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I’ve known about mindfulness for years.

I’ve read about it. I’ve heard people talk about it. I’ve understood, at least intellectually, that worrying about the future is often pointless because the future hasn’t happened yet.

And yet, like most people, I forget.

I still get swept away by anxiety. I still fall into the trap of believing that every problem needs to be solved immediately. That every uncertainty requires an answer today. That every discomfort demands action right now.

Recently, a cracked fingernail reminded me just how easy it is to lose sight of that.

The Fingernail That Took Over My Day

One of my nails developed a small crack.

It wasn’t even painful.

The crack was still relatively small and hadn’t spread far. There was no emergency. No crisis. No urgent need to run to a nail salon.

Yet somehow, my mind immediately went into overdrive.

Should I cut all my nails short?

Should I leave them for another week and hope the crack grows out?

Should I only trim the damaged nails?

Will they look uneven?

Will they stop looking nice?

The thoughts kept looping.

And then I stopped and asked myself a simple question:

“Does my nail hurt right now?”

No.

“Is this an emergency?”

No.

“Is this life-threatening?”

Definitely not.

So why was I spending my entire day worrying about it?

That’s when I realized something.

Mindlessness doesn’t always show up during major life crises.

Sometimes it shows up when a tiny crack in a fingernail steals your peace.

If You Love Worrying, You’ll Always Find Something To Worry About

That day was otherwise perfectly fine.

There was no major conflict.

No family drama.

No work emergency.

No misunderstanding with friends.

No personal crisis.

Nothing was actually wrong.

Yet my brain still found something.

Because that’s what the mind does when we aren’t paying attention.

If there’s no major problem, it will happily obsess over a minor one.

And that’s why peace doesn’t come from eliminating every problem.

Because even if you solved every big problem in your life, your mind would simply move on to the next small thing.

There will always be another crack in the nail.

Another email.

Another uncertainty.

Another “what if.”

If our happiness depends on having nothing to worry about, we’ll never be happy.

The Need To Control Everything

Looking back, I realized that much of my anxiety comes from wanting complete control.

I want certainty.

I want guarantees.

I want perfect outcomes.

I want answers before the story has even unfolded.

But life doesn’t work that way.

Perfection doesn’t exist.

Control is mostly an illusion.

The truth is that many things simply take time.

And no amount of worrying can speed them up.

Most Of The Things We Worry About Never Even Happen

When I think about my past, I can remember countless situations where I worried endlessly about possibilities.

Not realities.

Possibilities.

The first “what if.”

Then the second.

Then the third.

Then the fourth.

Layer after layer of imagined disasters.

But here’s the funny thing.

Most of the time, the very first “what if” never happened.

Which means all the other worries built on top of it were completely meaningless.

Imagine applying for a job and immediately worrying about:

Will my coworkers like me?

Will I fit in?

Will I stay there for five years?

Will I get promoted?

Will they give me raises?

Will I still be happy ten years from now?

Meanwhile, the company hasn’t even called you for an interview yet.

Two days later, they reject your application.

And suddenly every worry about years two, five, and ten becomes irrelevant.

You spent emotional energy solving a future that never existed.

Worry Is Not Productive

People often defend worrying because they think it helps them prepare.

But in reality, worrying is one of the least productive activities imaginable.

The time spent spiraling could have been used for things that are actually within your control.

You could exercise.

You could sleep.

You could read.

You could take care of your health.

You could relax.

You could enjoy your life.

At least those actions produce something.

Worrying produces nothing.

Even worse, it often creates new problems.

Anxiety Makes Us Create Problems That Didn’t Exist

When we’re anxious, we become impatient.

We demand answers immediately.

We pressure people around us.

We become irritable.

We become aggressive.

We lash out.

We complain.

We spread our anxiety to everyone nearby.

And then relationships become strained.

People feel attacked.

Trust gets damaged.

New conflicts emerge.

Ironically, the original problem may have solved itself anyway.

But now we’ve created additional problems that didn’t need to exist.

That’s why anxiety isn’t just unhelpful.

It’s often actively destructive.

So Many Problems Solve Themselves

One of the most humbling lessons I’ve learned is that many situations eventually resolve themselves.

Not because I forced them.

Not because I controlled them.

Not because I demanded answers.

Simply because time passed.

The circumstances changed.

People adapted.

Life moved forward.

And when that happens, I often feel a little foolish.

Because I remember how much energy I spent panicking.

How many sleepless nights I had.

How much frustration I carried.

Only to discover that the situation would have worked itself out anyway.

We Are All Going To Die

This may sound dramatic, but I find it oddly comforting.

We’re all going to die.

We just don’t know when.

Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

Neither is next year.

So why spend today suffering over things that may never happen?

Why waste a peaceful day worrying about imaginary futures?

As a Buddhist, this is something I should probably remember more often than I do.

Impermanence isn’t just a spiritual concept.

It’s reality.

And when viewed against the scale of life and death, so many of our daily worries suddenly look much smaller.

Radical Present-Moment Living

Lately, I’ve been trying to become almost aggressively mindful.

Not thinking five years ahead.

Not thinking five months ahead.

Sometimes not even thinking five minutes ahead.

Just focusing on what exists right now.

If I’m working, I work.

If I’m eating, I eat.

If I’m washing dishes, I wash dishes.

If I’m breathing in, I know I’m breathing in.

If I’m breathing out, I know I’m breathing out.

Simple.

Not easy.

But simple.

And every time I catch my mind running away into the future or replaying the past, I remind myself:

What exactly am I accomplishing by mentally torturing myself?

Your Brain Will Adapt Anyway

Here’s another lesson that has changed how I view difficult situations.

Human beings adapt.

In fact, we adapt unbelievably well.

Many things feel unacceptable when they first happen.

We think we’ll never get over them.

Never accept them.

Never be okay again.

And yet, months later, years later, we’re fine.

Not because we became enlightened.

Not because we mastered emotional regulation.

Not because we achieved some spiritual breakthrough.

We adapted.

Our brains adapted.

Our dopamine adapted.

Life became the new normal.

This happens with both success and failure.

People imagine that wealth, fame, status, or achievement will make them permanently happy.

It doesn’t.

The brain adapts.

Likewise, people imagine that loss, disappointment, heartbreak, or failure will destroy them forever.

Usually, it doesn’t.

The brain adapts to that too.

This is one of the most comforting truths I know.

Whatever happens, your future self will likely handle it better than your current self can imagine.

Stop Fighting Reality

When something happens that we dislike, our instinct is often to fight.

To argue.

To demand.

To explain.

To convince.

To react.

But many times, that’s exactly what makes everything worse.

The wiser move is often to wait.

To breathe.

To give yourself time.

To give others time.

To allow reality to unfold before deciding what needs to happen next.

You don’t need to immediately explain yourself.

You don’t need to immediately defend yourself.

You don’t need to immediately force a solution.

Very often, time accomplishes what force never could.

Non-Reaction Is A Superpower

This isn’t a post about becoming enlightened.

It’s not about becoming a saint.

It’s not even really about mindfulness.

It’s about practicality.

It’s about recognizing that reacting often creates more problems than it solves.

It’s about understanding that most worries are wasted energy.

It’s about trusting that your future self will adapt.

It’s about remembering that life is short.

And most importantly, it’s about realizing that not every situation requires a response.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is nothing.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is wait.

Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is remain calm.

Because whether the outcome eventually goes your way or not, one thing is almost certain:

Your mind will adapt.

Your life will continue.

And one day, the thing that felt unbearable today will become just another story.

So breathe.

Let time do some of the work.

And remember:

Not everything deserves your reaction.

mindfulminion.com

Lately, something strange has happened to me.

For most of my life, I was always trying. Trying to become a better person. Trying to become calmer, smarter, kinder, more disciplined, more intentional, more successful, more grateful, more healed. Trying to understand people. Trying to understand myself. Trying to understand life.

I was constantly editing the script.

If life was a stage play, I wasn’t just the main character. I was also the writer, director, producer, stage manager, and critic. Every scene had to mean something. Every setback had to teach me something. Every mistake had to be analyzed. Every emotion had to be explained. Every version of myself had to be improved.

I spent years resetting, restarting, reframing, reinventing, correcting, overcorrecting, and then correcting the overcorrections. I was always working on myself.

And then one recent day, I got tired.

Not tired in a dramatic way. Not in a rock-bottom way. Not in a “I give up on life” way. Just tired. Deeply, thoroughly, soul-level tired.

And something inside me quietly stopped.

I stopped arguing with reality. I stopped trying to negotiate with life. I stopped demanding answers. I stopped demanding explanations. I stopped demanding certainty.

For years, I thought acceptance was something I would eventually achieve through enough wisdom, enough healing, enough meditation, enough self-help books, enough self-awareness. Instead, acceptance arrived because I ran out of energy. I no longer have the strength to fight everything.

And strangely, that has brought me peace.

Not happiness. Not joy.

Peace.

There is a difference.

I still have grief. A lot of grief.

I grieve the life I once imagined. I grieve the woman I thought I would become. I grieve old dreams that never happened. I grieve futures that only ever existed inside notebooks, vision boards, and late-night daydreams.

Sometimes I still think about the girl I was ten years ago. The girl who believed that if she tried hard enough, planned carefully enough, and wanted something badly enough, life would eventually cooperate.

I feel tenderness toward her.

She carried so much hope. So much determination. So much faith that everything would somehow work out if she just kept trying.

I don’t blame her. I don’t pity her. I love her.

But I no longer feel obligated to continue her mission.

There is another kind of grief I haven’t talked about. Not because I don’t want to. Because I can’t.

For all the openness that exists in these pages, there are still parts of me that remain hidden. Not out of shame. Not out of secrecy. But because some dreams are too tender to expose to daylight. Some dreams are so beautiful that speaking them aloud feels like touching a bruise.

Even now, I can’t write them here.

I can’t tell you exactly what they were. I can’t tell you what shape they took, who they involved, or what kind of future they belonged to. I only know that once upon a time, they were the brightest stars in my sky.

They were the wishes I carried to bed with me at night. The wishes I would have whispered to a genie if I had found a magic lamp. The wishes I quietly built entire futures around.

And now I know, with a strange kind of certainty, that they will never happen.

Not probably. Not maybe. Not someday.

Never.

That realization hurt more than I expected.

But what surprises me now is that the pain no longer feels sharp. It feels soft. Like sunlight lingering in a room after the curtains have been closed. Like the last page of a book I loved so much I wasn’t ready to finish. Like a candle still warm after the flame has gone out.

I don’t chase those dreams anymore. I don’t negotiate with reality anymore. I don’t ask life to make an exception for me anymore.

I simply sit beside that grief.

I let it exist.

I let it take up space.

For a long time, I treated life like a checklist.

There was always another item. Another goal. Another milestone. Another thing to fix. Another thing to achieve. Another version of myself to become.

The problem with a checklist is that unfinished items become obligations. They sit there quietly generating guilt, anxiety, and pressure. You start living as if your worth depends on crossing things off.

But lately, I’ve stopped carrying the list.

Not because I completed everything.

Not because I got everything I wanted.

Quite the opposite.

Some things simply weren’t available to me.

I looked. I tried. I gave them my best effort.

Some dreams happened. Some didn’t. Some doors opened. Others remained stubbornly closed.

And eventually I realized something surprisingly liberating:

There comes a point where continuing to wrestle with reality becomes more exhausting than accepting it.

So I stopped wrestling.

Not because I won. Not because I lost.

Because the match was over.

I had done my part. I showed up. I tried. I gave it everything I had.

And somewhere along the way, I realized I no longer had anything left to prove.

These days, I allow myself something I rarely allowed before:

Self-pity.

Not self-victimization. Not resentment. Not bitterness.

Just simple, gentle self-pity.

The kind where you sit beside yourself and say:

“That was hard, wasn’t it?”

“You really tried.”

“I know you’re disappointed.”

“I know you’re tired.”

“I know it hurts.”

For years, I thought self-pity was something to avoid. Something weak. Something unhealthy. Something that would keep me stuck.

Now I think there is a gentle version of self-pity that feels almost like self-love. The kind where you stop demanding strength from yourself every second of the day. The kind where you stop forcing yourself to find the lesson. The kind where you stop insisting that everything happens for a reason.

Maybe some things do. Maybe some things don’t.

Maybe some things are simply sad.

Maybe some things are simply unfair.

Maybe sometimes we are just unlucky.

And maybe admitting that is not weakness.

Maybe it’s relief.

These days, instead of trying to fix my sadness, I simply sit with it. I make tea. I curl up under a blanket. I let myself cry. I let myself miss the life that never arrived. I let myself mourn the dreams that never came true.

And then I let the feeling pass through me.

No resistance.

No strategy.

No self-improvement plan.

