As my daughter blew out the candles on her birthday cake, I realized something bigger than her turning eleven: the shared milestone of my years working from home, balancing family and career, and growing alongside her.

When she was born, I asked my boss if I could work from home. He readily agreed, trusting and valuing my work. I wanted home to be my workplace so I wouldn’t miss the daycare events, tea parties with dolls, pony rides at school, and library book-reading sessions. I only missed one milestone: her Halloween parade at age three. That day, I was in the hospital, bringing her little brother into the world.

Rooting my work life at home brought me peace. I visited the office once a quarter for meetings, and my husband and kids often tagged along when I traveled for conferences or team gatherings. Over time, I realized that home isn’t a fixed address. It’s wherever we are together, part of each other’s lives. I came to understand:

Home is any space we fill with our love and presence.

Being a remote working mom wasn’t always easy, but I cherished the mix of peace and chaos, the quiet and the fights. If I had to live those years all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Yet, I sometimes wonder if that choice reshaped my personality, too.

To never miss the best moments with our growing kids, I shaped my life around the family: workouts during lunch breaks, cooking before and after school, and long calls with my parents and siblings when the kids weren’t home.

I became so self-sufficient that all I needed was my running shoes, laptop, and phone to survive. Small talk faded into dark comedy with my husband — it became our shared language as we navigated adult life while raising little kids. In those quiet laughs, I felt at home. That’s when it struck me:

Home isn’t always a place. Sometimes, it’s the one who knows you fully and lets you be.

As my world grew smaller and more intentional, socializing shifted to voice-over calls and WhatsApp texts. I became so comfortable maintaining relationships this way that meeting people in person would send me spiraling: What do I wear? What about my hair? Should I change my earrings?

Over time, I realized I wasn’t even the same person anymore: not the outgoing, bubbly girl who could retell the same story a dozen times with the same spark. My favorite evenings had grown quieter: a family movie night, a spontaneous late-night drive, midnight coffee at the drive-thru, a long call with family or a close friend while sipping mint tea, or simply watching the ocean waves in serene silence. I loved slowing down my pace and listening to the quiet. My heart felt safe enough to rest without any guilt. And that felt like home.

It was in these moments, in the gentle rhythm of quiet and presence, that I understood something essential:

Home isn’t always a person or a place. Sometimes, it’s an emotion: a feeling of safety, belonging, and freedom.

The home I once lived in

Looking back, I realize the roots of this understanding stretch to my childhood home. For twenty-nine years, I grew up in a house alive with fun, laughter, cries, and the occasional tears. Through my siblings, parents, their friends, and their endless circle of connections, I learned everything about emotions, expressions, and a sense of belonging.

The doors to my parents’ house are never locked, not even today — that is how warm and welcoming they keep it. Our living room was always full: friends, neighbors, even strangers who left as friends. The smell of fresh tea leaves brewing in the kitchen seamlessly blended with the stories unfolding in the living room.

What I once called home was, and still is, an abode of magic: a place where warmth made people instantly click, where laughter rose to its peak, and where tears spilled not from sorrow, but from laughing too hard to stop. Home meant lively, full of people, and overflowing with expression.

Yet, as I entered marriage and parenthood, the meaning of home quietly began to shift. I discovered that:

Home can also be a quieter, more intimate space where I could simply exist without external noise, extra roles, or the constant need to perform — a space that finally gave me permission to rest, breathe, and simply be.

And in that stillness, I began to realize that presence matters more than the crowd.

The heart I once held

While the lively, warm, and chaotic home of my childhood taught me about love, connection, and belonging, stepping into marriage and parenthood made me realize that the home I craved most wasn’t the space around me — it was the room within me.

For a long time, I stretched my heart to fit everyone inside it. I tried to be the perfect daughter, the best sister, an amazing wife, and a super mom, all at once, constantly, and simultaneously, often losing myself in the balancing act.

I discovered that the only way to make room for everyone is to never lose the room that belongs to me.

Now, my heart expands and contracts depending on life’s demands. Home isn’t a fixed place; it’s a moving center, shifting with my energy, mood, and the seasons of life. The key isn’t holding everyone at once; it’s choosing intentionally where my heart is needed most.

And in that quiet choice, I found the truth: my heart is its own home. This realization changed everything about what I sought in a home:

Home is not just a place, a person, or even an emotion; it is where my heart flourishes with love.

Home was never meant to be a question; it was the answer to everything I had grown into. Some days, it stays tucked safely within me. Other days, it flows outward into the spaces and souls that call for me.

Growing up, I thought home meant a constant chorus of laughter and stories. Moving abroad taught me a different cadence: quiet mornings, small intentional moments with my children. And today, home is where my heart dances to its silent solo.

I now cherish these quiet pauses, recharging in the stillness of my own company. Deep conversations, meaningful connections, and intentional presence replace superficial chatter and obligatory socializing.

