So often we find ourselves caught in a compulsive whirlwind, striving to change who we are, to evolve into a more perfect, better, smarter, prettier, wiser version of ourselves. But what if the magic didn’t lie in the changing of self, but in the stripping away of all the spaces and places of the not-self? What if change was never about adding more, but about remembering what has always been beneath the noise?

From an early age, we are conditioned to strive toward something outside of ourselves—a goal to chase, an accomplishment to prove, a persona crafted from another’s dream or a perceived reality of what we thought we needed to be. We learn to measure our worth in comparison, to shape our becoming around a standard that was never born from our own soul.

And I ask, gently, with a tender heart: why are we constantly running away from ourselves, sculpting and shaping into something other than who we are?

Is it because the fear of becoming feels overwhelming—that to truly see your own reflection is almost unbearable? To look into your own eyes and wonder if what stares back is enough? The mind whispers that you should be more, do more, become more—that somehow your being as it is, in its raw and unpolished truth, cannot be worthy of love. And so you turn away, layering masks, striving for better, sculpting yourself into ideals that were never yours to begin with. Yet the longing you feel is not because you are lacking, but because you are hiding from the simplest truth: you were already whole.

But what if the message has always been pointing you inward—into the space of truth, trust, and surrender? For here, in the unfiltered heart, you find your voice, your truth, your essence. And that essence is love.

It is the communion of meeting your not-self with compassion, taking its hand, guiding it out of the shadows into the light. For in meeting it, you dissolve the illusion of separation—the striving, the endless belief that you must be anything other than who you already are. And in that dissolution, the not-self receives what it has always longed for: love.

When you begin to meet all questioning from the place of love, the landscape shifts. Your eyes soften, humility expands, and you see that you have always been your own savior. All that you were searching for was yourself—unfiltered, whole, and true.

So when the winds of change scathe your skin, when the rumbling of striving rises once again, look within. See yourself holding the hand of your not-self, walking her gently out of the dark. For only then do you realize that the shadows were never your enemy, but your guide— beckoning you home.

For the only change ever required was the stripping away of what was never yours to begin with. Change is freedom—the freedom to be who you are, unapologetically whole, undeniably free.