A letter to your heart

Perhaps years have passed over you while you tried to prove that you are worthy.

Worthy of love…
worthy of appreciation…
worthy of being seen.

So you wore yourself out with perfectionism,
and carried on your shoulders more than a heart can bear,
and came to apologise for your exhaustion and feel ashamed of your tears,
and to blame yourself for no longer being able to endure.

But let me whisper something to you that may change the way you see yourself:
your worth was never tied to how productive you are,
nor to the number of times you sacrificed yourself,
nor to your ability to hide your pain behind a calm smile.

Your worth is constant… even on the days you feel weak,
even when you stumble,
even when you need someone to hold you up.

Exhaustion does not diminish your humanity…
it reminds you that you are human.
And your ability to cry does not mean you are weak…
it means your heart is still alive, still able to feel.

And from the perspective of compassion,
healing does not begin when you stop feeling the pain…
it begins when you stop fighting yourself because of that pain.
When you replace the voice of the inner critic with a more merciful one.
When you say to yourself:

I do not need to be perfect in order to deserve love.
I do not need to hide my weakness in order to be strong.
And I do not need to carry the world alone in order to have a place in it.

Life will not be free of challenges…
but it becomes lighter when you are not your own adversary.

Be the person you once wished would sit beside you in your moments of weakness.
Speak to yourself as you would speak to someone you love.
And hold your own heart as you would hold the heart of a frightened child.

For the most beautiful journey in life…

is not to become someone else…

but to come back to yourself and find in yourself the safety you spent so long looking for.

So be gentler with your soul…

for perhaps the one who most needs your mercy today…
is you.

Coach / Hala Thabet
Developing emotional self-awareness