You’re Allowed to Come Home
Self Worth | June 2025
🌿 Feeling disconnected from yourself? You're not alone.
In a world that demands constant movement, it’s easy to forget how to simply be. You keep up with responsibilities, show up for others, and scroll through endless noise—but somewhere along the way, you may have lost sight of your own quiet needs.
This post isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about returning to yourself—gently, without judgment. Here's what that looks like.
As Maslach and Leiter explain, the exhaustion many people carry today isn't just emotional—it's systemic. And the endless scrolling, comparison, and noise online? That has real psychological weight, too.
💭 Why You Might Feel Disconnected
We live in a culture that rarely gives permission to pause.
Stillness gets mistaken for laziness. Sadness for weakness. Numbness for failure.
So we keep moving. Scrolling. Pushing. Smiling on cue.
If you’ve felt exhausted in ways that sleep doesn’t fix—if you've been performing “fine” but don’t remember what peace feels like—you are not broken.
You’re tired. And that matters.
Psychologists call it emotional fatigue—a burnout of the soul, not just the mind. But even without the label, your body already knows.
According to psychiatrist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, the body stores emotional stress in physical form, which can lead to chronic tension, disconnection, and health imbalances. This is why sometimes it’s not your thoughts that alert you—it’s your fatigue, your skin, your breath.
And maybe now, you’re listening.
🌱 What Self Worth Really Means
There is no better version of you waiting on the other side of achievement.
You don’t need to hustle to deserve stillness. You don’t need to be productive to deserve rest. You don’t need to shine to be seen.
You are not a project to be fixed. You are a person to be remembered.
Start here:
- Say no without explaining.
- Let the dishes wait.
- Cry without apology.
- Touch your chest and whisper, "I’m still here."
This is self worth in motion. Not as performance—but as presence.
Neuroscience research supports this shift. When we practice self-kindness, we reduce activity in the brain’s threat response system and activate our soothing system—promoting healing and emotional resilience.
🍂 You Are in a Season, Not a Setback
If everything feels foggy right now, that doesn’t mean you’re lost. It means you’re in a season.
Like plants in winter, you’re allowed to pause without blooming. You’re allowed to conserve your energy. You’re allowed to grow inward.
Author Katherine May calls this "wintering"—a season of healing that looks like stillness from the outside but is quietly transformative underneath.
You’re not falling behind. You’re composting. You’re becoming soil for something new.
In Japanese philosophy, this cyclical rhythm aligns with the idea of "wabi-sabi"—the beauty of impermanence and imperfection. A life isn’t meant to be constantly in full bloom. A life is a garden, always shifting.
🧘 Begin Where You Are
Self worth is not something you unlock. It’s something you return to.
Like a plant that turns slowly toward light, you don’t have to rush. Just turn.
Even if you forgot yesterday. Even if today feels heavy. You can begin again—now.
Place your hand over your heart. Feel it rise. Feel it fall.
Say it out loud if you need to: "I am still here."
And that is enough.
🕊️ What You Might Find Here
You might find a sentence that feels like an exhale.
You might find language for a feeling you couldn’t name.
You might remember a part of yourself that’s been waiting patiently.
This isn’t a place to become someone new.
It’s a place to return to who you already are—beneath the noise, beneath the roles, beneath the performance.
And if all you do today is read this and breathe a little slower—
that’s already enough.
✅ Summary: How to Return to Yourself Today
If you're wondering how to start reconnecting:
- Give yourself permission to rest without guilt
- Recognize you are in a season, not a failure
- Begin small and stay consistent
- Come back to your breath—it always brings you home
📌 Bookmark this post. Read it again when the noise gets too loud.
You are not too much. You are not too late. You are not alone.
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💬 Share this with someone who’s been quiet lately. You never know what they’re holding.
📚 Sources
• American Psychological Association. (2023). Stress in America™: The State of Our Nation. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress
• May, K. (2020). Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. Riverhead Books.
• Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. New York, NY: William Morrow. ISBN: 9780061733529.
• van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York, NY: Viking. ISBN: 9780670785933.
• Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life's Challenges. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications. ISBN: 9781572248403.
• Juniper, A. (2003). Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence. North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing. ISBN: 9780804834827.
• Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 9781118692130.
• Newport, C. (2019). Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. New York, NY: Portfolio. ISBN: 9780525536512.