Home isn’t just where I live; it’s where I show up to the world but only when I’m fully ready.

And in that quiet knowing, I discovered that:

The truest home of all is the peace I carry inside me.

No matter where I am, the heart that feels safe and free to be is the only home I’ll ever need.

What does home mean to you — in a place, a person, or a feeling? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.

© Tamil, 2025.

PS: This article was originally published on Medium.

Sitting in the middle seat of a bus, my eyes glued to my phone, I listened to my favorite comedy segment through my headphones. What began as a soft smile quickly broke into full-bodied, uncontrollable laughter.

People around me glanced over, confused at first, then started smiling, enjoying the humor even though they couldn’t hear a single word. Laughter rippled through the aisle, easy and contagious.

I must have looked like the happiest person in the world. Only I knew I wasn’t.

I’ve always been the kind of person who insists the glass is full, even when it’s barely filled. People mistake that kind of optimism for strength. They assume hopeful people can’t carry depression. But optimism and depression can coexist. I lived inside that contradiction for years.

The days I stepped out wearing bright lipstick and perfect eyeliner were also the days I was fighting myself the hardest. I was begging the world to tell me I was okay. The high heels, glowing skin, bright smile — none of it was confidence. It was camouflage, an attempt to drown out the voice inside me whispering: shut it all down.

From the outside, I looked grounded, almost poetic, as if I were made of gratitude and light. What no one could see were the insecurities packed so tightly inside me that even I forgot they were there, until the day I finally reached rock bottom.

The dark thoughts began when my daughter turned one. After our wedding, my husband and I built everything from scratch in a foreign land: marriage, home, routines, jobs.

Then we had a baby. Life kept offering lessons, and I kept adapting.

When she started daycare, something inside me shifted. I began feeling anxious for no reason, and my thoughts clouded. Life felt like a sealed deal. A sharp, unmistakable glitch kept nudging me from within: there is more to life than this.

I used to feel unbearably hollow. No amount of good food, people, or anything I love seemed to fill the empty space. It wasn’t sadness or loneliness. I yearned to be seen. I wanted someone to feel what I felt, without having to explain.

I didn’t know whether it was postpartum hormones, the weight of new parenthood, thinning emotional reserves, or the slow erosion of a social circle. So I kept pushing the feeling down, reminding myself that this life contained everything I once prayed for. I was suspended between clinging to old wishes and craving a life I hadn’t yet imagined.

But my life was drifting away from the values I grew up with. My childhood was stitched with family: siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, noise, warmth, community. The thought that my daughter might never know that kind of belonging made me question the life I was quietly building for her. And here’s the truth parenthood doesn’t prepare you for:

At some point, we become the architects of our own lives and our children’s, long before we feel ready.

I didn’t know what needed fixing yet. I only knew that the life I was building had no echo, no place where my feelings could land and come back to me whole.

The first time I admitted that out loud was to my sister. I told her how lifeless I’d been feeling lately.

She looked at me incredulously. “You have everything anyone could ever need.”

“What do I have?” I asked.

She blinked. “Everything.”

She wasn’t wrong. I had calm, stability, and love. Gratitude lived in me, but it couldn’t touch my emotional hunger underneath.

My brother overheard us from across the room and said quietly, “Get out of the house every day. Meet people. Live a normal life.”

It was simple advice, but I didn’t understand its weight until years later, when I began speaking aloud to myself just to hear a voice in the room. That’s when I realized how quiet my world had become.

Most days, the only humans I interacted with were my husband and my child. At work, my conversations were with brilliant but emotionally flat people. My husband and my best friends were all logical and efficient. They loved me deeply, but rarely expressed what they felt about me unless I explicitly asked. Everyone cared, just not in the way I longed to be held.

I found that only in my parents’ and siblings’ voices. One phone call from them could lift me for an entire day and echo back to me in the pockets of silence that followed.

I’d tell each of them the same story separately, savoring their different laughs and reactions. My husband once asked, “Why not just put them on a conference call?” As I said, he is very efficient.

He’s an only child. He grew up in a quiet place. I grew up in noise, music, and laughter, in a home where even silence had rhythm.

My siblings could read me without words. Even ordinary conversations turned into jokes that lived for years. We turned pain into humor, chaos into warmth. They’re still my lifeline, even across time zones.

Those calls kept me afloat, but they were still echoes from a past I couldn’t live inside anymore. They reminded me of who I had been, not who I was becoming. I needed a connection that existed in my present.

I was lucky to find a couple of friends through mutual connections, women who quickly became my best girl buddies. Talking to them felt like sipping hot chocolate on a cold winter morning. Meeting them once in a while fed my starving heart. But it was still not enough.

I soon figured it wasn’t just about the people or places; it was a version of myself I could no longer access. Some nights, after everyone went to bed, I’d sit and ponder when I stopped feeling alive in my own skin. When did joy become something I had to schedule?