Just compassion.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve given myself permission to stop.

Not stop living. Not stop caring. Not stop growing.

Just stop fighting.

Stop forcing.

Stop chasing.

Stop trying to control every chapter before it has even been written.

There is something unexpectedly freeing about admitting that this isn’t the life I once imagined.

Years ago, I had very different visions for myself. Very different hopes. Very different expectations.

But life unfolded in its own way.

And now, instead of constantly comparing reality to the version I imagined, I find myself simply accepting what is here. Not because it is perfect. Not because it is better. Not because I’ve convinced myself to be grateful.

But because it is real.

And reality deserves to be seen for what it is.

Not for what I wanted it to become.

The strange thing is that once I stopped carrying the list, everything started feeling like a bonus.

Every beautiful moment. Every ordinary day. Every laugh. Every conversation. Every sunrise. Every cup of coffee. Every second I get to experience.

A bonus.

Nothing is owed to me anymore. Nothing is missing anymore.

Not because I got everything I wanted.

But because I finally stopped demanding that life give it to me.

Some of my dreams will come with me to the grave.

That is simply the truth.

And somehow, accepting that has given me more peace than all the years I spent trying to make those dreams come true.

These days, I don’t feel like I’m building a life anymore.

I feel like I’m living one.

For most of my life, I was trying to become. Become happier. Become wiser. Become more successful. Become more lovable. Become more healed. Become someone.

Now, for the first time, I feel no urgency to become anything at all.

I simply am.

The contest is over.

The application has been submitted.

The exam has ended.

The performance review is complete.

The bucket list has been folded up and put away.

I think, in my own quiet way, I’m retired now.

Not because I won. Not because I lost.

Because I’m done competing.

I’m done measuring.

I’m done chasing.

I’m done asking life to be something other than what it is.

I retired from trying to control the story. I retired from trying to become the person I thought I needed to be. I retired from the endless project of fixing myself.

And strangely, life feels lighter now.

I wake up. I drink my coffee. I laugh when something is funny. I cry when something hurts. I enjoy whatever small joys find their way to me. And then I go to sleep.

No strategy.

No mission.

No destination.

Just this life.

This imperfect, unfinished, ordinary life.

And for the first time, I’ve stopped asking whether it’s enough. I’ve stopped trying to make it into something else.

I am simply here.

After all these years, I think I’m finally giving myself a forever break. mindfulminion.com

For most of my life, I believed that healing meant talking. If I was sad, I needed to talk about it. If I was angry, I needed to vent. If I was heartbroken, I needed to dissect every detail, replay every conversation, analyze every possibility, and tell the story over and over again until the pain eventually disappeared. I thought this was what emotional processing looked like. After all, we are constantly told to express our feelings. We are told that bottling things up is unhealthy, that vulnerability is strength, and that healing begins when we open up. And so I did. I talked to friends, family members, romantic partners, and sometimes even strangers. I was convinced that if I could just find the right listener, the right perspective, or the right response, I would finally feel better.

But over time, I started noticing something. The conversations rarely healed me. Time did.

The pain would eventually fade, but not because somebody had said exactly the right thing. Not because somebody had unlocked a profound truth that suddenly changed my perspective. It faded because life kept moving. The sun kept rising. The days kept passing. And somehow, somewhere along the way, my heart learned how to carry what it once thought would destroy it. That realization made me question something I had always assumed to be true: are talking about a feeling and processing a feeling actually the same thing?

I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with talking things out. Sometimes being heard is beautiful. Sometimes sharing your burdens can be healing. Sometimes another person’s perspective can help us see things differently. But I no longer believe that talking is the highest form of emotional processing. In fact, I think many of us confuse expression with healing. We confuse analysis with understanding. We confuse talking with moving on.

Sometimes we believe we are processing our emotions when, in reality, we are simply circling around them. We tell the same story again and again. We revisit the same wound. We examine every detail. We replay every conversation. We search endlessly for explanations, validation, reassurance, or somebody who can finally tell us why we feel the way we do. Yet somehow the feeling remains. The conversation ends. The phone call ends. The text messages stop. Everybody goes home. And there you are, still sitting with yourself, still carrying the thing you were trying so desperately to put down.

Eventually, I realized something uncomfortable. Maybe I wasn’t healing through those conversations. Maybe I was postponing the moment when I would have to sit alone with my feelings. Maybe I was looking for somebody else to help me carry something that only I could carry. Perhaps that is why so many of those conversations left me feeling disappointed. I expected people to understand emotions that I barely understood myself. I expected them to know exactly what to say. I expected them to provide comfort in precisely the way I wanted. I expected them to somehow become therapists without the training, preparation, or consent.

But most people are not built for that. Most people are carrying burdens of their own. Most people are simply trying to survive their own lives. Most people do not possess the emotional tools required to hold another person’s pain without becoming affected by it themselves. And why should they? That isn’t their responsibility. Even therapists have boundaries. Therapy happens within a specific structure, at a specific time, in a specific setting. There is a reason for that. Holding another person’s emotions is difficult work. It requires skill, energy, and intention. Yet somehow we often expect our loved ones to perform emotional labor that even professionals need years of training to do.

The older I get, the more I realize that constantly turning other people into emotional containers is unfair, not only to them, but also to ourselves. There is a hidden cost to outsourcing our emotional processing. We stop learning how to sit with ourselves. We become dependent on reassurance, dependent on validation, dependent on somebody else helping us feel okay. And that dependency is fragile because eventually there will come a moment when nobody answers the phone, when nobody understands, when nobody knows what to say, and when nobody can help. It is in those moments that we are reminded that the person who understands our emotions most intimately is ourselves.

There was another realization that came with all of this.

Not every emotion needs to be shared.

For a long time, I believed that every feeling deserved an audience. If I was hurt, I needed to explain why I was hurt. If I was disappointed, I needed to communicate my disappointment. If I was struggling, I needed somebody to know about it. Now I am not so sure.

Some emotions pass naturally when they are left alone. They arrive, they move through us, and they leave. The moment we begin talking about them, analyzing them, revisiting them, and giving them a permanent place in our conversations, we sometimes turn a passing feeling into a much larger story than it ever needed to become.

There is also a risk that comes with sharing our emotions that nobody talks about enough. The moment we place our feelings in someone else’s hands, we surrender control over what happens next. They may understand us, but they may not. They may respond with compassion, indifference, exhaustion, or misunderstanding. Sometimes the original disappointment is not what lingers. What lingers is our expectation that another person should have understood our experience exactly as we did.

I have learned that disappointment often grows when we expect understanding from places where understanding was never guaranteed. Sometimes we share our hurt in hopes that another person will see exactly what we see, feel exactly what we feel, and arrive at the same conclusions we have arrived at. But human beings are not built that way. Each of us moves through the world carrying different experiences, different fears, different values, and different ways of interpreting reality. The more I expected perfect understanding from others, the more disappointed I became. Not because anyone was wrong, and not because anyone had failed me, but because I was asking another human being to experience my inner world exactly as I did. That was never a realistic expectation.

Perhaps this is why I have become more selective with my words. Not because I am suppressing my emotions, but because I no longer expect other people to carry them for me. My emotions belong to me. My sadness belongs to me. My healing belongs to me.

And strangely enough, this realization has been incredibly peaceful.

The greatest gift repeated disappointment ever gave me was surrender.

Not the kind of surrender that comes from giving up on life, but the kind that comes from finally accepting reality. There comes a point when you have explained yourself every possible way. You have said everything there is to say. You have tried every approach you can think of. You have replayed every argument, rewritten every sentence, and searched for one final combination of words that might finally make somebody understand.

And then, one day, you become tired.

Not bitter.

Not angry.

Just tired.

You realize that no amount of effort can force understanding. No amount of explanation can make somebody see what they do not wish to see. No amount of talking can change a reality that already exists.

And in that moment, something unexpected happens.

You become quiet.

Not because you have nothing to say, but because you finally understand that saying more will not change anything.

There is a profound peace that comes from reaching the end of your own efforts. It is the peace of accepting that reality does not need your permission to be what it is. It is the peace of recognizing that some things cannot be fixed, some people cannot be convinced, and some disappointments cannot be undone.

The moment I stopped trying to force understanding was the moment I discovered acceptance.

And acceptance, I think, is where sadness begins to transform.

When there is nothing left to fix, nothing left to prove, and nothing left to explain, all that remains is the feeling itself.

Sadness sits beside you.

You sit beside sadness.

And for the first time, neither of you is trying to leave.

Strangely enough, I have come to believe that this is where real healing begins. Not because loneliness is good. Not because suffering is noble. But because there is something transformative about discovering that you can survive your own emotions. Alone. No audience. No reassurance. No advice. No validation. Just you and the feeling.

For a long time, I treated sadness like a problem to solve. Something to fix. Something to eliminate as quickly as possible. Now I see it differently. Some emotions are not problems to solve. They are experiences to have. Sadness is one of them. Loneliness is one of them. Grief is one of them. Heartbreak is one of them. There are certain feelings that cannot be reasoned away, optimized away, analyzed away, or talked away. They simply ask to be felt.

Perhaps this is the realization that changed my life the most: my sadness was never asking to be fixed. It was asking to be felt.

Once I understood this, everything became quieter. Instead of rushing to explain my emotions, I started observing them. Instead of fighting sadness, I started allowing it. Instead of demanding answers, I became curious. I stopped asking, “How do I get rid of this feeling?” and started asking, “What happens if I simply let it exist?”

The answer surprised me. Nothing terrible happened. The sadness came. The sadness stayed. And eventually, the sadness left. Just like every feeling before it and every feeling after it. Feelings are visitors. They arrive, they stay for a while, and then they leave. When we panic, we chase them. When we resist them, we accidentally hold them in place. When we obsess over them, we invite them to stay longer than they were ever meant to. There is a strange peace that comes from allowing emotions to move naturally through you, not suppressing them, not dramatizing them, not performing them, but simply witnessing them.

Witnessing.

Perhaps that is the word I had been searching for all along.

Not processing.

Not fixing.

Not solving.

Witnessing.

There is something beautiful about witnessing your own sadness. Not because sadness itself is beautiful, but because there is beauty in experiencing the full range of what it means to be human. There is beauty in realizing that your heart can break and continue beating. There is beauty in realizing that uncertainty does not destroy you. There is beauty in realizing that loneliness does not last forever. There is beauty in discovering that you are stronger than the emotions you once feared.

There is another reason I have grown strangely fond of sadness.

The closest comparison I can think of is getting a tattoo.

The pain of a tattoo is rarely pleasant, yet millions of people willingly sit through it. Some even become addicted to the experience. Not because the pain itself feels good, but because the pain has meaning. It is pain that has been chosen. Pain that is attached to something beautiful. Pain that becomes part of a story. (I might get one too someday.)

I think sadness can be like that.

Not all sadness, of course. Some forms of suffering are devastating and deserve compassion, support, and care. But there is a quieter kind of sadness that accompanies being human. The sadness of loneliness. The sadness of endings. The sadness of uncertainty. The sadness of wanting something that may never happen.

When I stop fighting that sadness and begin welcoming it, something changes. It stops feeling like an enemy and starts feeling like a companion. It becomes meaningful. It becomes beautiful.

Not because I enjoy suffering, but because darkness has a way of revealing colors that happiness often hides. It sharpens my awareness. It slows me down. It makes me pay attention. It reminds me that I am alive.

And strangely enough, there is something almost addictive about that kind of sadness.

Not the pain itself.

The meaning inside the pain.

The feeling of sitting quietly with your sadness and realizing that it belongs here too.

The feeling of looking directly at your heartbreak and seeing something beautiful reflected back.

The feeling of no longer trying to run from your loneliness, but instead inviting it to sit beside you and teach you something. The feeling of accepting reality so completely that you stop trying to negotiate with it. The feeling of surrendering to a moment exactly as it is, without demanding that it become something else.

I think that is where peace begins.

Not when sadness disappears.

Not when life becomes easier.

Not when we finally get everything we want.

But when we stop treating sadness as an intruder and start treating it as a guest.

A temporary guest, perhaps.

But a welcome one nonetheless.

And strangely enough, some of the most peaceful moments of my life have come during periods of sadness. Not happiness. Sadness. The world becomes quieter. Life slows down. I become more observant, more reflective, more present. I begin paying attention to small things, the light coming through a window, the sound of rain against the glass, a familiar song playing in the background, the silence of an ordinary afternoon. When everything hurts, the ordinary suddenly becomes extraordinary. You begin noticing life again. Not the milestones, not the grand achievements, not the moments we post online for everybody else to see. Just life itself. Breathing. Existing. Being.

