EsotericErin

Tag: rest

  • Maybe You’re Not Supposed to Be Over It Yet

    There’s a strange thing that happens after something difficult.

    You feel it.

    Maybe you cry. Maybe you get angry. Maybe you finally admit that something hurt more than you wanted it to.

    And then, eventually, you have a good day.

    You make breakfast. Answer some emails. Laugh at something your kid says. Put the laundry away. Maybe you even forget about the thing for several hours.

    And because you’re functioning again, a little voice can start suggesting that you must be finished.

    Okay. I’m fine now.

    I should be over this.

    But what if those aren’t the same thing?

    What if being able to carry on with your life doesn’t mean the thing is finished with you?

    I think we sometimes imagine difficult feelings as having a tidy beginning, middle, and end.

    Something happens.

    We feel the feelings.

    We work through them.

    We learn whatever we’re supposed to learn.

    And then we put the whole thing neatly behind us and get back to normal.

    But I’m not sure people work that way.

    Sometimes something matters and then becomes quieter.

    It moves from the middle of your attention to the back of your mind.

    You’re making dinner and suddenly you remember something someone said three days ago.

    You’re driving home and realize you’re still angry.

    You’re folding towels and it occurs to you that you’re sad about something you thought you’d already dealt with.

    Or maybe nothing happens at all.

    Maybe you simply notice, Huh. I guess I’m not quite finished with that.

    That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to do anything.

    You don’t have to pull the feeling back into the foreground and start dissecting it.

    You don’t have to journal about it.

    You don’t have to figure out what it means.

    You don’t have to make a plan.

    You don’t even have to decide whether you’re still allowed to feel it.

    Sometimes something can sit on the backburner while you get on with your life.

    I think we can mistake that for being stuck.

    But there’s a difference between being unable to move forward and moving forward while something is still settling.

    Those aren’t opposites.

    You can have a genuinely good day while something in you is still tender.

    You can laugh and still be grieving.

    You can feel relieved and still be angry.

    You can enjoy yourself without having resolved everything that happened.

    You can even feel better without being over it.

    Maybe that’s part of why I like the idea of a backburner.

    Not everything needs to be cooking at full heat all the time.

    Some things can simmer quietly.

    They can exist without demanding your full attention.

    And sometimes, after you’ve had a little distance, you understand something you couldn’t see when the feeling was taking up the whole room.

    Sometimes you realize what mattered.

    Sometimes you realize what didn’t.

    Sometimes you discover that the thing you thought was about one small moment was actually about a pattern.

    Sometimes you decide you’re ready to put it down.

    And sometimes you don’t.

    I don’t think self-trust requires us to know which one it’s going to be in advance.

    It might simply mean trusting ourselves enough not to force the ending.

    Because moving forward isn’t always the same as moving on.

    Sometimes moving forward looks remarkably ordinary.

    You make the coffee.

    You answer the email.

    You pick up the groceries.

    You laugh.

    And somewhere in the background, something is still finding its place.

    That’s okay.

    You don’t have to return to who you were before something happened just because you’re able to function again.

    You don’t have to put everything behind you to keep going.

    You can keep living your life while something is still settling inside you.

    Maybe you can let today be today.

    And if it comes back tomorrow?

    You can come back, too.

  • When Did Their Comfort Become Your Responsibility?

    Sometimes I hear myself apologizing before I know why.

    Sometimes it’s for interrupting someone.

    Sometimes it’s for asking a question.

    Sometimes it’s because someone else seems uncomfortable and, before I’ve had time to think, the word sorry has already left my mouth.

    The feeling is real.

    The apology is real.

    What I’m less certain about is whether the apology actually belongs to me.

    Sometimes I just feel… responsible.

    Responsible for smoothing things over.

    Responsible for making the conversation easier.

    Responsible for making sure everyone leaves feeling okay.

    It took me a long time to realize those aren’t the same thing.

    Living alongside other people means we’ll sometimes get things wrong. When we do, it’s important to own our mistakes and do what we can to make things right.

    But there are other moments that are quieter.

    The moments when someone disagrees with us.

    When someone is disappointed.

    When someone misunderstands us.

    When someone simply has an emotional reaction to something we’ve said or done.

    Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to treat another person’s discomfort as something we were expected to fix.

    Not because anyone sat us down and taught us that lesson.

    Because we absorbed it.

    A raised eyebrow.

    An awkward silence.

    A frustrated sigh.

    A subtle shift in someone’s tone.

    Eventually, we become fluent in reading the emotional weather around us.

    It’s an extraordinary skill.

    It helps us notice when a friend is struggling.

    It helps us comfort people we love.

    It helps us move through relationships with care.

    Like many strengths, though, it has a shadow.

    Sometimes we become so focused on everyone else’s emotional landscape that we stop checking in with our own.

    Someone looks uncomfortable.

    We explain ourselves before they’ve asked.

    Someone seems disappointed.

    We immediately start looking for what we did wrong.

    Someone grows quiet.

    We begin rearranging ourselves to make the silence disappear.

    I’ve done all of those things.

    I still do them sometimes.

    Not because I believe women should simply stop caring about other people.

    Care is one of the things I value most.

    But care and responsibility aren’t the same thing.

    Someone else’s feelings deserve compassion.

    Compassion doesn’t automatically make them ours to carry.

    That distinction has changed the way I move through the world.

    Not dramatically.

    Quietly.

    Now, every so often, I catch myself rushing to make someone else more comfortable.

    Before I apologize.

    Before I explain.

    Before I make myself smaller.

    I try to pause.

    Just long enough to ask one question.

    Is this actually mine to carry?

    Sometimes the answer is yes.

    Sometimes I’ve genuinely made a mistake.

    Sometimes I owe an apology.

    Sometimes I need to listen more carefully.

    Other times…

    The discomfort belongs to the conversation itself.

    Or to the other person’s expectations.

    Or to a difference of opinion that doesn’t need to be erased.

    Learning to tell the difference is still a practice.

    I’m not writing this because I’ve mastered it.

    I’m writing it because I’m practising it too.

    And every now and then, that small pause reminds me of something I’d forgotten.

    Not every uncomfortable feeling belongs to the person who notices it first.

  • Welcome

    This is not a post about fixing anything.


    It’s an invitation to pause, to notice, and to sit with what’s present—without needing to resolve it.


    If you’ve found your way here because something feels off, unclear, or quietly resistant, you don’t need to name it yet.


    You’re allowed to sit with this.

    I don’t offer answers here.

    Not because I don’t have opinions, or experiences, or things I’ve learned the hard way; I do. But because answers, when they arrive too quickly, have a way of replacing something more important.

    Listening.

    This space exists for something slower than certainty. It exists for the questions that surface when you finally stop pushing through, the ones you might not have known how to ask because you were too busy coping, performing, or keeping things moving.


    If you’re here, there’s a good chance something in your life isn’t working the way it used to. You may not know exactly what it is yet. You might not have words for it. You might only have a vague sense of friction, fatigue, or quiet resistance.


    That’s enough.


    You don’t need a fully formed understanding to be here. You don’t need to articulate anything neatly. You don’t need to arrive with insight, or clarity, or a plan for what comes next.


    You’re allowed to sit with this.


    A lot of spaces promise resolution. They want to help you fix, optimize, heal, or transcend. Often, very quickly. Often with the best of intentions. But I’ve learned, both personally and through years of listening to other women, that rushing to make meaning can become another way of overriding ourselves.


    Sometimes the most honest thing you can do is admit, quietly, that something feels off, and stay there for a while.

    This is not a space for emotional bypassing. It’s not a place where discomfort needs to be reframed into a lesson, or smoothed over so it’s easier for others to digest. There’s no expectation that you move on, stay positive, or make your feelings productive.


    There is no requirement to be consistent. No urgency to get anywhere. No pressure to turn what you’re feeling into something useful.


    Insight can arrive slowly.


    I’m not here as an authority over your inner life. I’m here alongside you, holding space for inquiry without coercion.

    What you notice, when you notice it, belongs to you. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for it, and you certainly don’t need to make it comfortable for someone else before it’s true for you.

    If this feels like an exhale, you’re in the right place.

    You’re allowed to sit with what’s present, without judgment or demand. You’re allowed to take your time. You’re allowed to feel your feelings without having to justify them.

    Nothing needs to change right now.