The Hard Work of Coming Home to Myself
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
— Psalm 51:10
There comes a point when the life you’re living stops making sense.
When your choices feel foreign, even to you.
When your actions don’t match your heart,
and your words don’t match your intentions.
You catch yourself saying things you don’t fully mean.
Doing things that feel hollow.
Reacting in ways that don’t belong to the person you know you can be.
And lately… that’s where I’ve been living.
In the thick fog of misalignment.
Feeling like I’m spiraling—moving fast but going nowhere.
Thinking I know what I want,
only to realize nothing I’m doing feels good,
and nothing I’m chasing feels right.
It’s exhausting.
It’s disorienting.
And it’s made me see that I’m not showing up in the world as the person I want to be—
or the person the people I love deserve to know.
So I’m stepping back.
Not because I don’t care,
but because I care too much to keep showing up like this.
I need to strip away the noise,
pull my energy inward,
and rebuild from the inside out.
The truth is, I’ve been carrying a heavy guilt lately.
A guilt that gnaws at me quietly when I’m still,
and roars in my mind when I try to rest.
Guilt for how I’ve treated certain people.
Guilt for the decisions I’ve been making.
Guilt for abandoning the better version of myself.
It’s forcing me to face hard truths:
I have to end friendships that no longer nurture me.
I have to show up differently at work—
more present, more accountable, more intentional—
and rebuild the trust I’ve let fracture.
I have to take ownership of the harm I’ve caused,
whether it was meant or not.
And to do that, I need space.
Space to self-isolate.
To quiet the constant pull of the outside world.
To sit with my discomfort long enough to hear what it’s trying to teach me.
For a long time, I’ve said organized religion isn’t for me.
And maybe it still isn’t.
But lately, one truth has been pressing on my heart—
I need to build a relationship with God.
Not a passing acknowledgment.
Not a prayer when I’m desperate.
A real, raw connection.
To do that, I have to break myself down.
Strip away every excuse, every layer of pride.
Stand in the rubble of my own wrongs and admit them—
to Him, to others, and to myself.
I have to ask for the strength to rebuild in the image of the person I was meant to be,
not the shadow I’ve been walking as.
And I know the path ahead won’t be easy.
It’s one thing to admit you need to change;
it’s another thing entirely to walk the road that change demands.
I will have to confront parts of myself I’d rather ignore.
I will have to swallow pride, face conversations I’d give anything to avoid,
and sit in the discomfort of hearing the truth from the people I’ve hurt.
I will have to keep showing up for the work even on the days I don’t want to—
because change doesn’t happen in comfort,
and growth doesn’t come without pain.
The reality is, I haven’t been the person I want to be.
Not for myself, and not for the people I love.
My words have fallen short, my actions have missed the mark,
and too often lately, I’ve been careless with hearts that matter to me.
That’s something I have to take ownership of, without excuse.
I can’t undo what’s been done,
but I can stop adding to the hurt.
I can draw a hard line in the sand and say:
this is where I change.
This is where I learn to be better,
to love better,
to live better.
And I know it won’t happen all at once—
but it has to start now.
“I will restore you to health and heal your wounds.” — Jeremiah 30:17