I often drifted back to the version of me that felt effortlessly alive. In my 20s, I could memorize a Spanish song to impress my siblings, nail dance moves that once seemed impossible, and balance in a headstand without thinking twice. My mind and body were always chasing a new thrill.

I’d reread a single line in a book to feel the dopamine hit again. I learned to say the same sentence in three languages. I turned tense moments into jokes that made a whole room breathe again.

I wasn’t just fun to be around; I was entertaining for myself. I was in love with my own being, with the way I moved, laughed, and existed. I had a mirror, a journal, and a sense of richness no amount of money could buy.

On my birthdays, I wrapped my own gifts to feel the joy of unwrapping something chosen with intention. I smiled into the mirror, sometimes cried into it, and both felt equally beautiful. My spark never needed permission. It beat to the rhythm of the world around me. Life felt like butter back then.

I slipped through it freely, melting and reshaping with every mood, every song, every sunset.

Life has a way of dimming even the brightest glows. You don’t wake up one morning and find your “old” self gone; it seeps out slowly through endless to-do lists and practical decisions that seem harmless in the moment.

The mirror still hangs, but you stop pausing in front of it. The journal gathers dust because there’s always something more urgent to do. The little rituals that once made you feel rich inside start to feel indulgent. Childish, even. And just like that, you stop noticing yourself fully.

Motherhood happened: routines, responsibilities, expectations. And slowly, I became alive only in theory.

I was always too tired to dance with my kids. They’d look at me with so much excitement, and I’d manage a few half-hearted moves before collapsing onto the couch like a pop star after a world tour. I often felt tired from being everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

I’d drag the family out for hikes, imagining the joy it would bring us. But by the time we stepped out of the car, I was already drained, over-explaining to my husband and kids how fun it would be, how these memories would last forever.

In hindsight, it wasn’t the activity I craved. I yearned for someone who wanted the same things, who matched my excitement without me having to convince them. On days my husband readily matched, I loved it. There were days I felt like both the performer and the performance, only no one cared to notice.

I was starving, not for attention, but for the emotional connection.

I celebrated people for their simple gestures in return for my unconditional affection and understanding. I needed to believe I lived in abundance, hoping the glow of my own generosity would be enough to keep me warm. It never did.

You cannot feed yourself with what you give away.

That hunger in my heart started seeping into everything, my moods, my energy, my sense of self. I kept feeling incomplete, no matter how fulfilling my life looked from the outside.

That is when books found me again. It happened on a random weekday, during a library run with the kids. I came home, made myself coffee, and opened the first page, and for the next few hours, I was engrossed. Something in me, long asleep, stirred awake.

I started going back for more. With every new book, I slipped into worlds I never knew existed. My imagination flickered back to life.

I wasn’t escaping my reality anymore; I was remembering that I still had one.

The more I read, the more alive I felt. With books, I didn’t have to perform; I could simply exist. Every page invited new imagery, new possibilities, new ways of being.

Stories introduced me to ordinary people who dared to do extraordinary things: rebels who questioned rules, thinkers who carved out creativity, women who refused to shrink just because they became wives or mothers. Their purpose carried them higher than their excuses.

It was both humbling and electrifying to imagine a life where I, too, could be everything I wanted to be. I realized: I wasn’t broken; I was just underfed, emotionally, creatively, spiritually.

And that’s when the questions I’d long avoided finally rose to the surface, not as whispers, but as truths demanding to be lived:

Are you living your life or the life you’re afraid to lose?

Reading woke up my entire being. Words rearranged something inside me, reminding me of who I once was: curious, expressive, endlessly alive.

As I shared these small rediscoveries with my dad during our daily calls, he said casually, “You’re not using your social skills enough.” It stung at first. But with time, I realized he was right.

I hadn’t lost the desire to connect with people. I had lost the sense of purpose that connection once gave me. I was tired of assembling an identity from the few people around me, relying on them alone to reflect who I was.

We’re all born with a reason tucked inside us, and life keeps sending clues, hoping we’ll notice. For some, the realization arrives early. For others, it takes years. I lived in the in-between, unable to fully embrace my calling, yet unable to ignore it.

I was in a place where my soul whispered the truth but my mind pretended not to hear.

I couldn’t name my purpose yet, but I knew my current life wasn’t leading me toward it. I wasn’t starving for success; I was starving for alignment. I didn’t want to shrink into routines under the excuse of “that’s just life.”

Life isn’t a fixed blueprint. We’re allowed to redesign it by choosing our values and priorities, and by standing firmly in our true, authentic selves.

My creative journey officially began four years ago, when I picked up a book that asked deceptively simple questions:

What are you really good at?
What could you do for life?
What gives you energy?

