A seed splits open—
Not in destruction, but in creation.
Growth is the art of undoing.
The Years That Unmade Me
Becoming is not about adding to yourself. It is about letting go. Unraveling the parts that no longer fit. Shedding old skin, old fears, old names whispered in rooms you no longer stand in.
I used to think that I would grow by accumulating—by gathering experiences, by collecting wisdom, by learning more about the world and my place in it. But real growth? Real growth felt like undoing. Like pulling threads from the fabric of who I once was, like tearing down walls I spent years building, like surrendering to the quiet knowledge that I would never be the same again.
It came in three forms:
- The truths I was afraid to face. The kind that sat in the corners of my mind, waiting for me to stop pretending I didn’t see them. The kind that whispered, “This is not who you are anymore.”
- The versions of me I had to leave behind. The ones that had served their purpose, that had carried me this far, but could not walk with me any further.
- The lessons I learned in the absence of certainty. The nights when the future felt like an open sky, terrifying and endless, and I had no choice but to step forward anyway.
Becoming is not neat. It is not graceful. It is a series of small deaths and quiet rebirths. It is the moment you realize that to step into who you are meant to be, you must first release who you were.
The Cost of Growth
- Some doors do not close behind you—they dissolve.
- Not everyone you love will recognize the person you become.
- Pain is not a punishment. It is proof of transformation.
- A self that is never questioned is a self that is never known.
Change does not ask for your permission. It arrives, unannounced, and waits for you to decide if you will resist or yield.
And the truth is—
You do not grow by holding on.
You grow by letting go.
Wabi-Sabi and the Art of Embracing the Unfinished
Wabi-sabi teaches that nothing is ever truly complete. That growth is not about perfecting yourself, but about surrendering to the beauty of what is unfinished.
- A crack in a stone does not make it weaker. It makes it real.
- A tree does not apologize for losing its leaves.
- A river does not regret the land it has shaped.
You are not meant to be polished. You are meant to be real.
Lessons from the Unfolding Self
- To grow is to unmake and remake yourself, over and over again.
- You are not who you were, and that is a gift.
- What you lose makes space for what you are meant to find.
- No path is wasted. Even the detours shape you.
- Your unfinished edges are where the light gets in.
The Seed, the Sky, the Self That Emerges
For a long time, I clung to the idea of permanence. I feared change, mistook comfort for safety, held on too tightly to things that no longer belonged to me.
But growth does not wait. It moves through you, whether you are ready or not. It asks you to loosen your grip, to trust the process, to understand that nothing lost is truly gone—it has only changed form.
And so, I let go.
Not with fear.
But with faith.
Because to become, you must first allow yourself to break open.
life 
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