Maybe that is why sadness has inspired so much art throughout human history. The greatest poems were not always written during moments of happiness. The greatest novels were not born from comfort. Artists have always understood something that the rest of us often forget: pain is not always an enemy. Sometimes pain is a teacher. Sometimes pain is a mirror. Sometimes pain is a doorway, not a doorway out of suffering, but a doorway deeper into ourselves.

I think this is why I have stopped fearing difficult emotions. I don’t enjoy them, and I certainly do not seek them out, but I no longer view them as failures. When I find myself standing at what feels like a dead end, feeling lost, hopeless, uncertain, or afraid, I no longer immediately ask, “How do I escape this?” Instead, I find myself thinking, “Interesting. Let’s see what happens next.”

Life is strange that way. The moments that feel like endings often become beginnings. The chapters we desperately want to skip often become the chapters that shape us. And when everything feels impossible, there is still something oddly comforting about being alive because the story is not over. Tomorrow has not happened yet. There is always another page, another scene, another unexpected plot twist waiting just around the corner.

Sometimes I think life is less about achieving happiness and more about learning how to experience reality fully. The joy. The sorrow. The uncertainty. The wonder. The loneliness. The love. The grief. The hope. All of it. Because to be alive is not to be happy all the time. To be alive is to feel.

And perhaps true peace comes not from eliminating difficult emotions but from no longer being afraid of them.

These days, when sadness visits, I no longer rush to push it away. I make room for it. I sit beside it. I listen. And eventually, without force, without resistance, without struggle, it leaves on its own. Not because I fixed it. Not because I solved it. But because feelings were never meant to stay forever.

Maybe that is the lesson I have been trying to learn all along. Healing is not talking until you feel better. Healing is learning to sit quietly beside a feeling until it no longer asks to be fixed. Healing is realizing that not every emotion needs a solution. Healing is trusting yourself enough to carry your own heart.

For years, I searched for the right person, the right method, the right answer, and the right way to understand my sadness. I kept looking outside myself, convinced that healing would arrive from somewhere beyond me. But I have come to realize that I was that person all along. Everything I was searching for already existed within me. Because my sadness was never asking to be understood by somebody else. It was asking to be felt by me.

And perhaps that is the most freeing realization of all.

People often laugh when they find out how much I love Minions.

I have Minion stickers, Minion stationery, Minion phone cases, Minion wallpapers, and more Minion-themed items than I can reasonably justify. To some people, it probably looks childish. To others, it might seem strange that an adult could care so much about a group of yellow cartoon characters.

But the older I get, the more I realize that what Minions give me is something surprisingly valuable: stability.

Life is full of uncertainty.

Relationships change. Friendships fade. Jobs come and go. People move away. Circumstances shift without warning. Even the people who love us can accidentally hurt us, and we can do the same to them. Human relationships are beautiful, but they are also complicated because human beings are complicated.

Nothing is guaranteed.

Not marriage.

Not family.

Not success.

Not even happiness.

For a long time, I thought security would come from finding the right people or creating the perfect life. As I’ve gotten older, I have learned that certainty is much rarer than I imagined.

One of the strangest lessons I have learned is that comfort does not always come from the places society tells us it should.

Sometimes it comes from a cartoon character.

Not because the character is real.

Not because the character loves us.

Not because the character can solve our problems.

But because the character stays.

That may sound ridiculous, but think about it.

A fictional character cannot care about me.

A fictional character cannot check on me when I am sad.

A fictional character cannot hold my hand through a difficult time.

A fictional character cannot celebrate my successes or comfort me after a failure.

But a fictional character also cannot abandon me.

It cannot wake up one day and decide it no longer wants me in its life.

It cannot betray me.

It cannot misunderstand me.

It cannot drift away.

It cannot suddenly become a stranger.

Human relationships are deeper, richer, and infinitely more meaningful. I would never argue otherwise.

But human relationships are also vulnerable to misunderstanding, distance, conflict, and change. That vulnerability is part of what makes them beautiful. It is also part of what makes them painful.

A fictional character offers a different kind of comfort.

A quieter one.

A safer one.

Not because it gives more than people do, but because it asks for nothing in return.

When everything around me feels unstable, seeing a Minion on my desk, on my planner, on my phone case, or on my laptop creates a small moment of recognition.

A reminder that some parts of my world are still intact.

Psychologists often talk about anchors, things that help us stay connected to ourselves during stressful periods. For some people, it is religion. For others, it is a hobby, a sport, a favorite book, or a beloved pet.

For me, one of those anchors happens to be Minions.

No matter what happens in my life, they remain exactly what they have always been.

The same faces.

The same voices.

The same silly jokes.

The same stories.

They do not change according to my circumstances.

They do not disappear when life becomes difficult.

They are simply there.

And sometimes “simply there” is more powerful than people realize.

When I feel lost, overwhelmed, anxious, or disconnected from myself, those familiar yellow faces remind me of years of memories, comfort, laughter, and simpler moments. They remind me that despite all the changes in my life, there are still parts of me that remain unchanged.

My love for Minions has survived career changes, financial ups and downs, disappointments, heartbreaks, uncertainty, and periods of loneliness.

That is not because Minions are extraordinary.

It is because consistency is.

As adults, we often underestimate the importance of harmless joy. We treat it as trivial. We tell ourselves to focus on serious things, productive things, important things.

But sometimes a small source of happiness can carry us through surprisingly difficult seasons.

The older I get, the more grateful I am that I found something that makes me smile so reliably.

Not everyone has that.

Some people spend years searching for something that brings them comfort.

Some people lose touch with the things they once loved.

Some people become so exhausted by life that they stop feeling excited about anything at all.

I know what that numbness feels like.

That is why I no longer feel embarrassed about loving something as simple as Minions.

Joy is valuable.

Comfort is valuable.

Familiarity is valuable.

If a harmless interest helps someone feel a little more grounded, a little more connected to themselves, and a little less alone, then it deserves more respect than people often give it.

I do not know where my life will be in five years.

I do not know which relationships will stay and which ones will fade.

I do not know what opportunities I will gain or lose.

But I know that when I see a Minion, I will probably still smile.

And honestly, that is enough.

Not because Minions can love me.

But because they have quietly accompanied me through parts of my life when I needed something steady.

In a world where almost everything changes, there is something comforting about having one small thing that does not.

I’m curious: what is your version of Minions? What is the thing that has stayed with you through different chapters of your life, the thing that makes you smile no matter how old you get, the thing that still feels like home? Leave a comment below and tell me about it. I’d love to read your stories.

mindfulminion.com

Very recently, I had a realization that genuinely embarrassed me.

I found myself on the other side of something I used to do without thinking. I was the one sitting there, listening, while someone kept going and going and going. Topic after topic, detail after detail, no pause, no awareness, no space.

And for the first time, I really felt it.

How exhausting it is. How draining it is. How irritating it becomes when you stop responding and they still don’t notice. When you’re already mentally tired and someone just keeps talking like your presence is an unlimited resource.

It was an awakening moment for me.

Because I saw myself in it.

I realized that I have done this to other people. Maybe not always, maybe not intentionally, but enough to know exactly how it must have felt on the receiving end. And honestly, it made me cringe.

So this is, in part, a public apology.

And also a very direct message.

Please stop doing this.

Stop rambling endlessly about every detail of your life. Stop jumping from one topic to another with no clear point. Stop treating conversations like a place to dump everything in your head just because someone is there.

It’s exhausting.

And whether you realize it or not, it’s inconsiderate.

There is a difference between sharing something meaningful and unloading everything. There is a difference between a real conversation and a one-sided monologue that never ends.

Now, to be clear, there are exceptions.

If you are going through something truly difficult, something overwhelming, something that actually shakes your life, I understand. If you are grieving, breaking down, or going through a real crisis, I can sit there and listen. That is human.

The same goes for rare, intense moments of joy. Sometimes something big happens and you cannot contain it. You are excited, emotional, and it spills out. That’s also human.

But those are not everyday situations.

Most of the time, it is not that.

Most of the time, it is just talking for the sake of talking. Repeating the same points. Jumping between topics. Filling silence because you are uncomfortable with it.

And that is where it becomes a problem.

So here is a simple rule of thumb.

If you are about to talk for more than a couple of sentences, ask yourself what the point is. What is the objective. What are you actually trying to say.

If there is no clear answer, stop.

Be concise. Say the main point. Don’t repeat it five different ways. Don’t drag it out longer than it needs to be.

And understand this. Not everything needs to be said out loud to another person.

You can write it down. You can put it in a journal. You can post it somewhere and let people choose whether they want to engage with it. That is very different from placing it directly onto someone who did not ask for it.

Especially when they are resting, eating, or simply trying to have a quiet moment.

Do not invade that space.

Because when you do, it does not feel like connection. It feels like interruption. It feels like pressure. It feels like someone else’s mental noise being forced into your head.

There’s a reason the golden rule exists. Treat others the way you want to be treated. And if you have ever been on the receiving end of this kind of endless talking, you already know.

It drains you.

It makes you want to leave.

It makes you not want to engage at all.

We need to be more honest about this.

No one has unlimited emotional capacity. No one is built to absorb everything from everyone. And just because you feel the urge to speak does not mean someone else has the capacity to listen.

Learn to sit with yourself.

Learn to process your own thoughts without needing an audience for everything.

Because other people are not here to carry your internal world for you.

I’m not.

I don’t have the capacity for endless talking, endless venting, endless explaining with no direction. I don’t have the interest, and I’m not going to pretend that I do.

If a conversation is mutual, engaging, and alive, I’m there.

If it turns into one person talking non-stop while the other person slowly checks out, I’m done with that.

Call it blunt.

Call it rude.

I call it awareness.

Because once you’ve been on the other side, you can’t unsee it.

And once you see it, you either keep doing it to people, or you stop.

I’m choosing to stop.

mindfulminion.com

There’s a quiet kind of confidence I’ve been trying to build lately. Not loud or performative, but steady. The kind where I don’t feel the need to constantly question whether the way I live my life is “right.”

Because the truth is, everyone is different. What makes me happy might not make sense to someone else, and that doesn’t make it wrong. It just makes it mine. And sometimes, life is simply about doing what you need to do. We all have different circumstances, different resources, different emotional capacities. What works for someone else might not even be available to me, and vice versa. So it doesn’t make sense to measure my life using someone else’s standards.

I used to compare myself a lot. Not just in obvious ways like achievements or material things, but in personality. I would look at people who seemed calmer, less sensitive, more put together, and wonder what was wrong with me. Why do I feel things so deeply? Why do I get affected so easily? Why can’t I just be more like them?

Sometimes something small happens and I feel it more than I want to. Then I look at someone next to me and they’re completely calm, unbothered, and I think, wow, I wish I could be like that. But what I’ve started to realize is that I’m only seeing them in that one moment, in that one situation. The same person who looks calm to me might react very differently somewhere else, over something that doesn’t affect me at all. They might struggle in areas where I feel completely at ease.

It all depends on what you care about. What matters to you will always hit you differently. I might feel like I talk too much or overshare, while someone else is struggling with not knowing how to express themselves at all. I might feel lonely easily, while someone else feels anxious just being around people. I might feel deeply, while someone else avoids feeling altogether. So who is better? Who is more correct? There isn’t a real answer.

Even the version of people we admire isn’t always the full picture. Someone might seem calm and composed in front of me, but that doesn’t mean they feel that way all the time. That could just be the environment they’re in, or the role they’re playing in that moment. So comparing my full, honest self to someone else’s curated moment doesn’t make sense.

What I’ve come to understand is that this kind of comparison is just as misleading as comparing success or money. Everyone has a different emotional threshold. Just because someone tolerates something doesn’t mean they’re stronger. Sometimes it just means they’ve learned to accept less, or to feel less. And that’s their path. I don’t judge it, but I also don’t need to use it as a standard for my own life.

If I want more respect, more care, more intention in the way I live my life, that doesn’t make me too much. It just means I know what I need. I’ve been on the other side of that. I’ve accepted less before, so I know the difference now. Having standards isn’t being difficult. It’s having self-respect.

What really shifted for me is realizing how often I put other people on a pedestal. When I admire someone, I assume they must know better, that their way is more correct. And when I say I wish I could be like them, I’m almost handing over authority they didn’t ask for. Of course they’ll give advice, that’s human nature, but it doesn’t mean they understand my life better than I do.

Because the truth is, I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I’ve learned how to cope, how to let go, how to adapt, how to rebuild. I’ve developed my own ways of handling things, my own systems, my own boundaries, my own understanding of what I can and cannot tolerate. That counts for something.

I’m also starting to see that everything in life has two sides. If you feel more, you will probably require more. You might overthink more or struggle more at times, but you also grow more. You build awareness, depth, intention. Sometimes feeling a little emptier pushes you to fill your life with more experiences, more hobbies, more meaning. On the other hand, if you are more easygoing and content with less, you avoid a lot of unnecessary stress. You stay out of trouble, you save time and energy, and there is a kind of peace in that too.

