Overcoming Codependency: Breaking the Cycle of Unhealthy Relationships

“A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” ~Melody Beattie

From a young age, I felt insecure in my own skin. I was a highly sensitive child and, subsequently, struggled with low self-worth for most of my life.

Although I had many friends and a good family, I consistently looked for approval outside of myself. I grew up believing that the opinions of others were the only accurate representations of my core worth.

As a teenager, I witnessed the crumbling and eventual demise of my parents’ marriage. During these years, I felt a lot like an island.

I was often plagued with a dark, mysterious unhappiness. The standard teenage growing pains conglomerated with the trauma of losing my familial identity. In a desperate attempt to counter these negative feelings, I sought the approval of others; when it was not provided, I felt like a failure.

I was caught up in a vicious cycle of seeking outside confirmation that I was good enough.

At school, I adopted the role of boy-crazy-funny-girl. I wanted to be adored and nurtured and cherished.

I kept a list of all the cute boys at my school and spent hours daydreaming about a blissful, fairy tale love.

I consistently focused on seeking happiness outside of myself. This habitual practice, over time, led to an inability to be content unless something or someone was providing validation. Most of the time, I felt like I was not good enough.

This falsely instilled belief led me into a decade-long struggle with codependency.

The first codependent relationship I was involved in began when I was nineteen. He was ten years older than I was, and, unbeknownst to me at the time, a cocaine addict.

Our routine was unhealthy and unproductive. We would spend our weekends drinking and gambling at a local pool hall. More often than not, I spent my entire weekly paycheck by the end of Saturday night.

He belittled me, called me names, and consistently criticized my appearance and weight. He compared me to his previous girlfriends. I began to see myself as an incomplete person, one who was in need of major repairs and upgrades. I was so emotionally fragile that the wind could’ve knocked me over.

In a frantic effort to self-preserve, I adopted several fear-based behaviors. I became obsessed with him. I was controlling and jealous. I needed to know everything about his past. I wanted desperately for him to accept me.

Over the ten months we spent together, I neglected my body and mind. My weight dropped a staggering thirty pounds. I was completely disconnected from my family and friends. I developed severe anxiety and suffered crippling panic attacks. I knew something had to change, so I gathered the courage and left him behind.

I thought that I was rid of this unhealthy and unsatisfying lifestyle, but the bad habits carried into my next two relationships.

I spent four years with a person that I loved very much; however, his alcohol dependency brought all of my insecurities and controlling behavior back into play.

We spent four years flip-flopping between wonderful loving moments and horrific physical fights that left us both numb and depressed.

When this relationship ended, I sought comfort in yet another unavailable partner, one that could not provide me with the stability that I so badly needed.

Such is the nature of the codependent person. We seek out what is familiar to us, but not necessarily what is good for us.

After logging close to a decade-worth of codependent hours, I finally faced myself. I knew that if I didn’t make significant changes, I would be forever trapped in a life that was unconducive to my spiritual and emotional growth.

In a scene eerily similar to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love bathroom breakdown, I faced the music. I got myself a small apartment and started my recovery.

The first few days spent alone were absolutely torturous. I cried and cried. I had trouble doing basic tasks, like walking my dog or getting groceries. I had completely turned inward, nurturing my turmoil like an old friend. Anxiety-ridden and lonely, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked for help.

The first step I took was ordering Melody Beattie’s book Codependent No More. This is probably the most significant self-improvement book I have ever read. I felt a weight being lifted as I read, page by page.

Finally, I was able to understand all of the behaviors, feelings, and emotions I had struggled with for so long. I was a textbook case, my highlighter affirmed as I completed the “codependency checklist.” Perhaps some of these questions will speak to you, as well.

• Do you feel responsible for other people—their feelings, thoughts, actions, choices, wants, needs, well-being, and destiny?
• Do you feel compelled to help people solve their problems or try to take care of their feelings?
• Do you find it easier to feel and express anger about injustices done to others than about injustices done to you?
• Do you feel safest and most comfortable when you are giving to others?
• Do you feel insecure and guilty when someone gives to you?
• Do you feel empty, bored, and worthless if you don’t have someone else to take care of, a problem to solve, or a crisis to deal with?
• Are you often unable to stop talking, thinking, and worrying about other people and their problems?
• Do you lose interest in your own life when you are in love?
• Do you stay in relationships that don’t work and tolerate abuse in order to keep people loving you?
• Do you leave bad relationships only to form new ones that don’t work, either?

(You can read more about the habits and patterns of codependent people here.)

After acknowledging my codependency, I connected with an online support group for family members of addicts/alcoholics. This gave me a platform to share my story, without judgment, and little by little, I healed my aching heart.

The most significant things I learned on this journey are:

1. Without change, nothing changes.

This is such a simple yet profound truth. It’s reminiscent of Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The cycle of codependency can only be overcome by establishing and nurturing a super-loving relationship with yourself. Otherwise, you will continually find yourself in unhealthy, codependent relationships.

2. We can’t control others, and it is not our job to do so.

Over the years, I was constantly trying to control and micromanage other people’s behavior in an effort to escape my own negative feelings.

I chose partners with alcohol and drug dependencies. Often, I chose angry and avoidant men. By focusing on what was wrong with them, I could ignore what was empty and unfulfilled in me.

I thought, naively, that this would give me a feeling of stability. In fact, it did the opposite. Surrendering the need to control other people provides us the necessary space to connect with ourselves.

3. Love and obsessions are not the same.

I falsely believed for many years that love and obsession were one and the same. I gave so much of myself to my partners, naively thinking that this was the road to happiness.

I’ve learned that healthy love requires both partners to have unique, individual identities outside of the romantic relationship. Time alone, with friends, and to work on personal projects allows you to really connect when you are together, without feeling suffocated. We build trust when we afford ourselves and our partners some breathing room.

For many years I neglected my own needs. I now prioritize personal time to do individual activities: reading, writing, walking, reflecting. I started to heal once I learned to incorporate self-love rituals into my life. One of my favorite things to do is spend the evening in a warm bubble bath, light some candles, and listen to Alan Watts lectures.

4. Life is not an emergency.

This is a biggie! I consistently lived in a high-stress vortex—terrified of people, abandonment, and life itself.

I worried so much about all of the things that were outside of my control—often, other people. I realize now that life is meant to be enjoyed and savored. Good and bad things will happen, but with a centered and balanced heart, we can get over any obstacles.

