something real to offer the people who actually deserve it.
Not the scraps of yourself,
Not the exhausted leftovers,
But genuine presence,
Genuine love,
Given freely,
Not extracted.
So take a deep breath with me now.
And as you breathe out,
Let go of just a little bit of that weight,
That responsibility for everyone else's happiness that was never yours to carry.
You've done enough.
You are enough.
And it's time to stop giving yourself away to people who will never see it.
When you're ready,
Gently come back to wherever you are.
There's no rush.
And remember,
Being kind to others starts with no longer being cruel to yourself.
Take good care.