Choosing to stay in gives you comfort and stillness. Choosing to go out gives you experience and stimulation. Speaking up can create friction, but it also brings clarity and respect. Letting things go protects your peace, but sometimes it means missing out on something better. There is always a trade-off. Nothing is completely right or completely wrong. It depends on what matters to you.

And that’s exactly why it’s so important to stay grounded in your own direction. Because if you keep adjusting yourself based on everyone else’s opinions, you end up pulled in too many directions. One day you believe this, the next day you believe something else. One day you want this life, the next day you want the opposite. When everything conflicts, you don’t move forward. You just stay stuck.

It’s like trying everything and committing to nothing. You never give anything enough time to work. You keep restarting, rethinking, redirecting, and then it feels like nothing works, when in reality you just never stayed long enough.

At some point, you have to choose a path. Not because it’s the only right one, but because it’s yours. You can listen, learn, and be inspired, but you can’t keep changing your direction every time something else looks better.

Because the grass will always seem greener on the other side. But in reality, it becomes greener where you choose to water it.

If you keep looking at other paths and asking yourself what if this, what if that, you lose focus on the path you’re actually on. Some people spend years thinking, should I quit, should I stay, should I change, and while they stay, they imagine a better life somewhere else. But when they finally make a change, instead of focusing on what’s in front of them, they start looking back and regretting it.

It becomes an endless loop of what ifs, imagining different versions of life that may not even be real, while losing touch with the one you’re actually living.

At some point, it’s better to make a decision and stand by it. Either choose it and fully commit, or accept that you’re not ready and let it go for now. But constantly living in between, constantly questioning and second-guessing, only drains you and keeps you stuck.

So instead of comparing, I’m trying to focus on the value of my own choices. To see what I can build from where I am, instead of always wondering what could have been somewhere else. To learn from people without putting them above me, to admire without diminishing myself, and to stay open without losing my sense of direction.

Because if I keep believing that everyone else is better than me at everything, I will never feel like I’m enough. And if I keep changing who I am based on everyone else, I will never become anyone at all.

I don’t need to constantly look outward for validation or direction. I don’t need to explain or justify every decision, especially when it doesn’t harm anyone else. And I don’t need to keep placing myself in positions where I ask for advice just to end up more confused.

Sometimes, the most grounded thing I can do is trust that I already know. Not everything, but enough. Enough to choose a direction, enough to stay with it, and enough to build a life that actually feels right to me.

Thank you so much for taking the time to send this. Your words genuinely mean a lot to me.

Writing has always been my way of making sense of things, and sometimes it feels a bit like sending thoughts into the void, never knowing who might stumble across them. Hearing that something I wrote resonated with you is incredibly meaningful.

I think one of the most comforting things about sharing our experiences is realizing that none of us are as alone in our thoughts and feelings as we sometimes believe. Knowing that my words could make you feel a little more seen is a gift in itself.

There’s a pattern I didn’t recognize in myself for a long time. I would hold everything in, overthink, over-feel, replay conversations, and carry emotions quietly. I told myself that maybe I was too sensitive, too intense, too complicated for people to understand, so I shrank a little, said less, and tried to manage everything on my own.

And then, eventually, I would meet someone who felt safe enough. Someone who listened. And I would pour everything out, not gradually or selectively, but all at once. My thoughts, my relationships, my fears, my inner world. It came out like a flood. I could see the moment it became too much, the pause, the shift in their face, the way their responses started to thin out. Not because they didn’t care, but because they couldn’t hold that much, that fast.

Every time, I told myself the same story. No one can handle me. I’m too much. I should just keep things to myself. So I would go back to holding everything in, until the next time I overflowed.

Recently, I realized something that changed everything. The problem was never that I had too much inside me. The problem was that I was releasing everything through the wrong channels, at the wrong intensity, all at once, especially in friendships and social connections. I was treating people like containers for my entire emotional world, and no human being is designed for that.

We are not meant to have one person be our everything. Not one friend, not one acquaintance, not one social connection. Our inner world is layered. We have deep emotions, everyday thoughts, creative impulses, intellectual curiosity, relational needs, and identity questions. Trying to compress all of that into one person is not depth. It is overload.

What I’m learning now is something more grounded: emotional distribution. Not suppression, not avoidance, but intentional placement. Instead of asking who can handle all of me, I’m asking where each part of me belongs.

This shift changed how I relate to people. Some friends are for deep conversations, some are for shared interests, some are for light companionship, and some are simply part of my wider social circle. Not everyone needs to be everything, and that is not a loss. It is clarity.

I also had to learn something I used to overlook. Small talk matters. I used to think it was shallow, but now I see that it is how connection begins, how familiarity builds, and how we stay open to others in everyday life. It allows me to participate in community and social spaces without forcing depth where it does not belong. I can engage, be warm, and be present without expecting more than what that connection is meant to hold.

Another truth I had to accept is that oversharing is not about “wrong people.” It is about wrong timing, wrong channel, or mismatched capacity. The people I shared with were often kind and well-meaning, but sometimes they did not have the emotional bandwidth, the context, or the perspective to understand what I was expressing. When I shared without filter or pacing, I overwhelmed them, and I could feel it.

This became even clearer in my own family. My parents love me more than anyone else in this world, and I know that with complete certainty. But even they can get overwhelmed by my emotional sharing. If I talk for hours, diving deep into my dating life, my friendships, my work, or my philosophical thoughts, they simply cannot meet me there. Not because they don’t care, but because that is not their role and not their capacity.

Their way of loving me is different. They show up in practical, grounded ways. They ask if I’ve eaten, if I’ve rested, if I’m healthy, if I’m okay. They support me in ways that are real and steady. But they are not the people who can sit with me and analyze every emotion, every layer, every thought. There is a generational gap, a difference in interests, in how we process life. No answer they give me will fully satisfy what I am looking for in those moments, and that is not their failure. It is simply a mismatch.

And I started to see this everywhere. People are in different phases of life, carrying different burdens, focusing on different things. Someone struggling with their business might not have the space to hold my relationship concerns. Someone going through emotional pain might not be able to receive my happiness without it feeling heavy or distant. Even sharing something positive can be insensitive if the context is mismatched.

I realized that sometimes it’s not just about being understood. It’s about being aware.

There were moments where I could have sounded insensitive without intending to. Talking about how loved I am in my relationship to someone who feels unloved. Talking about being bored when someone is struggling financially. Expecting emotional depth from someone who is already overwhelmed by their own life. None of this makes me a bad person, but it does mean I need to be more conscious.

Not every space is the right space. Not every person is in the right place to receive what I want to share.

And if someone is struggling deeply, maybe what they need is not my emotional expression at all. Maybe what they need is to be listened to. And if I cannot hold space for them, then the most respectful thing I can do is not to add more weight.

This doesn’t mean I have to silence myself. It means I have to calibrate.

There is nothing wrong with my desire to be understood. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be known. To be loved is to be known. But I don’t need to be known one hundred percent by one person. I can be known collectively. One friend knows my depth, another knows my humor, another knows my interests, another knows my work, another knows my everyday life. Together, that becomes a whole picture.

This realization softened something in me. I no longer feel the need to explain everything all at once or to be fully seen in every interaction. I let things unfold in layers, especially within friendships and social relationships where different levels of closeness naturally exist.

Emotional regulation, for me, now looks like knowing what I’m feeling, choosing where to place it, choosing how much to share, and respecting both my capacity and other people’s capacity. Not shutting down, not flooding, but calibrating.

This brings a kind of quiet freedom. I stop overwhelming others, I stop overwhelming myself, and I stop expecting too much from the wrong spaces. Instead, I build a network instead of a dependency. I relate with clarity instead of urgency. I connect with intention instead of impulse.

If I had to put it simply, I am not too much. I just needed more than one place to be myself. Not every friendship is meant to hold everything, and that does not make anyone wrong. It just means I need to choose better, where, when, and how I share.

Instead of asking who can handle me, I now ask how I can take care of my inner world in a way that honors both me and the different kinds of relationships in my life.

mindfulminion.com

Growing up, I watched a lot of Disney movies. I watched princesses who were soft, kind, misunderstood, but always chosen, always found, always saved. There was always a Prince Charming, someone who arrived at the right time, said the right things, and made everything fall into place. And even if I didn’t consciously believe it, a part of me internalized that story. That love would come, that it would feel right, that it would soothe everything restless inside me.

For most of my life, I believed quietly that love would steady me, that somewhere, someone existed who would understand me deeply enough, meet me fully enough, and stay consistent enough that something inside me would finally quiet down. That I would feel less overwhelmed by my own mind, less intense in my emotions, less aware of everything all at once. Because I’ve always been that kind of person. I feel deeply, I think deeply, I analyze, reflect, and question everything. And I don’t see that as a flaw. That is how I make meaning, that is how I grow. So I thought love would be the place where all of that would finally make sense, where I would feel seen, met, settled. But reality is not a fairy tale.

At some point, through experience, through discomfort, through moments I couldn’t ignore anymore, I realized something that shifted everything. There is no one coming to save me. No Prince Charming, no perfect counterpart, no person capable of carrying my inner world for me. People have limits, love has conditions, everyone is dealing with something I cannot see. And sometimes, the person I once imagined as “the one” is simply another human being trying to manage their own life, their own struggles, their own limitations.

That realization didn’t come with drama. It came quietly, a kind of grounded disappointment, the kind that doesn’t break me but sobers me. Because it removes the illusion of rescue and forces me to face something much more honest. No one is responsible for my emotional stability, and no one is capable of fully holding it for me. And once I saw that clearly, I couldn’t go back to the fantasy.

For a moment, that truth felt heavy because it meant letting go of something comforting, the idea that somewhere out there, someone could make everything feel okay. But almost immediately after that disappointment came something else, a sense of responsibility, and strangely, a sense of power.

I began to understand that what I had been looking for externally was something I had to build internally. Not through control, not through perfection, but through discipline.

Detachment started to make sense to me in a completely different way. Not as coldness, not as distance, but as clarity. As the understanding that everything outside of me, people, relationships, timing, outcomes, is inherently unstable. Temporary, unpredictable, not mine to control. And because of that, I cannot build my emotional foundation on it. I cannot depend on it to keep me steady.

So the question changed. From what do I need from the world to feel okay, to what do I need to become so I can hold myself steady regardless of what the world does. And that question is not comfortable. It doesn’t give immediate relief, it doesn’t offer softness, but it is honest.

This path is not easy. It asks me to sit with discomfort instead of escaping it, to feel without immediately reacting, to pause before I speak, before I act, before I project meaning onto things I cannot control. It asks for restraint, for awareness, for discipline, again and again, until it becomes who I am.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize this isn’t just about relationships. It’s about everything. Money, success, validation, romance, all the things people chase believing they will finally feel complete. But none of them are stable, none of them last, none of them can carry the weight we expect them to carry.

Maybe this is where my beliefs come in. Maybe this is where Buddhism resonates so deeply with me. The idea that attachment creates suffering, that everything is impermanent, that chasing external fulfillment will always leave me grasping for more. And maybe this is also where philosophy, Stoicism, eudaimonia, grounds me. The idea that a meaningful life is not built on pleasure or ease, but on virtue, discipline, and alignment with who I choose to be.

I don’t want a life that is just happy. I want a life that is intentional. A life where I am in control of my actions, my words, my responses, a life where I do not harm others out of impulse or emotional instability, a life where I can trust myself, even in discomfort, even in uncertainty.

At the end of the day, I have to face the truth. No one is coming to save me. And that is not something to fear, it is something to accept. Because once I accept it fully, I stop waiting. I stop expecting the world to organize itself in a way that makes me feel safe. I stop outsourcing my peace.

I become responsible for myself, for my emotions, for my reactions, for the way I choose to live.

I am not a damsel in distress. I do not need to be rescued. If anything, the most important thing I can learn in this life is how to rescue myself.

Not in a dramatic way, but quietly, daily, through discipline, through awareness, through choosing, again and again, to return to myself.

Because maybe that’s the real version of the story. Not a prince who arrives, but a person who becomes.

mindfulminion.com

I was born into a lower-income family, especially in the early years of my life. We weren’t struggling in a dramatic way, but we approached money carefully, and spending was thoughtful.

We lived in a small space where everything was shared. I didn’t get an allowance. I learned early on how to be frugal, not because anyone explicitly taught me how, but because I watched my parents live that way.

At school, that reality showed up in ways I didn’t talk about.

I remember not having money for food and asking friends for snacks. I remember walking home instead of taking the bus just to save a small amount. I didn’t go to birthday parties because I couldn’t afford gifts. I didn’t hang out after school because I had nothing to spend.