The key to balance, for me, is to live fully in every moment, accepting life for what it is. Even when I’m feeling down, I know that the Universe has my back and everything in life is unfolding as it should.

If you don’t hold this belief, it might help to remember that you have your own back, and you can handle whatever is coming. When you trust in yourself and focus on yourself instead of others, it’s much easier to enjoy life and stop living in fear.

—

I have assembled a group of super-hero coaches and teachers that have helped me significantly over the years in my quest for self-improvement. I have loving support and encouragement from so many sources. It’s my dream to be able to give some of that back to the world. I hope I have done that with this post.

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About Ariane Michaud

When not devouring every foreign film she can get her hands on, Ariane loves snuggling with her pug and running tirelessly down the road towards self-fulfillment. Though she is excessively organized, she is spontaneous when it comes to love.

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The Problem with Being the Easy One

“We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.” ~François de La Rochefoucauld

“So, in your relationship, do your partner’s needs always dictate how things go?”

My therapist looked at me quizzically after I’d just shared with him that our dinner plans had suddenly changed the night before because my partner was tired from a long day at work, and I just went along with what he needed.

He had initiated a night out, I had dressed up and prepared for a restaurant meal, and when I arrived at his place, he was exhausted and decided he wanted to stay in and defrost something instead. In the moment I said, “I don’t mind—happy to do whatever you want,” and I meant it. I genuinely, completely meant it.

Except that later, as I recounted the story sitting in the therapy chair and on the other side of my therapist’s question, I noticed myself defending him and defending my position. Being a therapist myself, I know that when I defend anything, something is amiss.

As I sat with myself, I realized that the truth was the last thing I wanted that night was a defrosted meal.

I have been a fawner for most of my life, though I didn’t always have that word for it. I just thought I was easy-going, flexible, accommodating, and deeply attuned to the people around me.

I’ve always thought my flexibility was a virtue and the sensitivity I had to others was a gift, and in many ways that’s true. They make for great skills as a therapist.

What I could not yet see was that underneath those qualities, woven so deeply into my personality that they had become almost indistinguishable from who I believed myself to be, were patterns of self-abandonment so subtle and so refined over decades that they no longer felt like patterns at all. They just felt like me.

That is partly why fawning can be so difficult to recognize. It doesn’t feel like trauma. It feels like being thoughtful, accommodating, emotionally intelligent, and deeply attuned to the people around you.

You are praised for it. You become the easy one, the loving one, the person who keeps everything harmonious and connected.

It can genuinely feel good to be needed in this way, and when you get the external validation for it as well, it becomes a reinforcing loop that keeps you loved externally. But eventually the body and your relationships begin carrying the cost of everything the personality has learned not to feel.

The larger and more visible expressions of the pattern become easier to catch over time. You build awareness, feel them showing up in your body before they take hold, and learn to respond differently.

But the subtle ones… they very sneakily become part of your identity. Built into the way you view yourself and the way you do life. The super easy, completely convincing way I would say, “I don’t mind, you choose,” and I believed it and commended myself for it. After all, I was flexible.

Which makes sense, really, because fawning is ultimately about one thing, the terror of disconnection.

In intimate relationships especially, where the connection is your anchor of safety, rupture can be felt as genuine terror.

The fear is that if I am too much, not enough, or inconveniently myself… you will leave, and I will be alone. So I lean in, read your temperature, and adjust myself accordingly, attune and give you what you need, because as long as I do that, the connection holds.

From the outside, fawning looks like consent. But the body is always saying no.

As a fawner, my sense of safety lives entirely outside of my own body, in the temperature of yours. As a result, I become extraordinarily skilled at reading that temperature. I know, before you have even said a word, whether you are okay or not okay, present or absent, open or closed, and I shape myself accordingly. We are master shapeshifters.

Who do I need to be so that I can keep this safe?

That question hums beneath the surface of so many interactions, so subtly and for so long, that I stop hearing it and just become who I need to be.

And in order to bring all of that attention to you, I have to leave myself. I have to override my own body, my own feelings, instincts, and needs, and I do it so automatically and completely that after long enough it no longer registers as a choice. This is just me.

Until, of course, a life event comes along and rattles the cage.

To be clear, fawning is not a pattern I want to demonize. It is an incredibly intelligent safety strategy; it is the nervous system finding a pathway toward safety through connection and accommodation when fighting, leaving, or shutting down does not feel possible.

The issue is not the response itself, but when it becomes so chronic and so embedded that we lose contact with who we actually are beneath it.

The cost of this disconnection always comes. Often with a disconnection with the body. We cannot unconsciously fawn and also be connected to our physiology at the same time.

It also comes with a sense of resentment that builds in the background, without a clear place to pin it because you were never allowed to have it in the first place.

Maybe with a relationship that feels close but somehow isn’t, because you are performing inside it rather than living inside it. Maybe it comes as the persistent sense that people don’t really know you, understand you, or appreciate you. Feeling unseen, unheard, and unvalued is commonplace. Maybe the cost is in your health. After decades of suppressing who you are, the body begins screaming with symptoms you can no longer ignore.

Underneath all of the accommodation, there is a part of you that is always waiting. 

Maybe if I just do enough, you will finally see me.

Maybe if I give you what you need, you will be who I need you to be.

Maybe if I am very, very good, you will then be good to me.

The hope that someone will finally see you, finally reciprocate, finally show up the way you keep showing up for them, is the very thing that keeps the pattern alive and breathing.

Hope, for a fawner, keeps you waiting and waiting for something to finally change. It is what keeps the loop open.

And the moment connection wavers or breaks, when silence or distance shows up or uncertainty settles between two people mid-conflict, we can find ourselves suddenly adrift. I have felt it so many times, that feeling of swimming in open water with no ground beneath me, not knowing what I am feeling, where I am, or what comes next, reaching for something, anything, to hold me in place.

In those moments, the mind gets very, very busy. If the thing that was keeping me anchored—the warmth of the connection, the felt sense of being okay in your eyes—is suddenly gone, the mind will clutch, grasp, and reach for anything and everything.

Sometimes it goes to fixing. Sometimes to a fantasy of a different life, a different future, a different partner. Sometimes to fault-finding, building a very convincing case for why I am better off without them. And when you look closely at all of it, you begin to see the same impulse moving through each one—the nervous system reaching for any lever that might restore a sense of control or safety.

