The Weight of My Words

 I am emotionally exhausted.

Not because I am weak, but because I have been graceful for too long in environments that confuse compliance with professionalism.

Recently, I found myself once again facing the same cycle — uncertainty about my place, decisions being made around me without my voice, and my character being quietly dissected under the label of “feedback.” Someone questioned my communication approach, twisting a situation into something it was not, even going so far as to imply that I wanted to walk away. That was the line. That was the moment I realized how often truth-tellers are punished not for what they do, but for refusing to play the game.

I have spent my entire life trying to refine how I express myself — learning when to pause, when to hold back, when to breathe before I speak. But what I’ve come to understand is this: the more I repress myself to make others comfortable, the louder my spirit becomes.

It is not lost on me that the world has always tried to correct people like me. Teachers, bosses, mentors, institutions — all encouraging a softer tone, a gentler delivery, a less “intense” presence. But intensity is not aggression. Passion is not a flaw. Clarity is not cruelty.

My words carry weight because they come from truth — the truth of someone who sees the cracks in systems and refuses to pretend they are whole. That truth makes people uncomfortable. It challenges hierarchies, disrupts norms, and exposes dynamics that thrive in silence.

I have done the inner work. I have sat with my own shadows. I have learned emotional regulation, empathy, patience, and accountability. But no amount of growth will make me tolerate manipulation, gossip, or dishonesty disguised as professionalism.

There is a cost to being an open book in a world built on hidden agendas. The cost is exhaustion. But I am learning that exhaustion can also mean freedom — the moment you stop explaining yourself to people who never wanted to understand you in the first place.

So no, I will not shrink. I will not contort myself to fit into spaces that reward silence over authenticity. I will keep using my voice, even if it shakes. Because grace is not about staying quiet — it is about standing tall in your truth, even when it makes others uncomfortable.

Lately, I have been reminding myself that peace does not always look like calm; sometimes it looks like courage. The kind that allows you to walk away from what no longer feels right, to rest without guilt, and to reclaim your energy from spaces that drain it. I am learning that I do not have to fight every battle to win the war — sometimes the victory is in protecting my peace, keeping my heart open, and trusting that authenticity will always outlast manipulation.