This is a reminder that you don't have to carry it all,
But I welcome you and invite you to take a few minutes to relax and let me read for you.
She let go.
It began with a breath,
Not a deep one,
Not perfect,
Just real.
She sat down,
Phone in hand,
Thumb twitching with old reflex.
Then something shifted,
Her fingers softened,
The phone slid from her palm and settled into silence.
She let go of comparison,
Of filtered lives and curated joy,
The subtle ache of why not me.
She let it drift out of her chest like fog breaking under morning light.
She let go of perfectionism,
Of the tightness in her jaw,
The pressure behind every task,
The voice that whispered,
It's got to be perfect.
She let go of productivity as worth,
The calendar crowded with performance,
The hunger to achieve before she could rest.
She rested first.
She let go of the smile that said,
I'm fine,
When she wasn't.
She let go of the need to hold everyone else while crumbling inside herself.
She let go of the shame that stuck like sap,
Old mistakes replaying like scratched vinyl.
She whispered back to them,
You don't define me.
She let go of the lie that she must always be positive,
That sadness was weakness,
That softness was something to apologise for.
She let go of the fear of being too much,
Too loud,
Too deep,
Too intense,
And the fear of not being enough,
Too quiet,
Too scattered,
Too plain.
She let go of the echo of others' voices,
The teacher who scalded,
The friend who disappeared,
The parent who said,
You should.
She heard them go like wind through reeds,
No longer hers.
She let go of the belief that she had to earn love,
That it was something given only when she performed,
Pleased,
Or stayed small.
She let go of the ache of not being chosen,
The parties she wasn't invited to,
The relationships that ended without goodbye.
She no longer wore them as proof of her unworthiness.
She let go of everything that hollowed her out while asking her to smile.
And then she breathed again,
And something inside her opened.
Not a void but a room,
No,
A palace,
Luminous,
Still,
Alive with peace,
A home she had forgotten was hers all along.
Thank you for listening.
You don't need to carry it all.
You can begin here,
With one breath,
One soft moment of noticing.
Let it go,
The comparison,
The shame,
The striving,
The fear,
The mask.
See it,
Name it,
And let it lift like mist from your shoulders.
You don't have to empty everything at once.
Just begin,
Shed what doesn't serve you,
Return and begin again.
You are the one who lets go,
The one who returns home,
The one who remembers.
You are already light.