It is a beautiful, exhausting illusion. A cognitive loop that keeps you activated and stressed and distanced from yourself.

What we actually need to feel in those moments is the groundlessness itself. This is the gateway.

The unsteady ground is the passage to our own inner ground. To feel the loss of connection, the emptiness and aloneness that arrives in its absence as something that can be survived, something that does not have to be immediately fixed or fled from or explained away. And to discover that in this groundlessness and in this aloneness, you are not only still here, but you are in fact at home. That something inside you that holds strong, even when the external anchor is gone.

It is only from here that anything real becomes possible. Including the thing that frightens most fawners more than the disconnection itself.

Speaking.

When we try to speak up, the terror can genuinely be visceral. Something in the body contracts and shuts down, the voice gets crackly or disappears completely, the mouth goes dry and the body can be shaky. All because the nervous system has learned over a very long time that conflict, rejection, and criticism are all deeply unsafe. And it is not going to let you forget that, no matter how many times you tell yourself that was then and things are different now.

The body continues to protect you the only way it has ever known how.

Breaking this pattern is ultimately about learning to feel again.

Underneath the performance and all the years of shaping yourself to the needs of others, there is a whole emotional world that has been waiting.

In so many people I work with, we meet a well of fear that was never allowed to be felt, stores of anger that had nowhere to go and got stuffed down, depths of grief for all that was lost or never possible, and a tenderness toward yourself that perhaps nobody ever modelled for you.

Coming back to yourself means growing the capacity to feel all of it—slowly and at a pace that feels safe, in the body and in the presence of someone safe enough to hold it.

We hurt in relationships, and we heal in relationships.

If you are someone who fawns, please do not be hard on yourself. This pattern is woven into your identity, your relationships, and the way you move through the world. The threat your nervous system feels when you consider speaking up, disappointing someone, or risking a loss is very, very real.

It is a deeply embodied survival response, shaped by everything—culture, gender, religion, family systems—and it asks for patience and compassion, not self-criticism. Whatever the origin of your particular flavor of fawning, it made enormous sense given the world you were navigating. It kept you safe.

So be kind to yourself. Be genuinely, tenderly kind.

The pathway out is not to hold tighter. It is to learn to be with the open water. To cultivate, slowly and with enormous patience, an internal ground so rooted and so genuinely yours that the uncertainty outside loses its power to undo you.

It took me years, a deeply embodied practice, a great deal of time in my own company, therapeutic relationships where I was held safely enough to try something different, and an intimate relationship where both of us have named our patterns and agreed to hold space for each other to move through them. Where I can practice saying the thing I would once have swallowed whole and be met with understanding rather than reaction.

What made all of this possible was safety. Inside myself, inside the therapy room, and inside my intimate relationship.

And what I know to be true is that when you build enough inner ground, when you are genuinely not afraid of being alone, not afraid of conflict or rupture or someone’s disappointment, something profound shifts. Life begins to rearrange itself around the truth of you. What needs to go goes. What is truly meant for you stays. And you finally land in yourself.

There will almost certainly be losses. People who needed your smallness and silence will struggle with your changing, but that disintegration is the pattern breaking. And what becomes possible on the other side—the relationships, the life, and the version of yourself that is actually, truly, fully you—is worth every uncomfortable moment of getting there.

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About Maraya Rodostianos

Maraya is an integrative somatic therapist offering in-person sessions in Melbourne and online worldwide. Blending modern neuroscience on trauma and the nervous system with psychotherapeutic tools and ancient wisdom traditions, she takes a holistic approach that integrates mind, body, spirit, and the nervous system. She works at the intersection of trauma, authenticity, embodied spirituality, and well-being, guiding clients to release what blocks them from living as their most authentic, whole, and embodied selves.
 You can find her at http://marayarae.com. Facebook / Substack / Instagram

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Learning How to Live Life to the Fullest with Mental Illness

There is a famous Latin phrase that I absolutely love: Carpe diem. It means “Seize the day.” Younger people might be more familiar with the phrase “You only live once,” or YOLO. Both phrases encourage people to live their lives to the fullest.

I have struggled with depression and anxiety since my childhood, making it difficult to live by these phrases and enjoy life. I’ve missed out on a lot of precious moments with loved ones.

Recently, however, my mental health has been taking a turn for the better, and I’ve been doing my best to make up for all the quality time I missed. 

I’m a practicing Christian, and my church recently had a gathering or social event. Usually at social events, I’m a wallflower. I don’t participate much, preferring to watch and laugh from the sidelines. At this particular gathering, I was often front and center, dancing a lot.

One fellow church member even told me he didn’t know I danced like that. I can’t dance, by the way, but I assume he was saying he couldn’t imagine me dancing so freely. It felt really good to let loose and enjoy myself with my fellow church members.

There were family members at the gathering with me, and I would not have participated if they weren’t there. I hardly make decisions without my family’s input because my anxiety gets in the way, and I have a hard time trusting my own decisions. My confidence clearly could use more work, but for right now, I’m glad I had a good time at the gathering. This wasn’t the only recent time I stepped outside of my comfort zone, though.

I have been participating in my church more and speaking up Bible study meetings. I usually don’t share my thoughts in group settings because I generally don’t like when attention is on me. However, I’ve been getting more comfortable with attention.

Every week, my church holds prayer meetings, and one of my church’s members recently asked me to lead a prayer meeting on Zoom. I was nervous about taking on the task, but I decided to accept it.

After the meeting, everyone told me I did a wonderful job. Some even told a family member of mine how well the meeting went.

During the meeting, I did a small presentation on the history of Mother’s Day, and a member who saw the presentation was able to recall details of it and share them with another member who hadn’t attended. That made me so happy because that means she was actually listening and paying attention. It also means she enjoyed the meeting.

These two recent events, the social gathering and the prayer meeting, reminded me of how far I’ve come on my journey of dealing with my depression and anxiety.

My family has also noticed the change. I mentioned earlier that I’ve missed bonding moments.

During a recent conversation with a family member, we had a discussion about the family going to see “Superman: Man of Steel” in the theater some time ago. I mentioned that I didn’t go that day, and my family member replied that she remembers me having my “moments” during that time.

It’s true that back then I was dealing with a lot of depression episodes, and I isolated myself a lot. The isolation only made my depression worse, and my relationship with my family members worsened as well.