The pages were filled with prompts that pressed hard on introspection, asking me to pour everything out into a notebook. By the time I reached the end, a pattern had quietly revealed itself. On almost every page, scrawled in the margins, filling empty blanks, appearing instinctively, was the same answer: Writing.

It showed up again and again, as if the art itself had been waiting patiently for me to finally notice it.

I’ve been journaling since fifth grade. What I loved most about writing was the peekaboo of words appearing at my fingertips before they even formed in my mind. Every writing session ended with the same quiet satisfaction, lighting my senses, feeding me with energy. Ink has a way of steadying a breath, shifting a mood, making chaos feel almost beautiful.

Some days, I miss the girl I used to be. But now, when I look in the mirror, I don’t see someone who lost her spark. I see someone who fought her way back to it. And the gift I give myself is the life I deserve to live every day.

I feel whole today because I finally realized I am enough exactly as I am. But I became complete only when I found a reason to reach beyond myself and serve others through my writing, even if it’s to make someone pause, nod, or smile. Like you did just now.

If this story resonated with you, pause for a moment and ask yourself: When was the last time you truly listened to the part of you that’s been waiting all along? Share your thoughts in the comments — I’d love to hear your story.

© Tamil, 2025.

PS: This story was originally published in Medium.

I shouldn’t have, but I did it anyway.

Her texts caught my eye as I stood behind her seat in the crowded bus, swaying with every turn. She was typing to someone who clearly mattered to her. The line that hooked my attention was: “I am crying now.”

The urgency in her fingers, the tightness in her jaw — it all gave her away. She looked too broken to speak, yet she kept typing. In her trembling silence, I could see she was texting as if it were a survival reflex. I wondered what could be so urgent that she couldn’t wait until she got home. Why spill her heart in a crowded bus, in a place where she had no way to feel steady or composed?

But today, as I sit with my coffee, typing with the same urgency I once saw in that woman’s hands years ago, I finally understand why we do what we do when we love someone so deeply. When the heart is in crisis, timing becomes simple: it’s always now or never.

Love turns everything into an emergency. Say it now. Explain it now. Fix it right away. What if the world collapses before I hit send? What if I never get another chance to explain the details — as if those very details could stitch the heart back together?

We drop our ego. We overextend. We pour our entire heart into a phone screen, even when the other person isn’t ready or willing to hold it.

We hope, silently in our minds and screaming in our hearts, that the one message we send will shift something: their mind, their heart, maybe even the whole direction of the relationship.

We convince ourselves our words matter to them as much as they do to us, even though we have no idea what storm or silence is unfolding on their side of the screen. But here’s the truth no one wants to admit:

Expressing yourself to someone who isn’t ready to receive you hurts the same as saying nothing at all, sometimes worse.

The urgency is nothing but fear disguised as love. The heart doesn’t just express, it exposes. The moment we send something vulnerable, we don’t just send words — we send a piece of ourselves. And once it leaves our hands, expectation becomes inevitable. We wait and hope, refreshing the screen as if our breath depends on their response.

If you’re anything like me, an anxious-attachment human trying very hard to look secure, the waiting becomes its own storm. The longer they take to respond, the louder the panic grows.

Suddenly, my entire existence narrows into one desperate mission: make them say what I needed to hear. Not out of manipulation, but out of terror — terror of the quiet, the uncertainty, and the meaning behind the silence.
But here’s what I’ve come to understand: the worst part isn’t the waiting.

The real damage begins afterward — in the aftermath of pulling words out of someone who was never ready to own their mistakes, someone who never had the time or clarity to clean up the mess they made.

Maybe the space I believed was enough for them wasn’t enough at all. Because reconciliation is a two-way street. Clearing the traffic light on one side doesn’t get the cars moving again.

Every time my husband and I fought, I was always the one who went back after a few hours to apologize. I’d even open an apology window — a space where, if he genuinely felt sorry for his part, we could resume the conversation. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh at how naive that was.

I always wanted resolution on my timeline — not out of selfishness, but out of a desperate belief that if I pushed hard enough, I could save our time, energy, and relationship. I hated letting conflicts stretch and wanted to resolve them by actively working on them, while he actively avoided them. In hindsight, the apology window had been a quick fix for him to escape without taking ownership or accountability.

Growing up, I couldn’t stand couples who mourned each other in silence over something trivial. “Why let a silly argument carry the weight of a relationship when two people claim to love each other?” used to be my conviction. But here’s what I didn’t understand:

Love isn’t maintained by rushing back in. It’s built over time — through the small, uncomfortable disagreements, through the steady, respectful ways two people learn to meet each other emotionally.

I was wrong to believe conflicts could be resolved on one person’s timeline. And the clarity I chased by forcing quick closure never actually protected the love. It was like clapping with one hand and expecting a sound, as if effort alone could create an echo, as if loving harder could make someone meet me halfway.

I demanded honesty long before he had the capacity to give it — before he had even processed his own truth. And every time, it ended the same way: A lose-lose. No healing for me. No accountability for him.

