In May, I hope to consciously lead with compassion. One that is reserved for myself, not just others. The kind that begins at home, within. Not as a grand gesture. Not to prove that I am healed or evolving. But simply because I am realizing that compassion is a more sustainable companion than reproach. And maybe in the quietest corners of me, I am beginning to believe I deserve it.

There has been a war of voices inside me for as long as I can remember — for as long as my mom introduced me to ‘Battlefield of the Mind’ by Joyce Meyer when I was a teenager. I knew it wasn’t normal, not the extent to which it occurred. These voices perpetually slept and woke with me. But with age, I realized I wasn’t alone in the struggle of internal orators.

Some of these voices speak in riddles. Some shout in panic. Others whisper warnings at the edge of sleep. They mean well or at least, I believed they did.

For a long time, I met them with resistance. I fought noise with noise, reprimanded fear with fierceness. I believed a perturbed mind needed to be disciplined, silenced, corrected. Dealing chaos with chaos, this was the only way I understood. But that only left me circling the same kind of ache. A bruising ache. One that didn’t come from a place of feeling too much, but from feeling unheard even by myself. I thought self love had to be hard earned.

But it never brought me peace. Hardcore reproach never brought me peace. It only made fear sharper. I tried praying it away, sobbing it away, distracting it, journaling it into metaphors. Still, it lingered. It failed, because I never really stopped to catch a breath without bracing for impact.

Now, I find myself tiptoeing down a different path, a new kind of knowing, a quieter one. Not without fear but not led by it either. I’m learning to hold space for the voices without handing them the mic. I am listening without absorbing, witnessing without self blame. I am trying. And in doing so, I have stumbled upon a stillness, small but real. A voice that doesn’t demand a performance in my head. One that doesn’t promise certainty but offers something gentler…presence. It says, “You’re safe here.”

And as I carry on, I want to know calm as a rhythm that is familiar, a feeling that comes as natural as breathing. To grow fond of the absence of distress in a way that honors peace as real and myself as a worthy thing. A space I can inhabit.

In May, I want to know what it feels like to be held by my own compassion. To speak to myself the way I would to someone I love. Gently, without urgency. To speak kindly to the parts of me that still flinch. To let softness interrupt the cycle of inner unrest. To let it be enough.

And when I forget, because I will, I hope I return to this place without punishment. Without cruelty. Without dramatics. Just a quiet return, again and again, until I no longer fear my own tenderness and it becomes second nature to lead myself home. Back to myself.