They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t joining in on group activities. I also got offended very easily, making my family members feel they had to be extra careful with me. They believed they were walking on eggsshells when interacting with me.

Part of me believed what I was going through was normal. Another part of me knew something was off, but I didn’t want to admit I was dealing with depression. I didn’t want to deal with the stigma.

As time went on, though, I started to grow tired of dealing with my depression. I wanted to be happy. I wanted healthier relationships with my loved ones. Healthier relationships with my family started by building a relationship with my therapist.

For a long time, I didn’t want to talk about my depression with anyone because I was ashamed. However, my therapist helped me feel comfortable discussing my mental illness. Once I felt more comfortable, I started talking with my family about my mental health.

Opening up to my family helped them understand me and built a stronger bond between us. My family may not fully be able to understand me and my decisions, but they try. That’s what’s important because it helps me feel understood.

I went too long assuming my family wasn’t interested in understanding me and believing they thought of me as weird. My assumptions were wrong. Not only do my family members want to understand me, but they also accept me completely.

I made the same assumptions about friends and my church family as well, so I avoided getting involved in church. I mostly went straight home after service, skipping fellowshipping and socializing. Just like I was wrong about my family, I was wrong about my fellow church members. Ever since I started participating more in church, I’ve been receiving nothing but support and praise.

The love and encouragement I’ve been receiving have helped to reshape my thinking. Not everyone is judging me, and there are people who are happy to have me in their lives. This helps me feel much more comfortable being myself.

I might run into people who will be mean and judge me, but I am surrounded by more people who support me than not. I’m learning that what others think about me often has nothing to do with my worth.

If you’re like me and you’re dealing with depression and anxiety, know that you’re not alone. Not only are there many people who are living with mental illness like you, you have people around who love you. And there’s a good chance these people would be willing to help you if you let them in.

Opening up and giving your trust to others is not easy. However, when love and happiness pour into your heart, you’ll be glad you took the risk and opened the door. Don’t let mental illness isolate you and keep you from enjoying life. Carpe diem, my friend. Carpe diem.

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About Charli Dee

Charli Dee is a blogger who lives in the United States. She writes on a variety of topics, but she mostly focuses on writing about her experience living with Turner syndrome and mental illness. When she is not writing, she can be found spending time with family and friends. Visit her blog https://lifewithcharli.home.blog and say hello. You can also find her on social media: Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest

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What I Learned from a Lifetime of Feeling Different

“Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.” ~Henry David Thoreau

I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I was standing just outside the circle.

Not always, but whenever I stepped back and looked at the whole of my life, the thread running through has been a sense of being on the outside looking in.

I think that feeling drove me for a long time. I wanted to prove something, to earn my place through effort and excellence. I wanted to be the kind of person people were glad to know.

I pushed myself in sports, trying to make great plays to draw appreciation from the crowd. I dreamed of playing my bass guitar with such energy that the people listening would feel it moving through them. I built up my resume and did all I could to become a great teacher, the kind who changes lives.

Those desires came from a deep place in me. The love of the game, the pull of music, and the joy of teaching well were all true expressions of my heart. But woven into all of it, underneath all of it, was also a longing for connection.

Each of those aspirations became realities in one form or another, and I gave myself to them fully. What I found inside them, though, was something I hadn’t expected. The belonging I’d been striving for wasn’t something I could will from the outside.

I was in my early twenties when I arrived in Philadelphia for graduate school, still carrying all of this with me without knowing it. A friend brought me to a party one cold night, a gathering of close friends in someone’s backyard, and we were all standing around a pool.

The group was chatting away and enjoying the evening. I tried moving from one small conversation to another, searching for a way in. Nothing worked.

After an hour or so, I stood at the edge of the pool, and something moved me.

Without thinking, I stepped off the edge into the deep end. Fully dressed. The cold water closed over me, and I stayed under for a few long seconds.

My friend was embarrassed. I was numb. We drove home in silence, me soaking wet in the passenger seat.

I couldn’t explain what I’d done, not that night and not for a long time after. The memory sat with me for thirty years, surfacing from time to time, painful and strange. And beneath the strangeness of it, there was something else, a layer of embarrassment I hadn’t yet found the courage to look at directly.

The embarrassment went deeper than the act itself. Underneath it was something I had kept hidden even from myself, which was how badly I had wanted to belong that night and how exposed that wanting had left me.

For years, I carried shame about that night, as though needing to be seen and valued was a weakness or a flaw in my character. It took me decades to understand that the need itself was never the problem.

I read something a while back that made me think. For nearly all of human history, people lived in small bands, twenty or thirty or fifty people, and your place in that group was everything. It determined whether you ate, whether you were protected, whether you and your children survived.

I also read that the brain processes the pain of being excluded through the same pathways it uses for physical injury. So, while my cold plunge was odd and unexpected even for me, it was also a response to something ancient and true.

Researchers who study this have put the need to belong in the same category as hunger and thirst. Needs that every human being has, whether we recognize it or not.

I didn’t know any of this when I stepped into that pool in Philadelphia. And after much painful reflection, I’m realizing now that I wasn’t needy in a shameful way. I was simply a young man painfully alone in a crowd.

I think, in that moment, I chose the rejection I could control over the rejection I couldn’t. The cold water was honest. It didn’t pretend I belonged, and if I was going to be outcasted, I decided to be that fully.

What I’ve come to see is that the humiliation I experienced at the party and afterward in thinking about it for all these years was part of my becoming who I’ve always been meant to be.

Because I know what it’s like to feel unseen, and I know the shame of feeling it, I can recognize that struggle in other people, and I can help. I’ve lived too close to the ache of isolation to mistake it for something else or to look past it when someone else is suffering.

Thirty years has been enough time to watch the patterns of my life come into focus. And what I see now is that the feeling I spent so long trying to escape was giving me insight into something I couldn’t have understood otherwise: in one way or another, we all need belonging.

When I walk into a room today, whether it’s a party, a family gathering, or at work, my attention moves toward the person standing alone.

The one who’s laughing a little too eagerly at something that wasn’t that funny. The one attached to their phone because it’s easier than sitting there without a purpose. The one who arrived hoping tonight would be different and who’s starting to wonder if it will be.

I know that person. I’ve been that person, and in some ways, I still am that person.

The feeling of not belonging doesn’t disappear just because you become aware of it and work on it, at least it hasn’t for me. It eases at times, but it never fully leaves. And I’ve stopped waiting for the day it does.

