The Space Between Breaths

There's a moment when the summer air touches your skin and something ancient within you remembers. Remembers what it was to simply be. Before the algorithms told you how to speak. Before your worth became measured in likes and shares and perfect corner-staged photographs of your supposedly effortless life.

I felt it yesterday. Walking down the street, the weight of expectations hanging from my shoulders like an overloaded backpack - laptop, phone, to-do lists, others' opinions, global tragedies - all strapped to my frame and digging into my skin. And then, just a whisper of warm breeze, and suddenly that invisible rucksack slipped off. The weight I'd been carrying (had I even noticed how heavy it had become?) lifted, if only for a breath.

And in that breath: freedom. Like a bird that's been in a cage so long it's forgotten the feeling of wind beneath its wings until that first moment of flight.

Do you remember freedom? The kind that existed before we learned to contort ourselves into the shapes that others expected? The kind that didn't need filtering or captioning or carefully crafted messaging? It's like we've all been playing an elaborate game of Twister, limbs stretched in impossible positions just to touch all the colored dots of societal expectation simultaneously.

We've become so good at it, haven't we? The daily performance. Making sure our LinkedIn voice hits that perfect note of authoritative-yet-approachable. Curating our homes to appear both lived-in and impossibly tidy. Carrying the world's sorrows in our pocket—scrolling past war and famine between coffee shop selfies - trying to balance awareness with sanity. It's like conducting an orchestra where every instrument is playing a different song, but somehow we're expected to make it sound harmonious.

It's exhausting. Like running a marathon in shoes that are two sizes too small while carrying a tower of china dishes that must not break.

And somewhere beneath it all, a quiet voice keeps asking: Where did I go? Like a child lost in a department store, calling out among the racks of other people's expectations.

The Weight We Carry

The heaviness doesn't arrive all at once. It accumulates in layers, like sediment slowly turning to stone within us:

• The pressure to optimise every word we write online (hello, algorithm gods, are you pleased with my sentence structure today?)—each post another brick in the wall between our authentic voice and what we share

• The impossible dance of staying informed about global suffering while maintaining our mental health—like trying to keep your balance on a tightrope that's constantly swaying in unpredictable winds

• The exhausting performance of having the perfect home, perfect appearance, perfect career—as if life were a movie set where the props must always be perfectly arranged before the cameras roll

• The constant awareness of how we're being perceived through the countless digital windows we've installed into our lives—like living in a house made entirely of two-way mirrors

We carry these expectations like stones in our pockets until walking itself becomes an act of endurance. We're like deep-sea divers who've forgotten we're wearing weighted belts—wondering why it's so hard to rise to the surface of our own lives.

But what if there was another way? What if we could shed these layers one by one, like a snake slipping free of old skin that no longer serves it?

Finding Your Way Back: The Wholehearted Path

I've been sitting with Brené Brown's work on wholehearted living lately. In those moments when I can barely remember who I am beneath all the shoulds and musts, her framework feels like a compass pointing home when I've wandered too far into the forest of expectations.

Here's what that journey might look like:

1. Choosing Authenticity Over People-Pleasing

This morning, I caught myself crafting a message that wasn't mine. You know the feeling—fingers hovering over the keyboard, mentally calculating how the words would land, who might approve, who might judge. Like a politician poll-testing phrases before a speech. I stopped. Placed my palms flat on the desk. Asked myself: What do I actually want to say?

The answer was simpler. Messier. More true. Like hearing your own voice on a recording—surprising at first, but undeniably yours.

Tiny Practice: Before hitting "post" or "send" today, pause and ask: "Is this me speaking, or is this me performing?" Let the answer guide whether you press that button.

2. Embracing Self-Compassion Over Perfectionism

My kitchen counter currently hosts a small monument of unwashed coffee cups. Two days ago, this would have been evidence of my failure as a functioning adult—each cup another exhibit in the case against me. Today, I'm practicing seeing them differently—as artifacts of mornings spent writing instead of cleaning, of choosing creative flow over domestic perfection. Like growth rings in a tree, each cup marks a moment of choice.

(The cups will get washed. Eventually. The world continues spinning, indifferent to my dishwashing schedule.)

Tiny Practice: Notice one area where you're holding yourself to an impossible standard. Write down what you'd say to a dear friend in the same situation. Then—this is the hard part—say it to yourself.

3. Building Resilience Instead of Numbing Vulnerability

I've become a master at not feeling the uncomfortable things. Work stress? There's a scroll for that. Relationship uncertainty? Let me just check these emails. Climate anxiety? Perhaps this online shopping cart will help.

We've developed such sophisticated emotional escape hatches—each notification a trapdoor through which we can disappear rather than face what's rising within us.

But the path back to ourselves runs directly through the feelings we're avoiding, like a traveler who must walk through the storm to reach shelter.

Yesterday, when that familiar tightness rose in my chest, instead of reaching for distraction, I simply breathed with it. Three breaths. It wasn't comfortable. But in staying, something softened—like ice yielding to the first warmth of spring.

Tiny Practice: Set a timer for 60 seconds when you feel overwhelmed. Just breathe and be with whatever arises. Nothing to fix or solve—just witness.

4. Practicing Gratitude Instead of Scarcity

The "not enough" thoughts are constant background radiation in our lives. Not successful enough, not fit enough, not informed enough, not relaxed enough. The ultimate modern paradox: simultaneously too much and never enough. It's like standing in an orchard with fruit-laden branches bending toward us, while fixating on the one apple just out of reach.

This morning, I stood in my imperfect kitchen, coffee in hand, and whispered three ordinary things I'm grateful for. Nothing Instagram-worthy. Just the warmth of the mug. The light through the window. The sound of my child breathing in the next room. Each acknowledgment a small candle lit against the darkness of scarcity.

