10 Things I Let Go of to Get Free(ish) (Part 1)

Why Freedom Keeps Finding Me

Three years ago I said, “I could live here.” Freedom heard me.

First, a bow: I am not new.

I am my people’s answered prayer. I move in rooms my grandmothers could not walk into even though they built the rooms. I don’t write this in isolation. I write with a chorus at my back.

My maw-maw (my mother’s mother) worked as a housekeeper. One Thanksgiving, Ms. Kruger called and insisted she come in. My maw-maw went, because Black women know something about duty, right. But before my paw-paw even made it home, she’d called to be picked up. She’d quit. That day, she chose herself over someone else’s urgency.

I think about her every time I say no to what costs me too much. Every time I stop mid-task and put a hand on my chest. Every time I choose my own rhythm over someone else’s demands.

I am here because of the ones that stayed, because of the ones that fought, because of the ones that left. I honor each choice. And I choose, too.

What they wrestled from the world, I will not hand back. I hope to turn their labor into rest, their scarcity into enough, their not yet into a soft, honest now. This journey is not a luxury; it is obedience to the women in my lineage—my mother, her mother, her mother’s mother, and their mothers before—who asked God for a harvest after a long season of labor. I am the receipt.

Pause: Who made space for your freedom before you had language for it? Whisper their names. Promise you’ll spend the gift well.

I am the receipt.

1) I let go of the roles I learned to wear.

I could name them like rooms in a house I no longer live in:

• The Pleaser. She smiles before she speaks. Makes herself smaller without anyone noticing. She lives in my emails, my calendar, my “no worries at all.”

• The Performer. She shines even when her feet hurt. She lives in my LinkedIn bio, my high heels, my “of course I’ve got it handled.”

• The Ache. She moans in silence. Sleeps with her fists balled. She lives in my locked drawers, my unread messages, my “I’m just tired.”

• The Shadow. She waits. She watches. She remembers. She lives in the mirror.

I didn’t kill them. I kissed them on the forehead and told them: You kept me alive. I don’t need you to run the house anymore.

And then the voice I’d been quieting spoke up.
No title this time. Just me.
The me who doesn’t ask for permission. Who trusts what my body says.
Who writes the boundary and keeps it. Who answers to peace, not panic.
The me who’s done performing “okay.”

Pause: Name one role that kept you safe. What would it need to hear to finally rest?

I can love the parts that protected me without letting them drive.

2) I let go of saying yes when my body meant no.

My mouth used to write checks my nervous system couldn’t cash. Overpromising felt generous; it was actually expensive. I started listening to what my body said before my mouth answered.

My freedom now sounds like:

• No, thank you.

• Not this season.

• That doesn’t fit the life I’m choosing.

Every clean no makes room for a truer yes to rest, to writing, to joy that doesn’t have to be earned.

Pause: Where are you saying yes from habit, fear, or performance? Write one honest sentence you could say instead.

Saying no made room for softness

3) I let go of over-functioning and performing strength.

There’s a difference between being strong and performing strong. One feeds you. The other eats you.

I stopped being the contingency plan, the human shock absorber, the fixer of what isn’t mine. I started letting the ball drop and watched the world not end.

My strength now looks like: asking for help, leaving early, saying I don’t know, going to bed.

Pause: What ball could you let drop this week without breaking your life? (Let it be rubber, not glass. You know the difference.)

Some things can fall and bounce.

4) I let go of inherited urgency.

I come from women who know how to read a room like weather and move fast enough to survive it. That skill keeps us alive. It also keeps me tired.

Urgency can feel like love, like competence, like care. But often it’s a leash.

I traded the thin buzz of right now for the grounded rhythm of when it’s honest. I traded other people’s timelines for my body’s clock. Sometimes the most radical thing I do is not hurry.

Pause: Where does urgency live in your body—throat, chest, jaw, belly? Put a hand there. Whisper: We’re not late to our own life.

Sweet. Strong. Still.

5) I let go of the myth that freedom is a free-for-all.

I believed freedom meant “do whatever I want.” That version burned me out. Real freedom requires structure. My softness is scaffolded.

My freedom looks like:

• a bedtime I honor,

• food that loves me back,

• walks that regulate me,

• water (because… water),

• a budget that tells the truth,

• a writing rhythm that respects my brain.

Discipline isn’t punishment. Structure is how I hold the life I prayed for once I receive it.

Pause: What’s one loving boundary with time, food, money, or your phone that would make you freer this week? Keep it for seven days. Watch what opens.

Softness has a spine.

What I’m learning

Freedom isn’t the absence of limits; it’s the presence of alignment. It’s not a costume I put on, it’s a rhythm I keep. It’s me, unclenching.

Part 2 next week: the body that protected me, forgiving before grieving, fear of being seen, unlearning “should,” and choosing what to lose.

Still unfolding. Still returning. Getting free.

What spoke to you?

Tell me in the comments or whisper it to the part of you that most needed to hear it. If it resonated, share it with someone you love who might breathe a litter easier reading it.

New posts, once a week. Gentle, honest, no spam—ever.