What I’ve found instead is that the pain becomes something you can carry without being crushed by it. It becomes a part of who you are that you learn to accept, relate to, and even draw strength from, because it keeps you honest about what it means to be human.

That’s what my life’s journey has become. What I want people to know and to feel in their bones when they leave a room is this: You are seen. You are heard. You are valued. And you are loved.

I’ve had to be honest with myself about the limits of those words. When I was hiding the parts of myself I was afraid to show, no reassurance from the outside could fully reach me. And sometimes the people around me weren’t looking carefully enough to find what was good in me anyway.

I had to admit that the belonging I was yearning for wasn’t always being blocked by my own walls. Sometimes it just wasn’t being offered. Let’s face it, the world can be a cold and cruel place at times.

I’ve learned that we tend to give others what we most need ourselves, and that’s certainly true for me. The pain I experienced didn’t just wound me. It showed me what I was made for.

Not everyone will see you for who you really are. Some people will be tuned to a different frequency, and that will hurt. But the more honestly you offer yourself to the world, the more you give the right people a chance to know you.

That belief has been tested and proven in my own life. In my twenties, I thought it would be funny to bring a homemade Key Lime pie to a New Year’s Eve party full of people trying hard to look cool. It was kind of like bringing baked goods to a nightclub and a perfect example of my off-beat sense of humor.

One young woman laughed out loud when I offered up the pie and joined me at the kitchen table for a slice. We talked and enjoyed each other’s company until the party faded into the background.

That young woman became my wife.

We’ve been together for over twenty-five years, and she’s since told me she never liked Key Lime pie. The truth was, she just wanted to get to know the guy who was brave enough to be himself in a room full of people pretending to be someone else.

The qualities that make you most yourself are visible to people who know how to look. You have a place in this world right here and now, as you are, not once you have earned it. And when you show others what’s true about you, you give the right people a chance to find you.

The calling to see people, to help them open up and truly belong, isn’t something I chose. I found it by following my own wound, my own need for the same thing, all the way to its other side. It’s been an ongoing journey with hard falls along the way, but it’s the most valuable thing I have ever stumbled into.

The young man I was when I stepped into that pool in Philadelphia wasn’t broken. I was, in my own hurting and wordless way, searching for something true. And although I still struggle with belonging from time to time, I’ve found it.

I’ve learned to belong to myself. I’ve learned to see the pain that people carry but rarely name and to recognize it without judgment because I know it from the inside. That sight has changed me from someone who was grasping for a place to belong into someone who tries to create that place for others.

The outside is a hard place to learn. But it teaches you to see.

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About Daniel H. Shapiro

Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, author, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out yourinherentgoodness.com.

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How My Need to Clean Was a Childhood Coping Skill

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E. Cummings

When I was a little girl, I had the smallest bedroom in the house.

It was tiny. Honestly, probably the size of a small walk-in closet. But it was mine. And for the first time, I got to choose what it looked like.

I remember picking out baby blue wallpaper with little pink flowers on it. My mom put it halfway up the wall with a wood border, and the top half stayed white. I chose a soft blue carpet to match. I had a twin bed, a small desk, and just enough space on the floor to sit next to my bed.

It wasn’t much, but I loved that room. I was proud of it.

Every morning in the summer, I had a routine. My mom would leave for work, and I’d wake up and pour myself a bowl of cereal. Back then, I was a picky eater and pretty much only ate sugar. Hello, 1990.

After my breakfast, I’d start cleaning my room and get ready to go to the neighborhood pool down the street.

I made my bed. I picked everything up. I vacuumed the carpet. Every day.

The neighborhood pool didn’t open until noon, and I’d walk there by myself, but before I left, my room had to be clean. It wasn’t something I questioned. It was just what I did.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. It felt normal. It just felt good. I liked how my room looked when everything was in its place. I liked the way it made me feel.

But I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand that outside of my room, my life felt anything but calm.

I grew up in a home where you never quite knew what was going to happen next. There was tension, fear, and a constant sense of walking on eggshells.

You didn’t know what kind of mood someone would be in or what might set things off. You learned to pay attention to everything—tone, energy, small shifts—because those mattered.

Even when nothing was happening, it didn’t always feel calm. There was a kind of unpredictability that stayed in the background.

Even as a child, you learn to read energy before you understand it. And when you can’t control what’s happening around you, you find something you can control.

For me, that was my room.

In that space, everything stayed where I put it. Nothing surprised me. Nothing felt unpredictable.

Looking back, I can see that I wasn’t just cleaning. I was creating a sense of stability in a life that didn’t have much of it.

I was giving myself something steady to hold onto. I didn’t have the language for it then, but I feel it now when I think about that little girl, moving around her room, making sure everything was just right before she left for the day.

It wasn’t about perfection. It was about feeling okay. That realization didn’t hit me until recently.

I was cleaning my house, listening to an audiobook. I hadn’t even planned on doing much, but once I got started, I became completely immersed in it.

And it hit me. This isn’t new.

I clean when I’m overwhelmed. I clean when I’m angry. I clean when things feel off.

It’s almost automatic. For a long time, I questioned it. Why can’t I relax when things feel messy? Why do I feel this need to fix everything before I can settle down?

It felt like something in me wouldn’t settle until everything around me was handled.

I’d try to ignore it sometimes and tell myself to sit down, relax, and leave it for later, but it wouldn’t last long. Because I knew how it would end. I wouldn’t feel calm until it was done.

That little bedroom wasn’t just a room. It was the one place I felt safe. It was the only place in my life where I had control.

Cleaning isn’t just something I do. It’s something I go to. It was how I created that feeling, the feeling of calm.

When I saw it that way, something shifted.

It stopped feeling like something I needed to fix and started feeling like something I could understand and even respect.

There are a lot of ways people can cope when life feels overwhelming. A lot of ways people try to regain control when things feel uncertain. And this? This is one that brings me back to myself.

Instead of questioning it, I understood it. Instead of thinking, “Why am I like this?” I thought, “Of course I am.”

A lot of what we do as adults doesn’t start here. It starts much earlier in ways we don’t fully understand at the time.

We adapt. We find ways to cope. We create small pockets of control, safety, and relief wherever we can.

And those patterns don’t just disappear. They follow us. Sometimes quietly, sometimes in ways we don’t even question until something makes us stop and look closer.

