Cycle-breaker. Earth-shaker. New-way maker.
Whatever you’re calling it,
you’re not alone in that ache of isolation,
the pull of temptation to become mirror opposite–
just as dogmatic, but from the other side.
And yet.
You know, you know, you know.
Your heart says it all has to be different,
well up from a different place.
So you replace your armor with boundaries,
lovingly held.
Replace your reactivity with responses,
carefully considered.
Replace your binary thinking with questions,
welcoming complexity.
You replace control and punishment and shame
with understanding and help and empathy.
Even when it’s hard. (And yes, it can be so, so hard.)
And yet.
You know in your bones,
nothing will ever be as worth it.
The Forest and the Trees 