Episode 9: Making Room for a Self You Haven’t Met Yet

What’s coming isn’t a better version, but a truer one. You are not reaching for some higher state, and this was never about fixing something that wasn’t broken to begin with. This is the slow, almost imperceptible shedding of roles that overstayed their welcome roles that once made sense, or helped you get through, or bought you time in rooms where you couldn’t yet be fully known. But now they weigh differently, and now, they ask too much.

They demanded a version of you that could hold everything together, that could tolerate more than it could express, and that knew how to adapt without asking what it cost, and maybe, for a long time, that was needed. Maybe you learned to excel in places that didn’t see you clearly. Maybe endurance became your strength because you weren’t given other choices, but now, something softer and deeply rooted begins to rise, something that stands with both feet on the ground. Something that doesn’t ask to be liked, doesn’t shrink to make others comfortable, and doesn’t wait for recognition to feel worthy. Something that simply lives.

This self emerges slowly, like a tide returning to shore. It doesn’t need a name. It doesn’t need to be defined before it can be trusted. It comes to life in how you speak without rushing, in how you say no without guilt, in how you enter a room without adjusting your presence to fit what’s expected. There are no sharp edges here, just a sense that you are no longer trying to be palatable. You are simply choosing to be whole.

The distance between who you were and who you are learning to honor can feel strange. There’s no clear destination and no single moment when everything clicks into place. Instead, there are small recognitions: how your body softens in new spaces, how your decisions feel less like negotiations and more like declarations, and how your breath settles when you stop performing safety and start feeling it.

And yes, it can feel disorienting because when you’re no longer holding yourself together out of habit, you’re learning to hold yourself differently, with more care, more honesty, and more presence. The old markers of success don’t apply. The validation you used to reach for doesn’t land the same, and sometimes, what used to fit now feels distant. That’s growth moving through you, asking for room. So give it that, in the way you stop apologizing for needing space, in the way you stop asking others to tell you who you are, in the way you meet yourself in the mirror and no longer look away.

You don’t need to have it all figured out to be in motion. You don’t need to explain the in-between. All you need is enough space to breathe and the courage to stay, especially when it feels new, especially when it doesn’t come with a name yet. This is where everything begins again, as something unpracticed and alive that’s finally fully yours.