I sometimes try to remember who I was before the moment the adult came fully online within me — and what strikes me most is that I can’t.
What a wonderful thing that is.
That absence points to a deeper truth: the adult is now embodied, not merely a concept in my head.

I had felt like an adult since I was five. But it was only recently that I became the adult I needed when I was five.

Consciously, I chose not to be like the adults I grew up around. And yet my nervous system absorbed their patterns all the same. Not dramatically, not outwardly — but internally.
The need to control. To predict. To judge. To shame. To blame — mostly myself.

I was never taught how to be with my emotions, only how to suppress them. And for a long time, that worked.
Life was working out pretty well.
Until it didn’t.

In 2025, what had been suppressed for decades began to surface. The mechanisms that once kept everything functional stopped producing results. Work slowed down, which on one hand created space — and on the other stripped away a primary source of safety and security.

My nervous system was fried. No amount of figuring out, fixing, or doing was yielding results.

For the first time, I found myself face to face with my emotions. And each time I chose presence over avoidance, I felt lighter. More held. More whole. The emotions weren’t asking to be expressed — they only wanted to be witnessed.

Shame. Fear. Frustration.
Then rage.
And beneath rage, grief.

Crying felt good. Something was finally being released.

Then came anger — not destructive, but directional. Anger stood up for me. It moved me forward. I learned to appreciate it.

And then, quietly, something changed.

I noticed that this presence with myself had become automatic. The adult was in the room, soothing the child without effort. That’s when I realised: the adult wasn’t just online — she was in charge. The child was no longer running the show.

This adult has the capacity to make space for the child — to witness fears, concerns, and joys alike.

My inner world has been quieter since. More coherent. More whole. I choose myself now, even when fear arises. Many illusions have fallen away. Magical thinking has lost its appeal – I am safe with myself in the present.

I don’t expect life to be all unicorns and rainbows. But I know this: I have the wisdom, courage, and love to meet whatever comes. “Negative” emotions are no longer enemies — they’re welcome. And when welcomed, they dissolve in presence.

As Joe Hudson says, “Joy is the matriarch of all emotions, and she won’t enter a house where all her children aren’t welcome.”
I understand that now — not conceptually, but somatically.

Metaphysical truths are beginning to land without effort. One arrived recently and quietly: life responds to who you are being, not what you are doing. This time, it didn’t arrive as a mental insight — it arrived in the body.

Then last night, five words collapsed an entire paradigm:

I didn’t deserve that shit.

No blame. No shame. No resentment. Just clarity.

And with that clarity came something new:
I deserve good.
I deserve support.
I am worthy to receive.

So thank you, 2025.
You offered me the opportunity to shed identities rooted in fear.
And I am grateful for the courage — and the grace — to let them go.