For me, it looked like cleaning. Not because I needed everything to be perfect, but because order helped me feel grounded. It gave me something steady to come back to when everything else felt uncertain.

And when I look at it that way, it changes how I see myself. Now, when I find myself wiping down counters or reorganizing a space when I’m overwhelmed, I don’t fight it the way I used to.

I recognize it. It’s familiar. It’s something that’s been with me for a long time. But more than that, it’s something that helped me get through. And maybe that’s the part worth paying attention to.

Not just the pattern itself but what it was doing for me. Because when we start to understand where our behaviors come from, something shifts.

We stop reacting to ourselves. We start seeing the connection. We start realizing that the things we’ve carried with us, sometimes without even noticing, were never random.

They were responses. They were ways of adapting. They were ways of making life feel manageable, even when it wasn’t.

If you find yourself repeating certain behaviors, it may be worth asking what they’re giving you, not just why they’re there.

When you can see that clearly, there’s less judgment, more awareness, and more choice.

That little girl cleaning her room every morning wasn’t trying to be perfect. She was creating something she needed.

And in a lot of ways, I still am.

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About Cylina Miller

Cylina Miller is a writer focused on self-awareness, emotional growth, and understanding the deeper “why” behind our patterns. Through personal experience storytelling, she explores how early experiences shape the way we think, feel, and navigate life. She shares more reflections and resources at: https://cylinamiller.myflodesk.com/zp48cnsbhw.

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What Happened When I Stopped Managing Every Reaction

“Peace is not the absence of resistance. It is learning to stop judging yourself for being human.” ~Unknown

At the time of writing this, I am on vacation.

My wife and I are parked beside a quiet lake in our RV, our small moving version of home. We’ve always loved that part of it: bringing our little piece of the world wherever we go. Our coffee mugs. Our blankets. Our favorite foods. Our routines. The small familiar things that make an unfamiliar place feel like ours.

This morning, the lake looked perfectly still.

Rain tapped softly against the windows. The sky was gray and heavy in that familiar way that suggests the weather may get worse before the day is over.

The forecast was supposed to be perfect: mid-eighties, sunshine, the kind of weather people imagine when they think about peaceful weekends away.

Yesterday was warm, but relentlessly windy. Not just breezy. Windy enough that we kept checking the awning. Windy enough that the chairs needed adjusting. Windy enough that even relaxing felt like it required a little management.

This morning the rain moved in early, and there was talk of storms later as a cold front pushed through.

There was a version of myself, and if I’m honest, sometimes there still is, that would have quietly resisted this entire day because reality failed to cooperate with the expectation I had created for it. Not dramatically. Just internally. That subtle tension. That invisible argument with what is happening.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to go.”

I think a lot of suffering hides inside that sentence, not from pain alone, but from the resistance to pain, change, and the simple fact that life has not aligned with the script we wrote for it.

And often, the resistance to our own reactions.

The disappointment we think we shouldn’t feel. The frustration we think we should have outgrown. The anxiety we believe should be gone by now.

I’ve done this with weather forecasts. But I’ve also done it in relationships, at work, in grief, in healing, and in my own head.

I’ve felt it when a conversation with my wife didn’t go the way I hoped, and instead of simply admitting I felt hurt or did not agree, I started building a case in my mind.

I’ve felt it at work when one interruption turned into five, and the day I planned slowly disappeared.

I’ve felt it when I woke up anxious for no obvious reason and immediately started questioning why it was still happening. Still this? Still here? After all this practice? After all this breathing?

That is the part I don’t always like to admit, especially as someone who practices meditation and mindfulness.

I know how to pause. I know how to breathe. I know how to notice the thought before becoming it. I know the language of acceptance.

What I didn’t always realize was that I was trying to accept reality while quietly rejecting my own experience of it.

And still, there I was: annoyed by the rain, checking the forecast again, trying to breathe my way out of being disappointed.

I used to think letting go meant becoming untouchable. Like if I meditated enough, reflected enough, and healed enough, eventually life would stop affecting me so deeply.

I thought awareness was supposed to make me calmer, more evolved, less reactive.

But somewhere along the way, even awareness started feeling performative.

Every difficult emotion became something to optimize. Every uncomfortable moment became a lesson I needed to extract meaning from. Every reaction had to pass through some invisible spiritual filter before I allowed myself to feel it.

Was I dealing with attachment? Ego? Resistance? Misalignment?

Another thing to fix?

It became exhausting. Not because mindfulness has no value, but because I had turned awareness into another system of control.

Sometimes I did this in small, almost invisible ways.

Maybe a text didn’t come back as quickly as I hoped, and I told myself I was observing my attachment. But really, I was just frustrated, and sometimes mad.

A plan changed at the last minute, and I told myself I was practicing flexibility. But really, I was irritated.

There is a kind of honesty that gets lost when everything has to become a lesson too quickly.

Underneath all of that was another fear: if I really let go, if I stopped managing every reaction, maybe I would stop caring.

Maybe acceptance would make me passive. Maybe peace would make me detached. Maybe I would become one of those people who could shrug at everything and call it wisdom.

But that never happened.

I still cared. I cared about the day. I cared about my wife. I cared about the time we had together.

What I started to understand was that letting go was never about caring less. It was about demanding less perfection from myself.

It was about allowing a moment to be disappointing without turning my disappointment into another personal failure.

That was the real thing I finally started to see.

I had not only been resisting reality. I had been resisting the fact that I still resisted reality. That second layer is exhausting.

It is one thing to be disappointed by rain on vacation. It is another thing to judge yourself for being disappointed by rain on vacation.

It is one thing to feel irritated when plans change. It is another thing to decide that irritation means you are not as peaceful, evolved, or grounded as you thought you were.

That is where I think a lot of us get stuck.

We do not just feel what we feel. We evaluate it. We grade it. We compare it to who we think we should be by now.

And sometimes mindfulness, if we are not careful, becomes another way to do that. Instead of giving us more room to be human, it becomes another standard we are failing to meet.

Meditation is where I notice this most clearly.

I sit down, close my eyes, and immediately start trying to have the “right” kind of experience. I want my breath to be deep. I want my mind to quiet down. I want my body to soften. I want to feel calm, open, grateful, wise.

But usually, the body tells the truth before the mind is ready to admit it. My jaw is tight. My chest is guarded. My thoughts are loud. My breath is shallow.

And then I try to fix that too. I try to breathe better. Relax better. Accept better.