Looking back, I think that was part of why I struggled to make friends. It wasn’t just about personality. It was about not being able to participate.

At the same time, I was already dreaming.

I watched TV shows and imagined a completely different life. Bigger homes, nicer things, freedom. I even had those childish fantasies that maybe I secretly came from a rich family and one day they would find me. As unrealistic as that sounds, it reflected something real. I understood, very early on, that money meant options.

Over time, without me fully realizing it, my life started to change.

We moved into bigger homes. Opportunities appeared that I never thought I would have, like studying abroad and traveling. And slowly, my parents’ mindset shifted too. They were still responsible with money, but they started saying something very different.

As long as you’re happy, that’s what matters.

That idea stayed with me.

When I finally had access to money, I didn’t just spend. I overcompensated.

I bought things without looking at the price. I stocked up on makeup and skincare I didn’t need. There was a time I ate at restaurants every day. I ordered whatever I wanted, often the most expensive thing on the menu.

It wasn’t just spending. It was making up for everything I didn’t have.

And honestly, it made me happy.

That’s the part people don’t always want to admit. Money did bring me joy. It still does.

It’s not just about buying things. It’s about removing limits.

Money gave me something I didn’t have growing up. Space.

The space to choose what I eat, where I go, what I wear. The space to say no to things that don’t feel right. The space to avoid environments that would damage my self-esteem or go against my values.

I don’t have to drive myself anywhere. I can just get a ride whenever I need to. I don’t have to cook my own food, clean my own room, or worry about everyday chores.

I don’t have to force myself to finish something I don’t like. If I don’t enjoy a product, I can give it away or throw it out. I don’t have to think about every expense.

I can say yes to more things. And when I say no, it’s usually because I don’t actually want something, not because I can’t afford it.

I can buy things before I need them. I choose what I genuinely like, even down to small details, like the version with the cutest packaging instead of the one on sale.

At the same time, I’ve realized something about myself. I still have a strong sensitivity to small, tangible joys.

I can feel genuinely happy over something as simple as a really good bowl of ramen or a snack I’ve been craving. It doesn’t have to be expensive or impressive. Even something small, something affordable, can bring me a lot of joy.

And when someone gives me something, I don’t just see the object. I feel the intention behind it. The fact that they thought of me matters more than the material value. Gift giving is one of the ways I feel loved, and I’m very grateful that the people close to me show care in that way.

I’m also at a point where I can pause. I don’t feel the need to buy everything, especially things that feel excessive or disconnected from my life. I don’t need luxury for the sake of it. I don’t need to prove anything.

What matters more to me is whether something has real value in my life. Not just in the moment I buy it, but every time I use it or look at it.

If something brings me that kind of consistent, quiet happiness, then it’s worth it. If it doesn’t, I don’t need it.

I don’t buy things to impress people or to fit in. I’ve never really felt like I fit in anyway, so that stopped being a priority.

I just want to enjoy what I enjoy.

Whether it’s something simple like instant noodles or a fine dining meal, what matters is that I actually enjoy it. I pay attention to the experience. I savor it.

Money, to me, isn’t just about having more. It’s about being able to access those moments more freely.

If you asked me now whether money buys happiness, my answer would be yes, but not in the way people often think.

Money doesn’t solve everything. But it can remove a lot of suffering.

It can reduce anxiety. It can create safety. It can give you choices.

And sometimes, that’s the difference between surviving and actually living.

I’ve lived on both ends of the spectrum.

I know what it feels like to count every coin. And I know what it feels like to not look at the price.

Somewhere in between those two extremes, I found balance.

I’m still grateful for abundance. I don’t take it for granted. But I’m no longer controlled by fear or by the need to prove anything.

At the end of the day, it’s not about having everything.

It’s about having enough, and knowing that it’s enough.

mindfulminion.com

I’ve had a complicated relationship with food for as long as I can remember, but it really began when I moved away from home in high school.

I was alone for the first time. I was homesick, stressed, and overwhelmed. And food became the easiest comfort.

I ate everything. KFC almost daily. Hawker center food. Late-night instant noodles with canned tuna. Snacks from convenience stores. Milk tea runs. Vending machine food between classes. I had complete freedom, and I used it to eat whenever I felt anything ~ bored, sad, lonely, even happy.

Food wasn’t just food anymore. It was comfort. It was distraction. It was something to look forward to.

And within a few months, I gained weight quickly.

Then something shifted.

When I later went through a heartbreak, I lost weight without trying. And people noticed. They complimented me. They praised me.

That was the moment everything changed.

Being skinny started to feel like control. Like success. Like proof that I had my life together.

So I leaned into it.

I started restricting. Counting calories. Skipping meals. Pushing myself further and further. And the more weight I lost, the more in control I felt, not just of my body, but of my life.

But control has a way of turning on you.

What started as restriction turned into a cycle: binge, guilt, starvation, repeat.

I would eat until I felt physically sick, ordering enough food for multiple people, eating late into the night, chasing some kind of emotional relief. And then the next day, I would punish myself. Starve. Over-exercise. Try to erase what I had done.

It didn’t matter that I was never “overweight.” It didn’t matter that most of my life, I was considered skinny.

It was never about the weight.

It was about control.

Whenever my life felt unstable ~ emotionally, mentally, relationally, I turned to food. Or I turned away from it. Either way, it gave me something to hold onto.

Food was predictable. Safe. Always there.

People aren’t always like that.

Food doesn’t judge you. It doesn’t leave. It doesn’t misunderstand you or respond the wrong way. It just exists, quietly, ready to comfort you whenever you need it.

And that’s what made it so hard to let go of.

Over the years, this pattern followed me everywhere ~ from Singapore to the U.S., to Australia, and back home again. Different countries, different cuisines, different environments, but the same cycle.

Binge. Restrict. Obsess. Repeat.

My weight fluctuated constantly. My thoughts were consumed by food, numbers, and control. I built entire routines, habits, even identities around it.

And the strange part is, from the outside, everything looked fine.

I was still “the skinny one.” No one questioned it.

But internally, it was exhausting.

Even now, I can see the pattern clearly: whenever I feel anxious, rejected, or emotionally overwhelmed, I go back to controlling food. It’s my default coping mechanism.

Not because I’m hungry.

But because I’m trying to feel safe.

I used to think this was something I needed to “fix” completely. That one day, I would wake up and be free of it forever.

Now, I’m not so sure.

Maybe this is something I learn to manage, not eliminate.

Maybe healing isn’t about never struggling again, but about understanding why I do, and being a little kinder to myself when it happens.

I’m still learning.

Some days are better than others. Some days I don’t think about it at all. Other days, it’s louder.

But I’m here. I’m aware. And that already feels like progress.

If you’re reading this and you see yourself in any part of it ~ just now you’re not alone.

This isn’t as uncommon as it feels. It’s just not talked about openly enough.

And maybe we don’t need to have everything figured out right now.

Maybe it’s enough to take it one day at a time.

To start over, as many times as it takes.

Because we’re allowed to begin again.

Every single day. mindfulminion.com

There’s a kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing too much. It comes from feeling too much, thinking too much, reacting too much, over and over again, until one day, something in you just quietly stops. Not in a dramatic way, not all at once. Just a slow realization that you cannot keep living like this.

Looking back, I think I’ve always been this way. Even when I was younger, I was that girl. The one who didn’t filter herself, the one who said what she felt, the one who gave people access too easily. I didn’t know how to hold anything back.

Growing up, I moved around a lot. Different environments, different people, different circles. So I got used to turning strangers into friends quickly, easily, without questioning too much. When I went to school, it was the same. When I entered the corporate world, it only intensified. I was constantly surrounded by people, constantly interacting, constantly building connections, and I approached all of it the same way I always had: open, unfiltered, giving.

I didn’t think I needed to be selective. I thought being real was enough. And because of that, I got slapped in the face many times. Not just once, not just twice, but enough times that it should have been obvious.

The pattern was always there. I would open up too quickly, say too much, feel too deeply in spaces that were not built to hold me. And then I would spiral. At the time, I didn’t call it that. I thought I was just being emotional, just being honest, just being myself. But now I see it clearly. Spiraling is self-abandonment. It’s what happens when you step out of your own center and hand it over to something outside of you. And every time I did that, I left myself behind.

The hardest part is that I didn’t just learn this lesson once. I learned it, forgot it, and learned it again, over and over, with different people, in different situations, across different phases of my life. Years passed like that.

Along the way, I started noticing something else, something a little darker. There is a dynamic that happens when you are the more emotional one. The more you unravel, the more someone else gets to appear calm. The more you express, the more they get to stay controlled. And whether they are aware of it or not, that position feels good.

I found myself falling into that role many times. I would be the one saying more, revealing more, opening more, while the other person stayed measured, composed, just out of reach. Suddenly, I was the exposed one, the emotional one, the one who looked like too much. And they got to feel stable, they got to feel like they had it together, they got to walk away without carrying anything.

Meanwhile, I was the one losing sleep, replaying conversations, trying to process everything out loud, trying to make sense of things that were never going to give me clarity. That version of me had no boundaries, and people will take as much as you are willing to give, sometimes without even realizing it.

Over time, I also started to see what people are capable of. Not just strangers, everyone. People can withdraw from you without warning. They can shift their energy. They can give you something, just to remind you they can take it away. Care, attention, time, effort, these things can be used as leverage. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

I’ve seen people act like they had something over me, like they held a position I should be afraid to lose. But a lot of those positions only existed because I gave them that power in the first place. You make a frog a prince, and he starts believing he was always royalty. He forgets who placed the crown there, he forgets what you were to him, and eventually, he treats you like you were never part of the story.

I saw that pattern everywhere, with friends, with coworkers, with people I trusted. You give, you elevate, you invest, and suddenly, they think they are above you. That was a hard lesson, but it was mine to learn.

Years and years of going through the same cycle eventually change you. Not all at once, but gradually. Now, in a different phase of my life, no longer in that environment, no longer surrounded by constant noise and constant people, I see things more clearly. I don’t move the same way anymore.

I strive to be more selective, with my energy, with my words, with who I let into my inner world. Most people do not have full access to me, not because I have nothing to share, but because I understand now that access is a privilege. If I feel like that space is not respected, I take the key back quietly, without explanation, without guilt.

Sometimes, I choose to keep things simple, to say I’m fine, to keep conversations light. Not because I am pretending, but because not every space deserves depth. I still remember the girl who could say everything without hesitation, who believed she was safe to exist like that everywhere. I do miss her. But she didn’t know how to protect herself.

So now, when she shows up again, when she wants to say everything, to feel everything, to give everything, I pause. And sometimes, I gently put her back. Not to silence her, but to protect her. Because not every place is meant for her.

There is also something else I have come to accept, something that is not easy, but it is honest. There is a deep need in all of us to be witnessed, to have someone see everything we feel, everything we think, everything we are, so that our existence feels real. But maybe that is not in my fate. Maybe I will never have that kind of witness in my life, and that is okay. Maybe I will never feel fully emotionally fulfilled in that way, and that is okay too. That is still a life.

I might feel lonely sometimes. I might feel that absence more than I want to. But even that, I am learning to accept. If I feel lonely sometimes, then so be it. If that feeling stays longer than I want it to, then so be it. If I am not enough for myself on certain days, then so be it.

I do not need to fix everything. I do not need to turn myself into something perfect just to feel okay. Even if I am a little broken, that is still a beautiful life.

I have stopped trying to control how everything unfolds. Stopped building expectations that exhaust me. Stopped chasing outcomes that only exist in my head. Now, I take things one day at a time, sometimes one moment at a time, and that is enough.

I still feel. I still care. But I no longer abandon myself to prove it. And that is something I had to learn, slowly, over years, not all at once, but enough times that it finally stayed.

There was a time when I got emotionally triggered by everything.

Someone’s tone. Someone’s silence. Someone not treating me the way I thought they should. Plans changing. Feeling misunderstood. Feeling disappointed. Feeling like I cared more than other people did.

I think deep down, a lot of it came from control issues.

Not necessarily wanting to control people in an obvious way, but emotionally depending on things going a certain way in order to feel okay. Wanting people to understand me correctly. Wanting relationships to feel balanced. Wanting effort to be reciprocated. Wanting life to unfold according to the image I had in my head.

And when reality didn’t match my expectations, I became emotionally reactive. Triggered. Exhausted. Hurt.

But over time, I’ve started realizing something painful and freeing at the same time:

No matter how carefully I phrase my advice, no matter how much information I give someone, no matter how deeply I explain myself, no matter how badly I want someone to understand me or make a “better” decision… it almost never changes anything.

People will do what they want.

And honestly? Trying to emotionally manage other people’s choices is one of the most exhausting things in the world.

