Sometimes we wear our pain like a mantle — a heavy, familiar cloak that hides us from the world and even from ourselves. To prove our worth, or our low worth. Unsure what we are without it, scared it’s nothing, empty.

We let it keep us safe, blocking things out like lead armor. Nothing in. Nothing out. Wanting to honor ourselves and not forget what made us so hurt, angry, and in pain.

It was supposed to be a tribute, something to honour the fires we’ve been through. It becomes a protector, and then an oppressor. This tribute isn’t supposed to be a mantle — something to wear, inhabit, hide you, and hold onto.

That “empty” space we are scared of, and have been taught to fill, is expansive, fluid, and breathing. We don’t see this space as peace, and we are discomforted by its quiet compared to the noise of the mantle. Many find it too discomforting. But it just takes a while to adjust, to breathe into the space.

Have you thought that maybe it’s not numbness or emptiness? When you feel this space, are you just confused by the sensation of quiet, joy, peace, and love — as opposed to the noisy, heavy, constricting energies you’ve let cloak you?

A tribute is something to honor, give, and let go of, not hold onto until it stagnates within you. I still remember the first time I realized that the space I had thought was emptiness was actually the absence of the dark chaos I had been holding onto.

It was such an ah-ha moment — I almost felt my body lift off the floor beneath me. My spirit felt so light.

I understand it now. I get it. It doesn’t mean the mantle I’ve allowed to fill me and keep me safe for so long is fully gone, but I have honored it and given it permission to leave. The lessons remain, but the energies themselves can be transformed — as all energies do — and it falls away, bit by bit, no longer holding me back from life.

Don’t hold onto your tribute. Let it fall. Give it back to the world. Let it be transformed, recycled, re-energised.

Breathe into your peace and allow yourself joy without fear or guilt.

I am safe in the peaceful expanse.