Just two people stuck in a conversation neither was ready or steady enough to have.

The truth is, the unraveling never announces itself. It happens in the silent corners where we do the emotional labor alone. There’s always a series of heartbreaks before the real heartbreak — the part where you try to love someone through sheer articulation. That’s where I always find myself: typing faster than my heart could heal, offering truths before they were ready to be spoken, hoping my softness could bridge a distance honesty never managed to close.

Have you ever hit send on that text too quickly, only to regret not waiting a little longer? It happens to me all the time. I craft words with every cell in my body, pouring out paragraphs filled with love, longing, hope, and the worth I carry for someone. And every time, I secretly hope my words land on them the same way they would land on me if someone had sent them.

That’s the underestimated curse of an empath. We don’t just feel for people; we think as them. We imagine how our messages might actually soothe or soften a drifting heart. We offer tenderness as if it were universal, as if everyone spoke in the same emotional dialect. But that’s the trap.

We assume our words carry the same weight on their side, too. I still like to believe a two-page text from me should shake him the way his one-word reply shakes me. I imagine my softness transforming into emotional honesty for him, that he’ll meet it with the same depth with the same care.
But the sad truth? It almost never works that way. And when that truth hits, it doesn’t just disappoint — it destabilizes me in every possible way.

The urgency and the illusion of control keep me stuck in the same loop. I convince myself that sending the perfect message at the ideal time will pull them toward the outcome I want. After all, timing feels like everything.

But I’m terrible at limbo. I want things resolved, defined, and done, so I can clear them off my emotional plate and finally breathe. And in that rush, I always forget one fundamental truth:

A decision made in a hurry is never worth anyone’s time — not mine, not theirs.

It took me years to realize that the lessons about patience, timing, and letting life unfold couldn’t be taught by anyone who felt the same panic I did. No one could teach me but someone who naturally lived in the opposite rhythm: my husband.

He is my polar opposite. He thrives in the distance, flourishes in the limbo, and lets the situation itself naturally push him toward an answer.

He’s perfectly fine waiting for as long as it takes, even if that means asking me to “sit on a stove” while he waits. As I mentioned, he is my opposite and has no idea what “being on the stove” feels like because he isn’t built to anticipate emotional heat the way I do.

I remember the times I didn’t push him for an answer, when I let life unfold, and how naturally he showed up in those moments. Those are some of the best memories of our marriage.

Like the day the doctors told me I needed a C-section. I was in my early thirties, pregnant with our first child, carrying the old belief that how you deliver a baby defines a woman’s strength. Hearing the news shattered me. I called my sister across the country, and the moment I heard her voice, I dissolved.

I wasn’t expecting anything from my emotionally avoidant husband — no comfort, no emotional understanding. He stood beside me, silent, watching me fight back tears.

And then he did something I never saw coming. He climbed onto the tiny hospital bed with me, pulled me into his chest, and held me as if he finally understood the weight I was carrying. “You’re going to be fine,” he whispered — and that was all I needed. He stayed with me throughout, never leaving my side.

What happened next shocked my OB-GYN. After one last check, she said I was ready for a natural birth. Three hours later, I delivered our baby girl. My doc still calls it a miracle. But the real miracle happened inside me:

The quiet power of being held, of feeling understood, and of trusting life to unfold.

That day, in the strength of his presence, I glimpsed a different kind of love — one that doesn’t push, doesn’t demand, and doesn’t rush. It’s a love that simply waits, steady and unwavering, allowing life to unfold on its own timeline.

After nearly two decades with him, the answers I try to pull out through panic, pressure, or emotional deadlines never really stick. They aren’t real answers. They’re temporary bandages — quick fixes meant to avoid the discomfort of waiting, feeling, and letting things unfold naturally.

Every time I rush him, the outcome hurts more than the waiting ever did. These days, I try to hold my words — and myself — the way I wish someone had held me: gently, without urgency, or fear. Not every message needs to be sent. Not every silence needs to be filled. Not every emotion needs an audience.

Sometimes the most loving thing I can do is wait.
And the most powerful thing is to say nothing at all.

So today, I gathered the restless parts of myself, took a long, deep breath, and sent the text to myself: It’s okay not to spill every emotion the moment you feel it, even with the people who matter most. No one will ever feel the depth of your feelings the way you do. It takes two to tango, but you don’t always have to choose the dance. Sometimes the freest thing you can do is sit with yourself, slow down, and give life the space it’s asking for. Take off your wings and fly solo for a bit. Time and tide wait for none — but that doesn’t mean you have to rush your heart to keep up.

The greatest love we can offer isn’t the feeling itself, but the act of being present — with patience and the courage to wait.

Take a moment today to sit with your own heart. Notice what you’re rushing, what you’re trying to fix, and what might benefit from your patience. Share this with someone who needs a reminder that sometimes the bravest act of love is simply waiting.