The more emotionally invested I became in a specific outcome, the more angry and resentful I felt when things didn’t go my way. The more I expected people to agree with me, validate me, understand me, or take my advice, the more emotionally unstable I became when they dismissed my opinions or chose differently.

And I’ve also realized something even harder to admit: A lot of the times when I criticized people, judged their decisions, commented on how they were living their lives, or became emotionally upset over their actions… it wasn’t always coming from a place of love.

Sometimes it was just my ego talking. That’s honestly difficult and shameful for me to admit, but it’s true.

I think there were moments where giving opinions, correcting people, or acting like I “knew better” temporarily made me feel more secure about myself. More in control. More validated.

But that isn’t wisdom. That’s ego.

Not every opinion I gave was truly necessary. Not every reaction came from genuine care. Sometimes it came from my own fears, my own projections, my own need to feel right.

And the older I get, the more I realize how self-centered that actually was.

And another uncomfortable thing I’ve had to admit to myself is how hypocritical I’ve been at times. There were so many moments where I felt like people weren’t understanding me enough, appreciating me enough, loving me correctly enough, behaving the way I wanted them to behave. I would feel disappointed in others constantly. I would mentally keep score of who hurt me, who failed me, who wasn’t meeting my standards.

But when I really sat down and reflected honestly, I realized something: A lot of people have actually been far more understanding and accepting toward me than I ever was toward them.

And somehow, I rarely noticed that.

Instead, I focused on what they lacked. What they did wrong. What they failed to give me.

That realization humbled me deeply.

Because expecting people to constantly perform according to my emotional standards while I myself am flawed, emotional, inconsistent, and imperfect too… is honestly very self-centered.

Maybe even narcissistic in some ways.

I acted as though my perspective was more correct, more rational, more emotionally aware than other people’s. I expected people to behave exactly the way I would behave, while forgetting that everybody has different emotional capacities, different personalities, different ways of expressing care.

And meanwhile, I have countless flaws and weaknesses too.

I am not above anyone. I am not wiser than everyone. I am not more evolved than everyone. I am not always right.

I’m just another human being trying to figure life out.

So lately, I’ve been trying to ground myself more. To “touch grass,” honestly. To stop pointing fingers outward every time I feel hurt or emotionally uncomfortable.

Because yes, people say things. People do things. People disappoint us sometimes.

But at the end of the day, I am still responsible for how I process those experiences internally.

I cannot blame everybody else for every negative emotion I feel.

Sometimes I have to look at myself honestly and admit: Maybe I’m being overly sensitive right now. Maybe my expectations are unrealistic. Maybe this wound existed inside me before this situation even happened.

And that realization isn’t meant to shame myself. It’s meant to help me take accountability for my own emotional world instead of unconsciously making other people responsible for regulating it for me.

I want to stop constantly asking: “Why are people making me feel this way?”

And start asking: “Why am I allowing this to emotionally consume me so deeply?”

That shift alone has changed so much for me.

Because the more responsibility I take for my own emotions, the less power I unconsciously hand over to other people.

And honestly, that feels freeing.

I think I’m learning that peace begins when you stop trying to emotionally control everyone around you and start learning how to emotionally hold yourself instead.

Because who am I, really, to think I fully understand another person’s journey?

I am not living their life. I do not carry their wounds. I do not know their karma. I do not know their destiny. I do not know what lessons they are meant to learn through their own experiences.

I may be the expert of my own life, but I am not the expert of anybody else’s.

And honestly, my own life isn’t perfect either. I’m still learning. I’m still making mistakes. I’m still trying to grow every single day.

So instead of directing all this energy outward ∿ trying to analyze, correct, advise, or emotionally manage other people ∿ I’m learning to direct that energy inward instead.

Toward becoming kinder. More accepting. More understanding. More peaceful.

I’m learning to let people unfold exactly as they are meant to. Because the beauty of life is that we are all different.

Different paths. Different personalities. Different values. Different timing. Different karma.

So why was I acting as though my perspective was absolute truth? And maybe life becomes easier when we stop trying to force everyone into our personal understanding of what is “right.”

The truth is, most things are not going to dramatically change just because I say something. Most people are going to continue living however they choose to live ∿ and honestly, they should have the freedom to.

Just like I want the freedom to live my own life without constantly being judged or corrected by others.

So lately, I’ve been learning how to let go. Not in a cold or bitter way. Not in a “I don’t care anymore” way. But in a quieter way. A softer way. A more peaceful way.

I’m learning that lowering expectations actually makes life lighter.

If I stop expecting people to always act how I would act, understand things the way I understand them, or love the way I love, then naturally, I suffer less.

I waste less energy trying to explain myself over and over again. Less energy trying to fix people. Less energy trying to control situations. Less energy trying to be understood by people who simply cannot understand me in the way I want.

Nowadays, I genuinely think unsolicited advice is often unnecessary. If someone sincerely asks me for guidance, I’ll answer with love. But otherwise, I’d rather save my energy for myself.

I’d rather spend that time drinking more water and doing skincare, honestly.

I know that sounds funny, but I mean it.

I’m learning that my energy is sacred. And I need most of it for myself.

For my healing. For my inner peace. For my growth. For the relationship I have with myself.

Because the truth is, I can barely navigate my own life sometimes. Why was I acting like I needed to carry everybody else’s too?

I’m a Buddhist, and karma is something I think about deeply.

I believe everyone has their own fate, their own lessons, their own karma, their own spiritual journey. We can love people. Support them emotionally. Be there for them. But we cannot live their lives for them, and we cannot force growth onto anyone.

People have to arrive at their own realizations in their own timing.

And lately, whenever I catch myself wanting to control a situation, obsess over an outcome, explain myself endlessly, or emotionally react to something, I’ve been trying to ask myself one simple question:

If I die tomorrow, does this actually matter?

Does this matter enough to lose my peace over? Do I really need to have this conversation? Do I really need to explain myself again? Do people actually need this opinion from me? Do I need to get angry over this? Do I need to be hurt by this? Do I need to carry this emotionally?

And honestly, 99% of the time, the answer is no.

If today were my last day alive, most of these things would suddenly feel so unimportant.

Most arguments would feel meaningless. Most disappointments would feel temporary. Most ego battles would feel embarrassing. Most attempts to control people would feel pointless.

And that perspective calms me down almost immediately.

Because life is short. So short.

And I don’t want to spend it constantly emotionally reacting to every little thing.

I don’t want to spend my final days arguing, overexplaining, controlling, judging, resenting, or trying to force reality into my preferred shape.

Most things simply do not matter as much as we think they do.

So sometimes I really just need to zip it, keep my mouth shut, and protect my peace.

Not everything deserves a reaction. Not everything deserves a discussion. Not everything deserves emotional investment.

And honestly, I think a huge part of maturity is learning not to take everything so personally or so seriously all the time.

So I’m trying to become quieter now. Not quieter because I’m suppressing myself, but quieter because I no longer want to create unnecessary suffering ∿ for myself or for others.

I no longer want to judge people. I no longer want to yell. I no longer want to speak carelessly out of anger. I no longer want to project my fears, frustrations, or expectations onto others.

I want my presence to feel peaceful.

I think my ability to stay silent is crucial to maintaining that peaceful presence. It also protects my own inner peace. The fewer words I say, the more peace I feel. And honestly, talking too much has never helped me the way I thought it would.

I used to think “talking it out” was always the healthiest way to process emotions. But as I get older, I’m realizing that not every feeling needs to be externalized. Not every emotion needs an audience. Not every thought deserves immediate action.

Sometimes emotions are just temporary weather passing through the mind.

I can observe them without obeying them.

I can acknowledge them without turning them into conflict.

As an overthinker, I’ve learned that if I immediately vent every negative feeling to another person, I often end up feeling even worse afterward. Sometimes they don’t respond the way I hoped. Sometimes they say too little. Sometimes too much. Sometimes I realize the next day that the emotion wasn’t even that serious anymore.

And then everyone just feels drained.

So instead, I’m learning to turn inward.

To write instead of react. To journal instead of explode. To sit with my emotions before making them everybody else’s responsibility.

Honestly, some emotions are better poured into a diary, a blog post, a prayer, or silence.

Not because emotions are bad, but because not every emotion is truth.

I do not have to act on every feeling you experience. I do not have to announce every thought that crosses your mind. I do not have to explain yourself endlessly to be worthy.

I’m also trying to pause before I speak and ask myself three questions:

Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

And if the answer is not yes to all three, maybe silence is better.

Of course, this is all much easier said than done.

I still have to catch myself constantly.

Catch myself when I want to react impulsively. Catch myself when I want to say something out of anger. Catch myself when my ego disguises itself as “helpfulness.” Catch myself when I become judgmental or emotionally self-righteous.

It’s a practice. A discipline. A lifelong lesson.

But I genuinely want to be more mindful with my words. More mindful with my energy. More respectful of people’s freedom to live however they choose.

At the end of the day, I love and value myself, and I’m learning that this has to be enough. Everything else simply isn’t as necessary and needs to be let go of.

This isn’t me isolating myself from society. This isn’t me detaching from humanity. This is me learning how to manage my expectations and protect my inner peace.

I’m still human. I still get hurt. I still care deeply. But I’m realizing that most of my energy should be directed inward: toward how I speak to myself, how I care for myself, how I understand myself, how I nurture my own mind and soul.

Maybe 80% of my energy should belong to me. And honestly, the more I mind my own business, the more serene my heart feels.

I think I’m slowly learning stoicism. Not the emotionless kind. Not becoming cold or detached from humanity. But the kind where you stop allowing every external thing to control your internal state. The kind where you observe more than you react. The kind where you let people be imperfect without emotionally collapsing over it.

I’m still learning. Still striving for it. But I can feel myself changing.

Becoming quieter. Less reactive. Less attached. More grounded within myself.

And strangely, the less I try to control life, the more peaceful life starts to feel.

mindfulminion.com

Depression has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Sometimes it gets better. Sometimes it gets worse. But for the most part, it has always existed quietly in the background ~ almost like a baseline I learned to live with.

I think one of the worst periods of my depression was when I was in college at Cal State Fullerton.

Back then, even basic tasks felt impossible. Grocery shopping felt exhausting. Eating properly felt exhausting. Showering felt exhausting. This is probably TMI, but there were times when I would go days without showering because I genuinely could not find the energy to do it.

Getting out of bed in the morning felt like dragging a hundred pounds behind me.

I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to do anything.

I was not living. I was surviving.

Everything felt unbearably heavy ~ even breathing.

I used to go to sleep hoping I would not wake up the next morning. Not because I actively wanted to die, but because I genuinely could not imagine continuing to live like that forever. I had no motivation, no dreams, no excitement for the future. Nothing felt meaningful to me anymore.

Life just felt tedious.

Wake up. Exist. Repeat.

And the scariest part about depression is not always sadness. Sometimes it is emptiness. Sometimes it is feeling absolutely nothing at all.

That is what anhedonia felt like for me.

I stopped enjoying things. I stopped caring about goals. I stopped feeling interested in life itself.

Even years later, after college, I still struggled with depression in different ways. Sometimes I would procrastinate everything until the last minute because I simply could not mentally deal with it. Sometimes I would gather all my courage to start something new ~ only to quit immediately afterward because I lost all motivation the second it became real.

There were even times when ordering food felt like too much effort.

Cooking felt exhausting. Eating felt exhausting. Running errands felt exhausting. Existing felt exhausting.

I completely let go of myself for a while.

No routine. No structure. No motivation. No discipline.

And honestly, I used to beat myself up a lot over that version of myself. I called myself lazy. Undisciplined. Unmotivated. Weak.

But now I think depression is so much more complicated than people realize.

When your brain is exhausted, even tiny tasks can feel enormous.

Over time, I slowly started finding small coping mechanisms that helped me function better.

One thing that genuinely helped me was creating little checklists for myself. Crossing things off a to-do list made me feel like I had accomplished something, even if it was small. And weirdly enough, posting random mundane moments on Instagram also became a form of coping for me.

Grocery hauls Foods I eat Book reviews, puzzles and coloring pages…

To other people, those things probably looked meaningless. But to me, they were proof that I was still trying.

Almost like a visual diary reminding myself that I was still participating in life somehow.

I also realized that helping other people helped my depression tremendously.

Listening to someone vent. Giving someone a tarot reading. Supporting a small business. Leaving kind reviews. Making someone feel seen. Brightening someone’s day, even in small ways.

Those things made me feel human again.

I think that’s when I started realizing that meaning in life is not always some huge grand purpose. Sometimes the meaning of life is simply figuring things out as you go and trying your best to make your existence meaningful in your own way.

And honestly, I stopped comparing my life to other people’s lives.

I used to think I needed to be extremely ambitious, outgoing, energetic, productive, successful, adventurous, constantly traveling, constantly achieving something huge in order for my life to matter.

