12/29/2025
Yesterday, I suddenly felt like I needed to hike. I tried to not overthink it, and just listened. I didn’t actively think about where to go or what trail to take. A part of me just knew what I needed, and I listened. When I began this trail’s initial ascent, I began to feel as though I couldn’t breathe. Recent lack of cardio aside, I realized I was battling with my body. Trying to control my breath. Trying to control and hold back what was fighting to come up and break free.
After a time, I ended up here, buffeted by strong winds, breathing heavily, heart pounding. And all at once, the tears began to fall, along with so many of my carefully constructed walls. And I could suddenly breathe again. As it turns out, repressing and containing only works for so long, before it becomes too much. Before it begins to overflow. Before it demands to be acknowledged so that it can finally move through and be released. It can seem so much easier to shove a thought, emotion, or realization aside, in order to function, in order to not feel or think or acknowledge or change. But those things never really go away. They just wait.
I am grateful for the ability to wall off emotions and compartmentalize when I need to — as an adult and as a mother, sometimes this skill is needed order to function in day-to-day life. But yesterday reminded me of the importance of carving out time and space to allow for processing, for feeling, for moving things through. And the power of one’s intuition to know when it’s time. ❤️
As you move through these last few days of 2025 and the final weeks of the Year of the Snake, may you remember to check in with yourself (often) and give yourself what you need. To care for yourself in ways that only you can. To allow whatever needs to move to move, and whatever needs to fall to fall. Shedding can be painful. Realizations and acknowledgment can be painful. But it’s also required for change. And change, though at times scary, can also be a beautiful thing.
You are worth it. You are worthy. ❤️✨