© Tamil, 2025.

PS: This article was originally published in Medium.

The problem with carrying emotional weight is that you never know when it will erupt. Like this afternoon in a cafe, when I reached for the untouched paper towel tucked under someone else’s abandoned coffee mug just to stop my tears from hitting the table. I didn’t think; my hands involuntarily moved.

And in that moment, I realized how instinctively, almost professionally, I’ve learned to clean up my emotions before anyone even notices.

Later that evening, I got on the treadmill for a quick 5K. I wasn’t trying to break a record, but my body moved as if it had been waiting all day for permission to let go. I ended up hitting my fastest pace in five years. It didn’t feel like a workout; it felt like my body saying, Finally.

The next morning, under the barbell, getting ready to deadlift, it hit me: you cannot lift what you’re not prepared to lift without breaking yourself. You have to respect your limits. You have to meet the weight where you are.

In that split second, I finally understood something I had never named:

Self-love also means putting down what is no longer mine to carry. Not out of weakness, but alignment.

It is knowing what my mind, body, and heart can’t hold without collapsing. So I dropped the weights that compromised my posture and kept lifting. I had never felt stronger.

Strength training became the first place where everything finally made sense because the gym’s rules mirrored the ones my life had been trying to teach me for years.

Training with weights taught far more than my muscles. It taught me balance, boundaries, and presence. If my feet aren’t grounded, I lose my stance. And if I lose my stance, the lift becomes pointless, even dangerous.

Lifting only works when I am fully present. Surprisingly, knowing my boundaries is the real secret to lifting heavier. You don’t get stronger by forcing more weight than your body can handle. That only leads to injury. Strength comes from knowing exactly how much is right for you in that moment and honoring it without ego or urgency.

Limits are not weaknesses. Limits keep us safe, honest, and true to ourselves.

And every time I finish a lift, I’m reminded of something simple we often overlook: the smallest choices, the ones rooted in awareness and alignment, shape both our strength and our life.

The more I honored my limits in the gym, the harder it became to ignore the places in my life where I wasn’t honoring them at all. Because the truth was, the weights were never the real load. I was.

What I didn’t realize until that morning in the gym was how much emotional weight I had been lifting for others without ever giving myself permission to put any of it down.

Even on days when I was running on empty, I would still pick up the phone for a friend wanting to revisit the same hurt for the tenth time. I told myself it was the right thing to do, that being a good friend meant being endlessly available, endlessly steady, endlessly absorbing.

Even when I wanted to say no to a coworker or a fellow parent, I would say yes to avoid disappointing them. I never wanted to be the disruption. I overextended myself, not realizing I was sacrificing my own recovery to keep showing up for others.

I was afraid to say no to others, yet saying no to myself came almost automatically.

I called it kindness, but really, it was boundary-blurring disguised as loyalty. I didn’t just listen or show up; I rearranged my life as if their peace depended on my exhaustion. Each time, I quietly pushed my own needs to the bottom of the list.

Self-love isn’t selfishness. Self-love is boundaries, the courage to fill your cup before pouring into someone else’s.

Once I noticed how easily I said yes to others and no to myself, the contrast became painfully apparent. There was only one place where I didn’t operate like that: the gym. That could be why the gym always felt like relief, like being myself without effort.

It was the only place where I didn’t pretend to be stronger than I was. The only space where I felt grounded, where I set down what my body couldn’t hold. The only place where I didn’t override myself to make someone else comfortable.

The gym became the first space where I felt safe enough to fail, to fall apart, and to begin again. Because only in the weight room did I honor my body enough to stop holding what would break my posture.

The weights taught me something life never did: if we resist pain, injury becomes inevitable. The body always whispers before it screams, and the only way to avoid breaking is to listen early.

There, I learned to pay attention to myself. To stop when my form wavered. To adjust before the strain becomes damaged. To put the bar down the moment my body said, Not today.

Self-love is choosing the right weight, not the heaviest one.

Here is the truth I kept circling back to: there is no real love without embracing your strengths and flaws, without accepting yourself wholly and unapologetically. The kind of acceptance that asks for no performance, no polishing, just your existence, precisely as it is.

When you stand fully in yourself, your presence steadies the room. Your quiet glow says everything about how deeply you’ve begun to care for yourself. And that alone is enough to light up the space around you.

Just like your personal record at the gym might inspire a stranger to try one more rep, in life, too, you inspire by living honestly, not by being perfect, but by being you.

And maybe that is the quiet miracle of self-love. Once you begin embracing yourself, the world feels less heavy. You stop mistaking endurance for worth. You stop confusing over-giving with connection. You finally learn to meet yourself where you are.

Thinking back to myself wiping my tears in the cafe before anyone could notice, and then to the barbell the next morning, I realize how two different versions of me held distinct truths. The one who absorbed everything, held everything, hid everything. And then the other, who learned to drop what was not mine to carry.