Which, of course, is just another form of control.

The harder I try to make the breath feel natural, the more unnatural it becomes.

But every once in a while, I stop interfering for a second. Not because I figured anything out. Not because I reached some higher state. I just get tired of managing myself.

And in that small space, the body remembers. The breath moves on its own.

Not perfectly. Not spiritually. Just honestly.

Maybe living is similar.

Maybe peace is not the absence of chaos. Maybe peace is learning to loosen the constant negotiation with reality, while accepting that sometimes I will still resist it because I am human.

So this morning, as rain settled over the campground and the forecast changed yet again, I found myself saying:

“So what.”

Not with bitterness. Not with apathy. Almost with relief.

Because maybe this is the adventure. Not the polished version. Not the curated version built from perfect weather, perfect moods, and perfect beliefs. The uncertainty. The shifting sky. The storms rolling in unexpectedly. The mystery of not fully knowing what the day will become.

Later, after the rain slowed down, my wife and I stepped outside.

The chairs were still damp. The air felt cooler. The lake looked different than it had earlier. Not better. Not worse. Just changed.

Nothing about the day had followed the picture I had in my mind. But we were still there. Together. Coffee in hand. Watching the water.

And I realized how many ordinary moments I have missed because I was busy comparing them to the ones I imagined, and then resisting my own resistance.

Maybe that is what I had been looking for all along. Not a mind that stopped feeling. Not a mind that stopped reacting. Not a mind that finally figured out how to stay calm through everything.

Just enough freedom to stop demanding every moment become something else before allowing myself to live it.

I do not mean I became enlightened. I just mean I stopped trying so hard to become someone who never gets caught.

I stopped turning every uncomfortable feeling into a self-improvement project. I stopped needing the moment to become something else before I agreed to live it.

I let the day be a day. I let the weather be weather. I let myself be a person who sometimes still wants sunshine when it rains.

And I stopped treating that desire as evidence that I was doing something wrong.

Later, the sky eventually cleared.

There was a breeze. It was warm again. Almost exactly the kind of weather I thought I needed in order to enjoy the day.

Which felt funny.

Not because it proved some grand spiritual point, but because life keeps changing before I can finish deciding what it means.

Maybe that’s the practice.

Not to stop caring. Not to stop hoping. Not to stop feeling disappointed when things change.

But to stop making every change a personal betrayal. To stop needing reality to match the script before I let myself be here.

Because this is the life I keep getting. Not the polished version. Not the version in my head. This one: rainy, windy, clearing, changing, uncontrolled, and alive.

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About Brian Reich

Brian Reich writes about mindfulness, self-honesty, and living with a less scripted mind through Unscripted Mind, Just Breathe, and The Pause Room. His work explores the ordinary moments where awareness, resistance, humor, and humanity meet. You can find his free writing and resources at just-breathe.ghost.io.

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The Wonder and Heartbreak of Life Under Our Sky

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

It was my son’s fifteenth birthday. His basketball game got canceled, so my wife, my son, and I climbed back into the car a bit disappointed and started the drive home.

We were just heading back to the house as we always did after games. My wife was mid-sentence when something caught my eye before she could finish it. There was an orange light in the sky.

I almost didn’t say anything. It seemed like it might be a plane, and I didn’t want to interrupt. But something about it was different.

It wasn’t blinking. It wasn’t moving the way planes move. And then it started leaving a streak, a long, blazing trail that burned across the dark sky.

I said, “Hey, what’s that?” and all three of us looked up through the windshield in the same moment. It moved across the sky for a few seconds and then got smaller and disappeared.

We pulled out our phones and found what we already suspected. A meteor, probably, maybe a fireball. We had guessed as much.

But knowing the word didn’t change what we’d felt watching it cross the sky. The way each of us had gone quiet at the same moment, like something in us recognized it before our minds did.

Science can tell you what a thing is. It can’t tell you why it finds you when it does. We drove the rest of the way mostly quiet, that streak of light still playing in our minds.

We got home, lit the candles, and cut the cake. After our son blew out the flames and made a wish, I wondered what he was hoping for while my wife pulled up old photos. One minute we were eating, and the next we were passing the phone around the table, looking at pictures we hadn’t seen in years.

There was my son at four years old, cheeks round, grinning at something off camera. There we were at the beach, all of us squinting into the sun. We laughed at our haircuts and the bathing suits we thought looked cool at the time.

But underneath the laughter there was something else, something that left us breathless and a little undone. We tried to fend off that feeling by saying things like, “Look how little you were,” and “I can’t believe that was so long ago.” At one point we just sat there for a moment without saying anything, each of us looking at the same picture, feeling the same thing.

How did we get here so fast? Where did all that time go? You look around at the people you love, and the only thing you really want, the thing underneath all the wishes and candles, is just for everyone to be okay.

But none of us knows what the future holds, and sitting there with cake on our plates and a meteor still fresh in our memories, I felt the pain of that truth more than usual.

I’ve been sitting with questions since that night. Was there meaning in that orange flash? Was the universe offering us something, or was it just a random event?

I don’t know. And I’ve made a kind of peace with not knowing. What I do know is that beauty is everywhere if we’re paying even a little attention.

Seeing a meteor with your family is the kind of thing that makes you stop and wonder what else might be out there. These moments don’t announce themselves and don’t ask permission. They just appear, out of nowhere, in the middle of a drive home.

But on that same drive you might hear on the news about people being killed in a place far away or not so far away. You might see an old man sitting alone at a table in a lit window as you pass and wonder who he’s missing. You might hold someone you love and know, somewhere inside, that you won’t always be able to.

The same magical world that offers you a blazing light in the sky also carries unexplainable suffering, sometimes within the same hour, sometimes within the same mile. This is the part I find hardest yet most necessary to hold. Life is wonderful and terrible at the same time.

Most of us are never taught how to carry that. We’re taught to fix things, to find silver linings, to move forward. But some things ask only to be acknowledged.

The meteor was there, whole and bright and burning through the dark, whether we understood it or not. The brokenness in the world was there too. Both were true on the same night under the same sky.

I don’t think we’re meant to resolve that tension so much as learn to live inside it. To let the beauty be beautiful without needing it to cancel out the pain. To let the grief be present without letting it swallow the light.

That’s not a solution. It’s something more demanding than a solution. It’s a practice, and some days it’s harder than others.

