Held
For so long,
I believed I was the one
holding everything together.
The family.
The future.
The healing.
The answers.
The next chapter.
As if the whole sky might fall
if I loosened my grip
for even a moment.
And my culture cheered me on
as I gripped tighter
and carried more.
I learned to brace.
To prepare.
To strategize.
To account for every possible ball that might drop.
To stay one step ahead of tomorrow.
But then something shifted.
I began to catch small glimpses.
As if butterflies were landing
just for a brief moment
on the palm of my hand.
Wordless whispers—
There’s another way.
I began to sense something—
as if I had known it forever
but had forgotten.
Before I had ever learned
to hold the world,
the world was already
holding me.
Before I was taught
to make smart choices,
control the outcomes,
and navigate the pitfalls…
I was already breathed.
I was already lived.
I was already part of
the magnificence of the universe.
And that gentle butterfly
landing briefly on my hand
whispered
What if you are simply expression of the Universe?
An activity of Life itself?
What if my greatest exhaustion
is NOT from carrying so much
but from believing
it is all on me to carry?
That I am somehow separate from Life?
Needing to hold my breath,
to wait for the finish line
before finally exhaling and relaxing…
What if the tension, the fatigue,
the heaviness…the overwhelm…
was never about my circumstances?
What if I was always being pointed back
to a greater truth—
that Life has always held me
breathed me
lived me
carried me forward.
So today,
I will remember—
I do not have to wait for
any finish line
any conclusion
any resolution
or any answer
in order
to exhale
to relax
to let go of it all
and just
Be Held.
A few nights ago, after I had returned from 6 hours of prepping for, co-hosting, and cleaning up from a bridal shower, Pete and I found ourselves doing something I imagine every couple has done a thousand times. We started just being annoyed with each other as we stood in the kitchen. We weren't having a big fight. There were no raised voices or slammed doors. We were simply...tired. The kind of tired that makes two grown adults sound suspiciously like two little kids who missed their afternoon nap. Every little comment seemed to land sideways. Every tiny inconvenience felt just a little bigger than it really was. We were both trying so hard to be patient, and yet patience itself seemed to have quietly slipped out the back door.
Finally, Pete looked over at me with the sweetest expression and said, "It's been a really crazy few weeks for me. How about you?"
It was such a simple statement, but somehow, in that one small moment, the room softened. It was as though we had both been carrying heavy backpacks and, for just a moment, looked at each other and said, "Oh...yours is heavy too."
Pete continued with another comment that, in the moment, my mind fell for, hook, line, and sinker. It sounded so RIGHT…so true…
"Don't worry. In a couple of weeks, after Megan and Taylor both move, we'll finally be able to exhale and get back to normal.”
My adorable little mind immediately agreed with him…Yes, of course! As soon as the girls are settled, then Life will slow down and we can exhale. Until then, we’ll keep our heads down and hold our collective breath a little longer.
It felt so unquestionably true…until I noticed a subtle ACHE in my body as I digested what my mind was telling me about holding it all together JUST a little while longer.
And there it was: The LIE hiding in plain sight—the way that lies love to do.
The human mind loves to hide its lies right in the middle of indisputable facts.
The surface-level facts are true, so we tend to assume whatever unconscious beliefs are beneath the facts must also be true.
In this case, Megan is moving to California. And Taylor will be moving back to Tennessee four days after that. And, there are a lot of details with both moves that Pete and I are helping the girls manage. All Facts.
And, it is most likely true that after Megan and Taylor’s moves are complete, Pete and won’t have THOSE details to contend with any more.
But beneath those surface-level facts, just a few layers down, there are a whole host of old, conditioned beliefs that are cleverly hiding beneath my level of awareness.
To keep things even more interesting, the human mind also loves to disguise its lies as promises of RELEIF.
It’s like a bait-and-switch. It whispers, "Just hold on a little longer."
"Just make it through this season."
“Just hang in there until the doctor calls…until the treatment is finished…”
"Just get past this next hurdle."
"Then you can finally breathe."
The mind loves to tuck its clever little promises of feel-good moments right in the center of the lies. Just like it did when Pete said, “Don't worry. In a couple of weeks, after Megan and Taylor both move, we'll finally be able to exhale and get back to normal.”
But when I was able to “swim down”—as I love to do when I become suspicious of my mind’s promises of future relief—I realized that there was a deeper belief hiding beneath that promise: I must hold it all together as best as I can until that moment arrives. In this case, until Megan and Taylor are all settled into their respective states.
And I think this may be the lie that is hiding for all of us when we say things like, “I’ll be happy when…” or “I’ll relax when…” or “I’ll be OK when…” or even “I’ll finally consider myself healed when…”
It’s not that the surface-level details are false. They usually are.
The lie hiding in plain sight when we belief that we’ll be “happy or relaxed or OK when…” is this: “I am the one holding it all together, and I am the one who must move life forward. It is on me to make me OK.”
And, thankfully, that belief HURTS.
If believing I was separate from Life felt peaceful, I might never question it.
But the belief in separation is painful by design. Not as punishment, but as a kind and loving invitation to ask, “Is this really true?”
False beliefs are designed to hurt—to be the incentive to wake up. To question what has been handed to you as The Truth for your entire life.
I don't think I've ever fully appreciated just how profound this understanding is until now.
False beliefs hurt, by design.
The suffering is not the enemy—it is the guide. The hand to walk me home.
What if the ache we all feel when we tell ourselves, "Just hold it together a little longer..." isn't evidence that life is too hard?
What if it is evidence that we are believing something that simply isn't true?
What if the exhaustion isn't necessarily coming from Megan moving across the country or Taylor moving to Tennessee?
Those circumstances absolutely require energy. They ask things of us. They stretch us. But there is another kind of exhaustion layered on top of the natural demands of being human.
It is the exhaustion that comes from believing that I, this separate little self, must somehow keep the whole story moving in the right direction. I must be vigilant enough, wise enough, prepared enough, productive enough, loving enough.
I must not drop the ball.
I must not fall behind.
I must hold my breath until I finally reach the finish line where life will FINALLY stop asking so much of me.
No wonder we are tired. It is not because life is asking something of us.
It is that we have innocently accepted a job description that was never ours.
When my girls were little, they would sometimes fall asleep in the back seat of the car on the way home. They never once opened one sleepy eye to make sure I remembered the way home. They never sat up to monitor the traffic or double-check the GPS or remind me to stop at red lights. They didn't carry the responsibility of getting us home because somewhere deep inside they already knew something that adults spend decades trying to remember.
They were being carried.
I wonder if that same knowing has never actually left us. I wonder if it has simply been covered over by years of well-intentioned conditioning that taught us to hold responsibility like a badge of honor. To wear vigilance like a cloak. And to equate CONTROL with safety.
Somewhere along the way we began believing that if we relaxed our grip for even a moment, everything precious would fall apart.
And yet...somewhere just beyond the ability of our mind’s ability to comprehend…our hearts already remember the truth—
Life has always quietly carried us through every chapter we've ever lived.
Not always in the way our mind hoped for or expected. But in a way that makes sense to the greater intelligence that is holding everything.
What if—just beyond the mind’s dramatic, compelling stories—there is already a place inside each of us that KNOWS it’s OK to exhale now?
Before one more answer, conclusion, resolution, or finish line is met?
What if—beyond the mind’s ability to understand this—our heart is already pointing us back to truth. We are held.
Life is already holding it all.