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What does it mean to come home to yourself?
For me, it began with a trembling question—a small voice rising in my chest: What about me?
I’ve always prided myself on being the emotional caretaker of others. Stepping in to help a friend when they were struggling, papering over the cracks when family discord reared its head—always trying to maintain a semblance of normality.
I painted myself as a “good hostess,” the “family glue,” the “trustworthy friend.” I told myself that these skills were invaluable in my career, where networking and making others comfortable at events were part and parcel of the culture. I believed it was a strength—even a sign of emotional maturity—to have the foresight to predict and manage other people’s comfort and proactively soften the blows of life.
It felt like love. It felt like safety. It felt normal.
And yet, by constantly enmeshing myself in other people’s emotions, I was blind to the impact it had on me—how much the care-taking wore me down. No matter how strong I thought I was, the weight I carried would always come out sideways—frustration or anger covering up a desperate plea that never quite left my lips: It’s too much.
Those who have known me for a long time know that I can be volatile, moody, and angry. I acutely recall the painful sting of past friendships ending when friends finally had enough and decided to enact their own boundaries. At the time, I couldn’t understand why. I had no concept of how a line could be irrevocably crossed, that an apology couldn’t always magically repair a relationship.
I didn’t recognise the boundaries for what they were because I had never learned to hold them for myself. Instead, they felt like soul-level betrayals: But I look after other people’s volatility—why can’t you hold space for mine?
I was Luisa Madrigal from Encanto, the older sister with the magical power of superhuman strength, the one who could take on the world—an ability those around her often exploited. But like Luisa, eventually there came the straw that broke the camel’s back:
“I’m the strong one, I’m not nervous
I’m as tough as the crust of the Earth is
I move mountains, I move churches
And I glow, ’cause I know what my worth is
…
But under the surface, I feel berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus
Under the surface, was Hercules ever like, ‘Yo, I don’t wanna fight Cerberus?’
Under the surface, I’m pretty sure I’m worthless if I can’t be of service
A flaw or a crack, the straw in the stack
That breaks the camel’s back—what breaks the camel’s back?”
~ “Surface Pressure,” Encanto
When the straw came and I finally dared to whisper, I matter too, the ground beneath me shifted. The guilt threatened to choke me, my identity began to unravel.
Reinvention comes with rupture. It is a quiet violence that tears open the old structures of belonging. It felt dangerous. Difficult. Not just to others, but to myself. I began to see how the patterns I had so carefully named were also the walls that had kept me from my own becoming. Everything I’d known began to crumble.
When you step into your own becoming, you are suddenly vibrating at a different frequency than those around you. And that difference can feel like an exile, a desperate clawing back to the safety of what you know, the illusion of control.
The bubble I had built for protection—the one where I carefully managed and controlled those around me while remaining an emotional live-wire myself—finally burst. And I have been left with raw nerve endings and a deep, ancestral wound begging to be healed.
In the midst of this unraveling, I tuned into a conversation between Victoria Hart and Stacey McDaniel on Awaken Your Multidimensional Self. They spoke of the power in the simple act of dropping in, checking in with your heart chakra, and asking yourself in the quiet that follows: What next step serves my highest good?
In their words, I was reminded that aligning with my higher self doesn’t promise a life free of challenge. Instead, it invites me to respond rather than react—to soften into the knowing that I am always guided, even when I feel alone.
Stacey’s gentle reminder echoed in my mind: Your higher self speaks with love. It doesn’t rush; it doesn’t demand. It invites you to pause, breathe, and trust the unfolding—even when it hurts like hell.
That message helps me sit with this messy, in-between stage—after awakening but before real change. I am learning that cycle breaking isn’t about proving my worth to those still asleep. It isn’t about rushing forward to control the outcome or pushing solutions onto a new lens of my life. It is an act of profound self-respect and radical self-love—something wholly incompatible with the martyr complex of caretaking.
I am returning to my worth, my truth, my soul—to a place in me that had long been waiting to be seen. A place that still trembles under the weight of ancestral expectations, that still invokes a sickened, nauseous response when it comes at the expense of others’ comfort. It is a place that should feel natural and whole, yet at times feels so unsafe—too bright, too exposed, too much.
It hurts to stand here, knowing that not everyone in my life may understand why I’m choosing this path. That my growth might feel like betrayal to them. That I still hear echoes of the same destructive script I’m trying to break free from: Why wasn’t I being amenable? A team player? Since when was I so selfish?
This isn’t a polished transformation; it’s a slow, sometimes painful return. And it is incredibly lonely—a splitting of worlds where the old vibration can no longer hold me, and I can no longer pretend to belong.
If you too are standing at the edge of your own unraveling, I invite you to pause with me. Take a breath. Ask yourself: What is my next honest step?
Even when the mind wants to rush in and fix, perhaps the most radical thing we can do is to let the heart lead. To choose patience and connection, rather than control and force. To remember: you are already whole, already worthy.
~
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