But now I don’t think that’s true at all.

Some people live loudly. Some people live softly.

And both are still lives worth living.

I think I’ve learned that I don’t need to become the happiest, most productive person on earth in order to deserve peace. I don’t need to force myself into becoming someone I’m not.

I can exist gently.

I can move slowly. I can rest. I can take breaks. I can work within my own mental bandwidth. I can do things at my own pace.

And that does not make my life less meaningful.

One thing I’ve also learned is that sometimes, when you’re depressed, you actually have to do something in order to slowly pull yourself out of that darkness. Not necessarily something huge. Sometimes it’s as small as washing your face. Going outside for a few minutes. Replying to one message. Cleaning one tiny area of your room.

Completion over perfection.

That mindset changed a lot for me.

I stopped obsessing over doing things perfectly and started focusing more on simply doing them at all. I stopped needing every effort to become some massive success story. Sometimes doing something just to experience it, learn from it, or grow emotionally is already enough.

And honestly, I think sadness is just part of being human.

We are not supposed to feel happy 24/7.

We are supposed to experience grief, confusion, loneliness, disappointment, emptiness, joy, excitement, hope ~ all of it. That is part of being alive.

I think learning how to live with sadness without letting it completely consume you is one of the hardest but most important parts of life.

Depression taught me a lot about myself.

It taught me resilience. It taught me patience. It taught me self-awareness. It taught me compassion for other people who are silently struggling too.

And most importantly, it taught me that I need to stop being cruel to myself for not functioning the way other people do.

I do not need to shame myself into healing. I do not need to punish myself for being tired. I do not need to earn rest.

It is okay to not be okay sometimes.

And I think being kinder to myself changed everything.

Now, even on difficult days, I still try to show up for myself in small ways. I put on makeup. I get dressed. I try to look neat and put together because it genuinely improves my mood. I try to create small moments of joy for myself instead of waiting for happiness to magically appear one day.

Because life is not a destination anyway.

There is no finish line. There is no final moment where suddenly everything becomes perfect forever.

Life is just a collection of days, moments, experiences, lessons, people, feelings, and memories.

And as long as I continue trying ~ even slowly, imperfectly, quietly ~ I think that is enough.

I think I am enough.

Even with depression. Even with anhedonia. Even with all the parts of myself I used to hate.

I am still here.

And maybe that alone already means something.

mindfulminion.com

Anxiety has been my baseline for as long as I can remember.

Not always the dramatic kind. Not always panic attacks or visible breakdowns. Most of the time, it exists quietly in the background ~ woven into the way I think, the way I react, and the way I move through life.

Sometimes I wake up anxious before anything has even happened. Before I check my phone. Before I speak to anyone. Before the day has even started.

It’s just there.

A constant feeling that something is about to go wrong.

And sometimes there isn’t even a specific reason. It’s just an overall feeling that follows me everywhere. Some days it’s manageable. Other days it becomes so overwhelming that I can’t focus on anything at all. I can’t work properly, study properly, enjoy hobbies, watch movies, read books, or even complete simple errands without my brain spiraling into every possible worst-case scenario at once.

My mind treats every possibility like an emergency.

I think about death. Illnesses. Losing people I love. Relationships falling apart. Failing in life. Making the wrong decisions. Missing warning signs. Ruining opportunities. Being abandoned. Being rejected.

Even when things are objectively okay, my brain still searches for danger.

And honestly, living like that is exhausting.

I also spend way too much time living inside “what could have been.”

The what-ifs. The would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. The imaginary versions of reality I created in my own head.

Things are supposed to go this way. I’m supposed to be this kind of person. They’re supposed to act this way. Relationships are supposed to feel a certain way. Life is supposed to look a certain way.

And whenever reality deviates from the version I already planned out in my mind, my brain struggles to process it.

I think that’s part of why uncertainty feels so unbearable to me. I become too attached to idealized expectations, imagined outcomes, and specific narratives about how things should unfold. So when life inevitably becomes messy, unpredictable, or disappointing, it feels almost emotionally catastrophic.

Not because the situation itself is always that terrible ~ but because reality failed to match the version I had already rehearsed in my head.

One of the hardest parts about anxiety is how much it distorts relationships. I become hypersensitive to changes in tone, energy, timing, expression ~ tiny things most people probably would not even notice. My brain turns uncertainty into danger almost instantly.

If someone pulls away slightly, I assume abandonment. If something feels too good, I prepare myself for it to collapse. If I feel happy, I immediately become afraid of losing that happiness.

I don’t know how to simply let good things exist without preparing for their destruction.

And sometimes that fear makes me act in ways that do more damage than the thing I was originally afraid of.

I overthink. I become emotionally reactive. I try too hard to control situations. I say things out of fear. I push people away before they can leave on their own.

At this point, I’ve basically mastered the art of ruining things before they ruin me.

It would almost be funny if it weren’t so self-destructive.

One of the worst parts is that my anxiety does not just stop at fear ~ it turns into overcorrection.

Sometimes I overthink a situation so much that I start trying to control or “fix” it before anything has even actually gone wrong. And when I feel like I’ve already messed something up, I panic and try even harder to course-correct everything afterward.

I overexplain. I overanalyze. I overcompensate. I try to force clarity, reassurance, certainty.

And ironically, the more desperately I try to fix things, the worse I make them.

Then I become anxious about the fact that I’m anxious. I become hyperaware of my own behavior, my own emotions, my own reactions, and it turns into this exhausting cycle of trying to manage myself, manage the situation, manage other people’s perceptions of me, and somehow control the narrative of everything all at once.

Which, realistically, is impossible.

I cannot control other people’s thoughts. I cannot control how people feel about me. I cannot control every outcome. And I definitely cannot think my way into permanent certainty.

But anxiety convinces me that if I just analyze things hard enough, explain myself well enough, or prepare enough for every possible outcome, maybe I can prevent pain before it happens.

Except life does not work like that.

At some point, all of that overcorrection just becomes another form of self-destruction ~ exhausting for me and overwhelming for the people around me.

I’ve self-sabotaged relationships, friendships, work opportunities, and connections with genuinely good people because I did not know how to manage my own anxiety inside those situations. I always felt like things were doomed from the beginning, so instead of relaxing into the moment, I tried to over-control everything.

And the more emotionally overwhelmed I became, the more I hated myself afterward.

That is probably the ugliest part of anxiety for me ~ not just the fear itself, but the shame that follows it.

I hate the version of myself that becomes too emotional, too controlling, too reactive, too negative. I hate losing control over my emotions because control is something I desperately cling to in every area of my life.

I think that’s also why I struggle so much with perfectionism and black-and-white thinking.

I set impossible standards for myself and then mentally destroy myself when I fail to meet them. If something is not perfect, I unconsciously feel like I have ruined everything. I struggle to accept progress because my brain constantly demands perfection, certainty, guarantees, control.

But life does not work like that.

People are unpredictable. Situations are unpredictable. Feelings are unpredictable. The future is unpredictable.

And no amount of worrying can change that.

I’ve tried therapy. Medication. Distractions. Keeping myself constantly busy so I never have to sit alone with my own thoughts. Some things helped temporarily. Some things did not. But I think one of the biggest realizations I’ve had recently is that a huge part of my suffering comes from trying to control things that were never fully in my control to begin with.

Other people’s behavior. Outcomes. Timing. The future. Life itself.

I can’t control any of it.

And maybe the healthier approach is learning to let things unfold the way they are supposed to unfold instead of trying to force certainty out of uncertainty.

If something is meant for me, it will happen. If it is not meant for me, no amount of worrying will change that.

I cannot control people into loving me correctly. I cannot control situations into becoming perfect. I cannot control fate. I cannot control every possible risk in life.

At some point, I have to let things be.

And strangely enough, the less tightly I grip everything, the lighter I feel.

Because when my brain is not constantly consumed by fear, catastrophizing, and overanalysis, I actually have the mental bandwidth to process life in a healthier way. I can think more clearly. I can make better decisions. I can enjoy the present moment instead of mentally living inside disasters that have not happened yet.

I think I also need to stop overanalyzing every emotion, every interaction, every word, every shift in energy. Sometimes things are not that deep. Sometimes people are just people. Sometimes bad moods are just bad moods. Not every silence is rejection. Not every change means abandonment.

And honestly, constantly spreading my attention across a thousand fears has only made me feel mentally stretched, exhausted, and disconnected from myself.

So now I’m trying to turn inward instead.

To focus more on my own goals. My own growth. My own inner world.

To stop giving so much energy to things that do not truly matter or directly contribute to the life I want to build.

Because the truth is, the more consumed I become with controlling everything around me, the less connected I become to myself.

And maybe peace is not about eliminating anxiety completely.

Maybe it’s about learning to pause before fear takes over. Learning to ground myself in reality instead of possibilities. Learning to let things happen without trying to control every outcome. Learning that uncertainty is part of being alive.

I still struggle with anxiety. Probably more than most people realize.

But I think I’m slowly learning that not every thought deserves my attention, not every fear deserves my energy, and not every uncomfortable feeling is a sign that something terrible is about to happen.

Sometimes the best thing I can do is breathe, let go a little, and allow life to unfold on its own.

And honestly, the less fucks you give about things you cannot control, the more room you have to actually live.

mindfulminion.com

I think loneliness has followed me for almost my entire life.

I can’t remember exactly when it started, but I know that by elementary school, I already felt different from other kids. I didn’t know how to talk to people naturally. I didn’t know how to start conversations, maintain conversations, or make friends easily. While everyone else seemed to socialize so effortlessly, I felt like I had somehow missed the instruction manual for being human.

From elementary school all the way through middle school, I barely had any close friends at all. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever truly had a best friend in my life.

I had classmates who talked to me, and most people were nice enough to me, but my strongest memory from childhood is still loneliness. During recess, other kids would hang out together while I wandered around alone aimlessly, not really knowing where to go or what to do with myself.

I was extremely shy ~ painfully shy.

I couldn’t maintain eye contact with people. I was socially anxious, socially awkward, and constantly self-conscious. I wanted connection so badly, but I never knew how to become the kind of person people naturally gravitated toward. I didn’t know how to be funny, interesting, charismatic, or socially effortless the way other people seemed to be.

And honestly, I’ve spent a large part of my life feeling fundamentally boring.

I wasn’t the smartest student in class. I wasn’t the prettiest girl either. I didn’t have extraordinary talents, fascinating hobbies, or a huge personality. Even as a child, I think I was already aware of that, and over time, my inability to connect with people slowly damaged my self-esteem.

I started believing that something about me was fundamentally lacking.

So I compensated by becoming a people pleaser.

Even with friendships and everyday relationships, I constantly felt like I had to earn people’s affection by trying harder, giving more, being more useful, more agreeable, and more understanding. I became terrified of abandonment and rejection. I worried constantly that people would leave once they realized I wasn’t “good enough.”

School was never a happy experience for me because it constantly reminded me of how disconnected I felt from everyone else. So eventually, I created my own world instead.

I started talking to myself very early on. I created imaginary conversations in my head. At night, I would comfort myself by mentally talking through my feelings before falling asleep. Honestly, I still do that sometimes even now when I feel overwhelmed or stressed.

In many ways, I became my own best friend because I didn’t really know how to emotionally rely on other people.

High school was probably the worst period socially. I barely talked to anyone. I felt almost invisible in class, like I existed quietly in the background while everyone else was fully participating in life.

Then eventually, I moved abroad to Singapore.

In some ways, things became slightly better. I had roommates, other Vietnamese students around me, and people were generally kind to me. But emotionally, I still felt isolated.

That was also my first time living independently, and I struggled with everything ~ paying bills, grocery shopping, housekeeping, ironing clothes, commuting, and simply learning how to take care of myself. Suddenly life felt overwhelming all at once.

At school, I studied science subjects, so my classes were mostly male-dominated with only a few girls. Everyone around me seemed so smart, talented, funny, and socially comfortable. Meanwhile, I felt awkward, insecure, lonely, and completely out of place.

A lot of people around me also spoke Chinese with each other, which made me feel even more disconnected socially. I didn’t necessarily struggle academically because of language, but emotionally, I constantly felt like I was standing outside conversations instead of inside them.

I remember walking home alone constantly. Eating alone. Existing alone.

And honestly, food slowly became one of my biggest emotional coping mechanisms.

I started emotionally eating very heavily during that period. Fast food, takeout, late-night eating ~ food became comfort, distraction, entertainment, and emotional relief all at once. Looking back now, I think I developed a very unhealthy relationship with food because I didn’t know how to process emotions properly.

When I felt empty, anxious, rejected, or lonely, I ate.

That same loneliness followed me again when I moved to the United States for college.