Maybe that is what self-love really is:

Not becoming unbreakable, but recognizing what was never mine to carry.
Not lifting more, but lifting what is right for me.
Not holding everything together, but allowing myself to be.

Somewhere between the paper towel and the barbell, I finally understood:

Strength isn’t what I carry. Strength is what I finally stopped carrying.

If this piece resonated with you, please let me know in the comments. And if you’re learning to put something down too, I hope you give yourself permission, starting today.

© Tamil, 2025.

PS: This post was originally published on Medium.

The woman across from me on the train sobbed so hard it hurt to watch.I wanted to hug her and whisper, ‘It’ll be okay.’ But sometimes, that can be the cruelest thing to say.

After countless loops of helping and carrying what was never mine, I realized that not everyone wants to be saved. Some people want to sit with their storm until it passes.

Like my husband, who gets irritated when I look for the silver lining even in the wreckage, “Stop finding meaning in everything,” he’d say, reminding me how annoying my optimism can sometimes be. He prefers to process things alone, even if it takes a lifetime to realize that some pain never needed to be carried that long. I can do anything but stay detached.

When you can feel the tension before it breaks, inaction feels like betrayal.

I see, hear, and sense things long before anyone else does — the flicker in someone’s eyes, the pauses that scream louder than words. For me, everything is energy. My body reacts before my mind can: trembling, tightening, or shutting down, depending on what I step into.

Most days, I wish the world could see what I see: the heartbreak behind harshness and the softness behind silence.

Only a handful of people, in an entire lifetime, truly see through an empath’s intent.

That’s both the curse and the gift of being one.

My closest friends often tell me I absorb too much of other people’s pain, and that I should stop trying to fix others to protect my peace. My aunt once warned me not to talk too much with people who are depressed, saying their heaviness might catch on. But that’s always felt like such a selfish way to live.

Who would’ve saved the world during the pandemic if the doctors had worried about the virus infecting them? If everyone ran for their own life, only the fastest would’ve survived.

The truth is, even in its darkest hours, the world keeps turning because of those who risk their own wellness to ease someone else’s suffering.

It reminds me of the time I called an old friend who had just lost her father.
She sounded almost too composed, as if she had mastered grief. Maybe her mother’s passing had trained her for this silence.

When I asked about her fiancé — the one who had loved her for years — she paused before saying softly, “He moved on. He married someone else.”

I felt something swell inside my chest, an ache that wasn’t mine but somehow lived in me. She sounded fine, but I cried long after we hung up. Not because I could fix anything, I desperately wished she’d finally receive the love and peace she always deserved.

Being an empath is like being a human sponge. You absorb other people’s emotions as if they were your own. You read through pauses, sighs, and the spaces between words. You always hear more than they ever say.

People rely on you. They trust you easily, confide in you, and reach for your calm when their world falls apart. It feels only humane to be there for them — after all, isn’t that what empaths are here for? To hold space for others, keep humanity alive, and remind the world of its gentler side.

And if I’m honest, a large part of my happiness has always come from the laughter, the smiles, and the quiet cheer of people around me. Their joy fills me in ways I could never explain. Because maybe that’s what being an empath really is: You see both sides, and understand everyone’s reasons, you struggle to take sides. When you sense everyone’s pain, it becomes impossible to protect your own peace. You see both the shadow and the light, and still choose to stay.

Despite knowing all this, I keep reaching out again and again.

That’s how I move through life — I tend to see other people’s problems as my own. I hold them with care and urgency, as if tending to their chaos might restore balance to the world. It’s not heroism; it’s instinct. I don’t do it for validation or recognition. I do it because not doing it feels unnatural, like turning away from a wounded part of myself.

Recently, a friend called me about a problem in his marriage. I didn’t think twice before offering to talk to his wife, not because I had time to spare or wanted to meddle with his personal life, but because the pauses in his voice carried a kind of pain I couldn’t ignore. I just wanted to make his load a little lighter.

Later, my friend told me his wife was still upset — that my conversation hadn’t helped much. For a moment, it stung. From what he mentioned, it seemed he expected me to do the emotional labor while he stayed silent through his own heaviness — like expecting me to lift something that wasn’t mine. Even an oxygen mask is useless if you’re unwilling to breathe into it.

Still, helping someone with pure intent never goes to waste. Even if my friend and his wife don’t understand it now, someday — in the silence of their hearts — they will.

The hardest part about being an empath is learning to live without closure. Sometimes, you anchor your energy and presence in someone else’s storm, only to watch them walk away carrying their clouds.

It used to frustrate me that my intention could be so pure, yet sometimes, my impact so invisible. But I’ve learned that:

Empathy is not a transaction.
You don’t show up to fix; you show up because it’s who you are.

