Unaltered Voices

  Why do I keep getting lost? Every time I claw my way back to the path, Something pulls me sideways, Detours me into darkness, And my hands fumble for hope I can’t seem to hold. The last time, I lost it so far back It took me years to trace my footsteps. I found pieces of myself in the lost and found, Hidden between the faded pages of old messages, Where I met my ex And thought maybe they were the way forward. But they weren’t. They were just another maze That swallowed me whole. Another time, I lost hope And stumbled on it again in a new opportunity A fresh door, a small light. But every time I sink, It takes forever to climb back out. Searching for keys that were right in front of me Doesn’t compare to losing something I sometimes handed away willingly. Growing up, Hope slipped from my hands so many times That I had to rebuild it from scratch. You’d think after that, I’d have learned to hold it tight. But here I am again, Empty-handed, Looking around for a ride to go pick it up....

  I’m reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle, and one line stopped me in my tracks. She wrote about how she once believed that happiness was the only feeling we were meant to keep , and everything else was a problem to solve, fix, or numb. I understood exactly what she meant. So many of us were taught that if we’re not smiling, we’re broken. If we’re not joyful, we’re doing something wrong. And anything uncomfortable, anger, sadness, grief, anxiety should be buried, silenced, or quickly managed so we can “get back to normal.” But what if those feelings are part of our normal? When I was coaching, one of the things I was most passionate about was teaching my clients how to feel , not fix, suppress, or analyze, but just feel . Because most of us don’t know how. We were never taught. We learned to hide. To busy ourselves. To smoke. To drink. To binge. To people-please. To take pills just to quiet the ache. I’ve done it. I used to take pain meds to escape what I didn’t have the tools...

I’m a solution-oriented person. I don’t dwell on the same problem for too long, not because I lack emotion, but because life trained me that way. I give space for feelings. If you need to cry, vent, or process, I’ll hold space for you the first time. But after that, I want to move forward. Not because I don’t care, but because staying in it too long creates emotional chaos that drains the spirit. I’m like this because I had no choice. I’ve been solving my own problems since childhood. Not figuratively, literally. I was a child in a house full of adults I couldn’t turn to. And the worst part? The very people I should have gone to were the source of the problems I needed solutions for. When your caregivers are the chaos, you learn early how to quiet your pain and keep moving. I didn’t have time to cry. I had to figure it out. That’s why I don’t spiral now, not because I’m healed completely, but because I had to survive. I’ve tried sharing these truths, but people either try to exploit t...