13/01/2026
When Your Peace Comes at a Cost
Pleasing others should never cost you your peace.
Yet over time, the desire to be over-accommodating
can become a form of self-erasure,
your needs dismissed, unheard
or ignored
so others can remain comfortable.
Peace is not something you earn
by being useful or likable.
It is not a reward for patience, flexibility, or emotional labor.
Peace is a necessity,
and when it is given away too often,
resentment quietly takes its place.
You may still be smiling,
still showing up,
still praised for your kindness,
while inside, something begins to fracture.
You feel it in the heaviness that lingers,
in the way rest no longer restores,
in the quiet longing to be alone
just to remember who you are.
There is a difference
between generosity and self-abandonment.
True kindness has roots;
it grows from a place that is nourished, grounded, intact.
What is given at the expense of your own well-being
is not generosity,
it is depletion.
Choosing your peace does not make you selfish.
It makes you honest.
It teaches you to listen inward
before tending to the needs and wants of others,
to understand that boundaries are not walls
but thresholds,
clear moments of knowing
what you can hold
without breaking.
Those who truly care for you
will not require your exhaustion as proof of love.
You are allowed to disappoint others
in order to remain whole.
You are allowed to step back,
to say no without justification,
to choose the quiet
that keeps you steady.
Peace is not a luxury
reserved for those who have earned it.
It is something you protect,
gently, deliberately,
because without it,
even the most well-intentioned life
becomes a weight
the heart was never meant to carry.
~ 'When Your Peace Comes at a Cost' by Spirit of a Hippie
✍️ Mary Anne Byrne
~ Art by Suzysights