Even if your effort goes unseen, the ripples don’t stop because one rock resists the water. They only widen — quietly, invisibly, over time.

Empathy isn’t always about saving someone. Sometimes, it’s about sitting beside them through their storm, knowing you may not be remembered for doing so — and finding peace in that anonymity.

It’s about the small, wordless gestures that carry quiet grace:
A silent prayer for the unknown person in the ambulance,
A few extra bills pressed into a stranger’s palm,
A kind word to a weary barista holding back tears.

Like my anesthesiologist, the only person who kept talking in the operating room before my childbirth. I remember my chest tightening so hard I could barely breathe. Lying flat on that cold table, I was sick, worried this might be my body’s final memory. All I heard, with my eyes closed, was his steady voice offering hope to my distressed body before I went into the surgery. “You’re doing great,” he said. “You’re amazing. Keep going.”

I don’t recall everything he said, but when it was over, I found him, hugged him tight, and thanked him for being the light even when my eyes were closed. That’s empathy in its purest form: connection without expectation.

Trusting that your slightest warmth might one day be the memory someone reaches for when the world turns cold again.

And sometimes, it happens softly, unexpectedly: a message from someone I once spoke to on the phone for an hour, a stranger who emails how my words were all that she needed to hear, or a friend who made a life decision after seeing my text. Those moments remind me why I keep showing up, even when no one’s watching.

I’ve spent most of my life being someone who dives deep to fix what’s broken, even when it isn’t mine. If someone’s hurting, I can’t just walk away; I need to do something, say something, offer a fragment of hope.

When my aunt cried for three days straight after losing her husband. I sat beside her, day and night, listening to her memories spill between sobs. By the third day, watching her shoulders shake endlessly, I said something silly: a small, clumsy attempt at lightness. And just like that, she burst into laughter through her tears. It may not have been the right time, but I only wanted her to pause to catch her breath again.

But I’ve learned that not everyone wants comfort right away. Some people want their pain witnessed, not softened. Even when we’ve known the same loss, what helped me might not help them. Sometimes, trying to breathe through your pain can irritate someone still drowning in theirs — like slurping your tea loudly while they’re struggling not to spill theirs.

When I offer a hopeful line too soon, it can sound tone-deaf — as if I’m trying to minimize their pain, when I’m really not. So I’ve learned to step back, to let silence do the healing, to respect their space even when it aches to stay quiet.

Still, sometimes I wonder if I get too comfortable walking in other people’s shoes, forgetting to let them walk alone. Maybe it’s selfish that I give so much because, deep down, I hope someone will do the same for me. Or perhaps it’s selfless, eager to pull someone out of the depths, forgetting I can drown too.

An empath without boundaries is like a diver who keeps plunging in to save others without first tying a rope to the surface. That’s the quiet suffering of an empath — always caught in the blur between where I end and the other person begins. How much of my light can survive if I keep stretching it to illuminate someone else’s darkness?

Being “too understanding” can also backfire. Especially with people who can’t even spell empathy — all that effort burns you out, like setting yourself on fire just to keep someone else warm.

But eventually, I have learned that compassion doesn’t mean contortion. And being kind doesn’t require shrinking. Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do — for both of you — is to step back and let silence do the healing.

I used to think pulling away was cold, but now I see it’s clarity. You can still care deeply and protect your peace at the same time. Boundaries aren’t walls but fences that keep love from trampling over you.

Putting yourself out there without thinking of yourself is the hardest thing in the world, but also the most misunderstood.

People often assume you have an ulterior motive, but for empaths, the intent is the purpose. They do not help to gain, but because suffering itself calls to them. Yet the world rarely sees that.

The more you give, the more people expect — until your boundaries wear thin, like threads fraying under too much weight. Caring, if unchecked, can be exhausting — even dangerous. It’s a paradox: being deeply understanding is a gift, but it can also be a trap.

Too much empathy without self-preservation can turn you into what I call a stupid empath — someone who constantly gives, constantly feels, and forgets to save themselves.

But a world without empaths would be darker: a quiet marketplace of despair where no one notices the cracks or the unspoken cries.

Empaths are the invisible bridges, bearers of small, stubborn light, even when it costs them their glow.

Being that bridge, that faint glimmer of hope, comes with a price: blurred boundaries, sleepless nights, and a self you sometimes no longer recognize.

Being an empath isn’t a flaw. But forgetting yourself in the process: that’s the lesson life insists you learn, often the hard way. Because that rope to the surface isn’t just for others; it’s for you, too. And maybe that’s what real strength is:

Learning to love without losing yourself,
To care without collapsing,
To give without going empty.
To be the light.
And to remember — even light needs rest to glow again.

If you’ve ever felt too much or carried someone else’s pain as your own, I’d love to hear how you learned to hold compassion without losing yourself. Please leave a comment so it helps another empath breathe a little easier.

© Tamil, 2025.

PS: This article was originally published on Medium.