I first arrived in Seattle during winter, and honestly, I think that made everything worse. The cold weather, the rain, the darkness, the unfamiliar environment ~ all of it intensified my loneliness. Looking back now, I genuinely think I was experiencing severe depression at the time, possibly even seasonal depression on top of everything else.

I stayed with a Filipino host family at first, and they were kind to me. I even joined them occasionally for outings, fairs, and random activities like clam digging.

But emotionally, I still felt completely alone.

I remember they would sometimes have parties or gatherings at the house, and I would just hide in my room the entire time. No matter how hungry I was, I didn’t want to come out if there were too many people around. I was that shy and socially anxious.

Looking back now, I realize I wasn’t just shy ~ I was genuinely afraid of social interaction. I didn’t know how to act naturally around people, and even simple conversations felt overwhelming to me.

Eventually, I moved to California ~ specifically Bakersfield ~ and stayed with family acquaintances there while attending community college.

But honestly, that same pattern continued there too.

If there were people in the kitchen or common areas, I would avoid going out altogether. Sometimes I would wait for everyone to leave before quietly coming out to get food or use the kitchen. Honestly, it sometimes genuinely felt like a relief when the house finally became empty enough for me to come out comfortably.

However, things became much better for me academically. For the first time in my life, I actually felt proud of myself intellectually. I became an A student, graduated with honors, and built a strong academic identity for myself.

Studying became my coping mechanism.

Achievement distracted me from loneliness. It gave me structure, purpose, and temporary validation. I spent most of my time studying, doing homework, or trying to improve myself academically because it felt safer than trying to navigate relationships.

But emotionally, I was still struggling deeply.

I remember one semester especially vividly when I transferred from community college to California State University, Fullerton.

Ironically, despite being surrounded by so many Vietnamese Americans who looked like me culturally, I felt even lonelier.

I had classmates and casual friendships, but I was too shy and insecure to truly connect with people. Deep down, I always felt like I wasn’t interesting enough, attractive enough, funny enough, or valuable enough to deserve friendship naturally.

I constantly felt like I had nothing meaningful to offer people.

I remember spending holidays alone in my dorm room eating instant noodles, Rice-A-Roni, and cereal while everyone else went home to their families for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Those memories still hurt me when I think about them.

Even now, during holiday seasons, I sometimes think back to how lonely I felt in America. I remember walking around alone constantly, soul-searching, trying to figure out who I was and what the point of my life even was.

I liked America very much, but emotionally, I never felt like I truly belonged anywhere.

And honestly, I think that period was one of the darkest periods of my life mentally.

I had severe depression that probably went undiagnosed at the time. I also strongly suspect now that I had ADHD symptoms for years, but back then, I was just trying to survive emotionally day by day.

I even struggled with suicidal thoughts during that period.

And the hardest part was that I didn’t feel like I had anybody I could truly call and talk to honestly about how bad things felt inside my head.

After that, I moved to Australia for my master’s degree, and again, loneliness followed me there too.

I had roommates. I went on dates. I had casual friendships here and there. But emotionally, I still felt disconnected.

And honestly, dating often made the loneliness worse instead of better.

Because I craved emotional connection so badly, I developed limerence very easily. I would become emotionally attached to people quickly, especially emotionally unavailable men or people who seemed uncertain about what they wanted.

Sometimes I barely even knew them deeply, but emotionally, I would build entire fantasies around the possibility of finally feeling chosen, understood, or emotionally safe with someone.

And almost every time, I ended up hurt.

Looking back now, I think many of those attachments were never really about the person themselves. I think they were about trying to fill a loneliness that had already existed inside me for years.

Every failed connection reinforced my fear that maybe emotional closeness was something other people could have naturally, but not me.

That was also the period when my emotional eating and impulsive spending became worse. I would order food constantly, stay up late, spend money impulsively, and try to fill this emotional void inside of me with temporary comfort.

But the emptiness always came back afterward.

Eventually, I returned to Vietnam and started working, but the loneliness still never completely disappeared.

Honestly, working made me realize how difficult human relationships are for me in general.

I struggled badly with workplace relationships, office politics, management dynamics, and social expectations. I always felt like I had to prove myself constantly, but at the same time, I never truly felt like I belonged anywhere.

Part of it was probably because I’m naturally shy and socially anxious. Part of it was because I was already mentally exhausted from carrying years of loneliness and emotional instability. And part of it was because I do have diagnosed bipolar disorder, which affects my emotions, energy levels, and relationships more than people probably realize.

I also struggle with anger issues sometimes, but honestly, that’s probably a whole separate story for another day.

Corporate life genuinely scared me.

I hated waking up in the morning knowing I had to go to work. I hated sitting for long hours until my back hurt. I hated forcing myself to socialize when mentally I just wanted silence.

And honestly, dealing with people exhausted me the most.

Not because everyone was horrible. Some people were perfectly nice. But workplaces are still workplaces. People are stressed, impatient, passive-aggressive, dismissive, or unintentionally hurtful sometimes. And because I’m emotionally sensitive, even small negative interactions affected me very deeply.

A single rude comment could ruin my entire day emotionally.

Meanwhile, everyone else seemed able to brush things off and move on normally.

I couldn’t.

A lot of the time, all I wanted to do after work was go home, curl up in bed, and disappear from the world for a while. Sleep for five days straight. Stop thinking. Stop talking. Stop dealing with people.

And honestly, that contradiction inside me has always been confusing.

When I’m alone for too long, I feel unbearably lonely.

But when I spend too much time around people, I become emotionally drained and overwhelmed.

So sometimes I genuinely don’t know where I belong socially.

I don’t know if I’ll ever fully find “my people” or a group where I naturally fit in without forcing myself to perform socially all the time.

Maybe I will someday. Maybe I won’t.

I think living abroad for so many years also made me feel culturally disconnected in a strange way. Even though I’m Vietnamese, I don’t fully feel like I completely belong anywhere anymore. I’ve spent so much time overseas that sometimes connecting with people in Vietnam feels strangely difficult too.

Not because anyone is doing anything wrong, but simply because our life experiences are often very different.

And I think that feeling of emotional and cultural displacement adds another layer to the loneliness sometimes.

But honestly, at this point, loneliness is not something new to me anymore. It’s been part of my life for so long that I’ve stopped viewing it as some temporary phase that will magically disappear one day.

It just is what it is.

Everybody has their own struggles in life, and I guess this happens to be one of mine.

You play the hand you’re dealt and try your best to survive it somehow.

That’s really all you can do.

I don’t know whether surviving loneliness has made me stronger, wiser, or better in any meaningful way. Sometimes I still feel emotionally weak compared to other people. Sometimes I still struggle badly with overthinking, anxiety, attachment issues, and emotional instability.

But I’m still here.

And maybe resilience does not always look like confidence, strength, or fearlessness.

Maybe sometimes resilience simply means surviving things quietly for years and continuing to wake up anyway.

And honestly, maybe that’s enough.

mindfulminion.com

I used to assume everything meant something about me.

A shift in tone ~ a delayed reply ~ a sentence that felt slightly off. I would take it, turn it over, analyze it from every angle until it became a conclusion.

Usually not a neutral one. Something must be wrong. I must have said something. They must have meant something by it.

It felt like awareness ~ like I was paying attention to details other people overlooked.

But it wasn’t clarity. It was projection.

When I take things personally, I’m not actually observing people. I’m interpreting them through my own internal noise. And once I do that, I stop seeing what’s there and start seeing what I expect to find.

The reality is much less intricate than I make it.

Most people are not thinking about me like that.

They’re not analyzing my tone. They’re not dissecting my words. They’re not replaying conversations hours later.

They’re occupied ~ with themselves.

Their priorities ~ their stress ~ their distractions ~ their own version of overthinking. Whatever attention I think they’re placing on me is usually an exaggeration.

Not because I’m irrelevant ~ but because I’m not the center of their experience.

And once I accept that, a lot of things lose their weight.

What I often read as intention is usually just limitation.

Lack of attention. Lack of energy. Lack of precision.

People say things without thinking them through. They respond late, or poorly. Sometimes they don’t respond at all.

Not because there’s something to decode ~ but because there’s nothing there to decode.

And if I’m being honest, I’ve done the same.

I’ve been careless with my words. I’ve been distracted. I’ve failed to show up properly for people.

Not intentionally ~ not with meaning behind it ~ just… incompletely.

So expecting every interaction to be deliberate, measured, and emotionally precise doesn’t make sense. It only creates unnecessary friction.

Still, when I take things personally, I reduce all of that into one conclusion:

It must be about me.

And that assumption comes with a cost.

Because once everything is about me, everything starts to feel like my responsibility too.

Their mood ~ their tone ~ the way they respond ~ I start monitoring it, adjusting to it, trying to correct it.

It’s inefficient.

And more than that ~ it’s unnecessary.

Not everything requires a reaction. Not everything requires interpretation. Not everything requires my involvement.

Some things are exactly what they look like ~ brief, incomplete, and insignificant.

It’s not that deep.

And recently, I’ve started to notice something even clearer.

The way people treat me is rarely about me.

Even when something feels offensive ~ dismissive ~ unnecessarily harsh ~ it usually says more about them than it does about me.

Their tone reflects their state. Their words reflect their limits. Their reactions reflect what’s going on in their life that I can’t see.

I don’t know what they’re dealing with behind the scenes. What they’re lacking. What kind of pressure they’re under. What kind of environment shaped the way they speak and react.

Sometimes it’s stress. Sometimes it’s frustration. Sometimes it’s just the fact that they don’t have the capacity to be softer, calmer, more intentional.

And that has nothing to do with me.

It’s not proof that I’m lacking. It’s not proof that I’m not enough. It’s not proof that I deserve to be spoken to a certain way.

It’s just a reflection of where they are.

Their range. Their awareness. Their emotional bandwidth.

And I’ve also started to understand something else ~ something a little harder to accept.

People can only love me as much as they know how to love.

As much as they’ve learned. As much as they’ve experienced. As much as they’ve been given.

And sometimes, that capacity is limited.

Even with the people closest to me.

Even with family.

If something they say hurts me ~ or something they don’t do leaves a gap ~ it doesn’t automatically mean there’s a lack of love.

Sometimes it just means there’s a limit.

A limit to what they know how to express. A limit to what they’ve ever received themselves. A limit to what feels natural or familiar to them.

I’m not saying this as an excuse.

But I can see how someone who has never been deeply understood might not know how to offer that to someone else. How someone who has never been spoken to gently might not default to gentleness. How someone who has always had to be strong might come off as harsh.

They’re not always withholding something from me.

Sometimes they simply don’t have it.

And that realization changes the way I interpret things.

Because it means I don’t have to take it personally.

It’s not rejection. It’s not proof of my inadequacy. It’s not a statement about my worth.

It’s a reflection of their capacity.

And once I see it that way, there’s less to argue with.

There’s nothing to fix.

Just something to understand ~ and then leave where it belongs.

I’ve noticed that people who are genuinely content ~ grounded ~ fulfilled ~ don’t move through the world trying to tear others down.

They don’t need to.

When I feel good within myself ~ when I feel calm ~ stable ~ satisfied with my life ~ I don’t have anything negative to project onto other people.

I’m not looking for flaws. I’m not looking for reasons to criticize. I’m not trying to assert anything.

I just move differently.

And that alone tells me enough.

Because when someone is constantly harsh ~ reactive ~ critical ~ it usually doesn’t come from a place of fullness. It comes from pressure. From lack. From something unresolved.

Not something I caused ~ just something I happened to come across.

And I don’t need to absorb that.

I can recognize it ~ without internalizing it.

I can see it ~ without making it about me.

I don’t have to respond to every energy that comes my way.

I don’t have to match it. I don’t have to fix it. I don’t have to carry it.

Some people are operating from stress ~ from exhaustion ~ from a version of themselves that is constantly on edge.

And while I can understand that ~ I don’t need to take responsibility for it.

It’s theirs.

Not mine.

There’s a difference between understanding someone and absorbing them.

I can acknowledge that someone might be going through something ~ without letting that define how I see myself.

Because not everything directed at me belongs to me.

And once I really understand that, things become quieter.

More manageable.

I stop assigning meaning where there isn’t any.

I stop turning passing moments into personal ones.

I stop overextending myself into situations that don’t require me.

I start conserving energy instead of dispersing it across things that don’t matter.

I focus more on what actually matters ~ what I’m doing ~ what I’m building ~ where I’m going.

Instead of constantly circling back to what someone else might have meant.

I don’t need to do that anymore.

I can step back.

I don’t have to take everything in. I don’t have to react to every shift. I don’t have to interpret every word, every pause, every expression.

I can let things pass without engaging with them.

And most of the time, that’s the more accurate response anyway.

Because most things are not that deep.

mindfulminion.com