Tiny Practice: Before checking your phone each morning, name three ordinary miracles in your immediate surroundings.

5. Trusting Intuition Over External Validation

I've made so many decisions based on projected likes rather than genuine desire. The vacation destination everyone's posting about. The book everyone's discussing. The political stance that will get the most agreement in my circles.

We've become like sailors who've abandoned our internal compass to follow the wake of ships that might be heading toward entirely different destinations.

But what happens when we place a hand on our stomach and ask: What does my gut say? Sometimes the answer surprises us—a quiet voice beneath the noise, pointing in an unexpected direction.

Tiny Practice: For your next decision (large or small), try making it without consulting anyone else or checking what's trending. Just you and your inner knowing.

6. Creating Instead of Comparing

I nearly abandoned this newsletter fourteen times before writing it. Why? Because someone else has already said it better. Because who am I to speak on authenticity when I still struggle daily with these same issues?

The comparison voice is like a radio station that plays nothing but our greatest insecurities on repeat. Creation is an act of courage precisely because it requires silencing that station long enough to make something real.

Tiny Practice: Give yourself 15 minutes to create something solely for the joy of creating—no sharing, no documenting, no eventual monetization strategy. Just you making something because you can.

7. Valuing Play & Rest Over Constant Productivity

When was the last time you did something purely for pleasure? Not to share, not to improve yourself, not because it would make a good story—just for the simple joy of being alive in a body that can experience delight?

We've turned ourselves into machines that optimize for output rather than experience. We've forgotten that we are not productivity apps with skin on.

Yesterday, I laid in the grass and watched clouds. No phone. No podcast. No steps being counted. Just clouds and breath and the bizarre miracle of being conscious on a spinning rock in space. It felt like rebellion.

Tiny Practice: Schedule 30 minutes this week for something that has absolutely no productive value whatsoever. Protect this time as fiercely as you would an important meeting.

8. Finding Calm & Stillness In a World of Noise

The world screams for our attention constantly. Notifications. Breaking news. The endless scroll of others' curated lives. We're like people trying to have a conversation in a room where every device is tuned to a different frequency, all blaring at maximum volume.

The radical act may not be in adding more practices to our lives, but in making space for nothing at all. For the pause between inhale and exhale. For the silence between notes that makes music possible.

Tiny Practice: Create one small boundary around information intake this week. Perhaps no news before 10am, or social media only after 6pm, or one day entirely free from the digital chatter.

9. Seeking Meaningful Work Beyond Status & Approval

Even our work—the thing many of us once felt called to—becomes distorted through the lens of external metrics. The dopamine hit of praise becomes more important than the quiet satisfaction of work well done. We become like artists who paint only for the applause, forgetting the joy of color meeting canvas.

What part of your work would matter to you even if no one ever noticed or commented?

Tiny Practice: Start tomorrow by connecting with one aspect of your work that feels meaningful regardless of recognition.

10. Embracing Joy Without Apology

Perhaps the most revolutionary act in our cool, curated, controlled culture is uninhibited expression of joy. Singing off-key in the car. Dancing in the kitchen. Laughing until your stomach hurts.

These moments of pure aliveness can't be packaged, optimized, or leveraged. They simply are. Like wildflowers growing through cracks in concrete—unexpected, uncontrolled, and absolutely necessary.

Tiny Practice: Find one moment today to express joy physically—through sound, movement, or touch—without worrying how it looks or what anyone would think.

The Journey Home

The path back to ourselves isn't perfect or linear. It's more spiral than straight line, revisiting familiar territory from new perspectives. Like walking a labyrinth—we seem to move away from the center only to find ourselves closer than before.

Some days we'll feel the weight lift completely, like that moment when summer air reminds us we have wings. Other days we'll catch ourselves mid-performance, having forgotten our own truth again, like actors who've become so absorbed in the role we've forgotten our real name.

But each time we notice, each time we gently bring ourselves back, the path home becomes a little more worn, a little more familiar. Like water slowly carving its way back to the sea.

Maybe freedom isn't something we achieve once and for all. Maybe it lives in those small moments of remembering—when the summer air touches our skin and something ancient within us whispers:

There you are. I've been waiting for you.

What would it be like to live from that space more often? To make choices from that quiet center rather than from the noise of expectation? To trust that the voice beneath all the performance knows the way home?

I don't have all the answers. I'm walking this path beside you, stumbling often, learning as I go. But I know this: that breath of freedom I felt yesterday? It's always there—beneath the performance, beneath the striving, beneath the endless content creation of our lives.

It's waiting in the space between breaths. In the pause before we speak. In the moment before we reach for the phone. In the split second before we contort ourselves into someone else's shape.

Your Next Breath

So here's what I'm inviting you to do—not as another item on your optimization checklist, but as a gentle return to yourself:

Choose one guidepost from this letter that made your chest tighten with recognition. Maybe it's the one about authenticity over people-pleasing. Maybe it's creating instead of comparing. Maybe it's simply allowing yourself moments of joy without apology.

Commit to its tiny practice for just seven days. Not to transform your entire life, not to become a better version of yourself, but simply to remember who you are beneath all the layers.

Notice what shifts. How does it feel in your body when you choose authenticity over performance? What happens when you create without comparing? How does your breath change when you allow yourself a moment of purposeless joy?

And if you feel moved to share—not for the algorithm, not for engagement, but because connection calls to connection—I want to hear which guidepost chose you. Reply to this email and tell me: Which practice will you try? What are you hoping to remember about yourself?

Because here's what I believe: In a world that profits from our disconnection from ourselves, the most radical act is simply being who we actually are.

The summer air is always waiting to remind us.

All we have to do is step outside and breathe.

With courage and deep breaths,.