If you’re reading this, I don’t know your name.
I don’t know if it’s 2 AM where you are, or if your hands are shaking because of anger, fear, or just too much coffee. I don’t know what you said to them, or what they said to you that made the room feel too small.
But I know your body.
I know the way your chest gets tight before you let yourself feel it. I know the shallow breathing that makes your head feel floaty, like you’re watching yourself from the ceiling. I know the urge to move, to run, to say something you can’t take back, just to make the pressure stop.
Don’t.
Not yet.
Your nervous system thinks you’re in danger. It’s wrong, but it’s fast, and it’s loud. So borrow thirty seconds from it. Put your hand on your sternum. Feel that rise and fall. It’s slower than you think. Match it. In for four, out for six. Your heart will argue at first. Let it. It always calms down when you stop trying to outrun it.
You don’t have to be calm to be okay.
You just have to stop making your body pay for a decision you haven’t made yet.
Whatever you’re facing out there, it won’t get smaller by tearing yourself up first. The unknown doesn’t need you sharp and bleeding to meet it. It needs you present. Even if you’re shaking. Even if your voice cracks. Especially then.
So breathe.
Once. Twice.
Then go do the thing you’re afraid of.
I’ll be here, unknown to you, but not unfamiliar. I’ve been where you are. And I made it through.
You will too.
Shalom