But I think it’s the only way to be fully alive to your own life, to drive home after an evening that didn’t go as you’d hoped it would, look up, and see what’s there.

My son turned another year older on the night we saw that meteor cross the sky. We didn’t plan it, and we weren’t watching for it. We were just driving home from a canceled basketball game, and something wonderful arrived.

I don’t know if it meant anything. But I know it was there, and I know we saw it together. And I know that the same world that can break your heart can also set the sky on fire.

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About Daniel H. Shapiro

Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is keynote speaker, author, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out yourinherentgoodness.com.

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How to Suffer Less When You’re Waiting for Answers

“Rule your mind or it will rule you.” ~Buddha

Some mornings I wake before dawn and lie still, listening for signs that the house is awake.

A cough down the hallway.

The sound of a drawer opening.

Water running softly in the kitchen sink.

My mother is ninety-seven years old now, and before my feet even touch the floor, part of me is already listening for proof that the world has not changed overnight.

When I hear movement, I exhale.

Only then do I reach for my phone.

I tell myself I’m just checking messages. But lately I’ve realized I am usually checking for something else entirely.

Relief.

An email from an editor. A response about work. A call. An opportunity. Some sign that the future is still opening rather than slowly narrowing.

Usually there is nothing.

Or almost nothing.

Spam. A medical reminder. A discount offer. Silence disguised as activity.

One morning recently, I stood in the kitchen refreshing my inbox while my coffee cooled untouched beside me. I had already checked several times before sunrise. I knew there was no reason to look again. Still, my thumb pulled downward automatically, as if certainty might finally appear if I repeated the motion enough times.

Refresh.

Nothing.

Refresh.

Nothing.

Outside, the world remained completely ordinary. A neighbor walked a dog. A car door shut somewhere down the street. Light slowly entered the room.

But inside me, something was tightening.

I have never been good at waiting. Not ordinary waiting. Not lines or traffic or delayed appointments. I mean the deeper kind—the waiting that depends on forces you cannot control.

Waiting for medical tests.

Waiting to see whether your body will worsen or stabilize.

Waiting beside old age.

Waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting for someone to answer with the same energy you brought to them.

Waiting to know whether your work, your voice, or even your presence still matters in the world.

And beneath all of it, the waiting we rarely admit aloud:

Waiting for loss.

The strange thing about waiting is that nothing appears to be happening from the outside, yet internally it can consume entire days.

The mind fills silence with interpretation.

Maybe they aren’t interested.

Maybe I waited too long in life.

Maybe the opportunities are gone now.

Maybe I am becoming invisible.

At some point, waiting stops being about time.

It becomes about worth.

What unsettles me most is not the silence itself but how quickly I abandon the present trying to escape it. My mind races ahead, rehearsing futures that do not yet exist. I imagine illness worsening. Financial collapse. Death. Loneliness. The quiet emptiness that may one day fill this house.

I try to solve tomorrow before today has even arrived.

Buddhism calls this suffering dukkha—the deep unsatisfactoriness of trying to hold still a life that constantly changes. And beneath that suffering is tanha: craving. The desperate wish for certainty, resolution, permanence.

I can feel craving physically.

In the tightening chest. In the restless refreshing of email. In the inability to settle into a single unfinished moment.

The Buddha described five hindrances that cloud the mind, and while waiting, I seem to meet all of them.

Restlessness urges me to check once more.

Doubt whispers that my value depends on being wanted.

Aversion makes me resent silence itself.

Fear projects suffering into futures that have not happened.

And exhaustion quietly asks whether any effort matters anymore.

None of this changes reality. It only pulls me further away from the life unfolding directly in front of me.

One afternoon, after another spiral of checking messages and imagining outcomes, I finally set my phone face down on the table and sat still.

Not peacefully.

Just still.

At first, I noticed the tinnitus.

A thin, continuous ringing in my ears that I usually resist or try to ignore. But over time, through meditation and reading about Nada Yoga—the yogic practice of inner sound—I’ve started relating to it differently. Instead of hearing only irritation, I sometimes hear continuity. A current beneath thought. A reminder that silence is never completely empty.

So I sat there listening.

The ringing.

My breathing.

A bird outside.

The faint sound of my mother moving slowly through the house.

For a few moments, nothing resolved.

The future remained uncertain. The emails unanswered. The body vulnerable. The losses still inevitable. But something softened anyway.

I realized how much of my suffering came not from waiting itself, but from my refusal to let the moment remain unfinished.

I wanted reassurance before living. Certainty before trusting. Guarantees before relaxing into the day.

But life was never offering guarantees.

Only participation.

The Eightfold Path, I’m beginning to understand, is not about transcending ordinary life. It is about learning how to remain present inside it.

Right mindfulness means noticing fear without fully becoming it.

Right effort means gently returning when the mind races toward catastrophe again and again.

Right view means recognizing that impermanence is not a mistake in the system. It is the system.

I still struggle.

Some mornings I wake already anticipating grief before anything bad has even happened. Sometimes I still refresh my inbox too often. Sometimes silence still feels personal. But now there are moments when I stop fighting the unfinished nature of life.

Moments when I simply listen.

To the ringing in my ears. To my own breathing. To the sounds of my mother still alive in the next room.

And slowly, waiting becomes something different.

Not punishment.

Not paralysis.

Practice.

A practice of staying present while the mind begs to escape into certainty.

A practice of realizing that worth cannot depend entirely on responses, recognition, or guarantees about the future.

A practice of remaining here for the fragile life that is already happening.

Happiness still comes and goes for me. But calmness asks less.

It does not require answers. It does not require permanence. It does not even require the waiting to end.

Only attention.

Only presence.

Only the willingness to remain inside this moment before rushing toward the next one.

So these days, when I feel myself reaching again—for reassurance, for resolution, for proof that everything will be okay—I try to pause.

I listen.

The ringing. The breath. The small sounds of life continuing around me.

And for a moment, the silence no longer feels empty.

It feels alive.

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About Tony Collins

Edward “Tony” Collins, EdD, MFA, is a documentary filmmaker, writer, educator, and disability advocate living with progressive vision loss from macular degeneration. His work explores presence, caregiving, resilience, and the quiet power of small moments. He is currently completing books on creative scholarship and collaborative documentary filmmaking and shares personal essays about meaning, hope, and disability on Substack. Connect: substack.com/@iefilm | iefilm.com

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