Reading To Heal

A flower blooms because it will eventually wither.

A child grows up because they cannot remain a child forever.

A day begins because it will come to an end.

Vanishing is part of being here.

When we recognize this,
perhaps we learn to be more present.

We can look more closely at the people we love.

Listen to them more deeply.

Hold our children a little longer.

Drink a cup of coffee without checking our phones at the same time.

Take a walk without turning it into another “self-improvement project.”

Because we know:

This moment did not come to stay.

It came to be lived.

We are human.

We carry within us the seeds of fear, selfishness, greed, and anger.

So there are times when we say things we shouldn't say.
There are days when we act impulsively and unintentionally hurt someone.

We have our limitations.

And having limitations is not a flaw in being human.

So when we expect someone to be perfect, we no longer give them permission to be human.

A mother who is exhausted from caring for young children and dealing with work — why should she always have to be gentle?

A father who is busy with work and facing the possibility of losing his job — how can he always be patient?

And children have their own struggles, too.

They will have moments of disappointment, sadness, frustration, and times when they simply don't know what to do with all the feelings growing inside them.

Perhaps our job is not to tell them:

“Behave like a Buddha.”

Perhaps it is simply to say:

Let people be human.

Let others have imperfect days.

And allow yourself to have them, too.

Perhaps that is one of the gentlest ways we can help them — and help ourselves — along this journey.

Because when we no longer have to constantly try to become perfect,

perhaps we finally have enough space to see ourselves more clearly.

And then, one day,

whatever needs to bloom will find its own way to bloom.

Have you ever created something and, when you looked at it afterward, wondered:

“How did I even make that?”

As if, for a moment, something moved through you that was larger than your usual thinking.

Perhaps you didn't plan every word.

You didn't calculate every detail.

You simply became completely absorbed in what you were doing.

You forgot yourself.

You forgot the time.

You forgot whether anyone would like it.

There was only you and the act of creating.

Eckhart Tolle says:

“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

Maybe this is why some works of art feel different.

When we look at them, we don't simply see an object.

Something in us becomes quiet.

We feel drawn into it.

As though the artist disappeared for a moment,

and allowed something deeper to speak through them.

And perhaps we all have this kind of artist within us.

It doesn't mean we have to paint a masterpiece or write a song.

It could be anything we do with our whole attention.

Cooking.

Gardening.

Writing.

Taking a photograph.

Building something with our hands.

Playing with a child.

But so often, the artist within us is covered by the noise of the ego:

“Is this good enough?”

“What will people think?”

“Will this succeed?”

“What will I get from it?”

And suddenly, instead of creating,

we are busy watching ourselves create.

Perhaps creativity doesn't always need more effort.

Perhaps sometimes it needs less interference.

A little less “me.”

A little less noise.

A little more stillness.

Because the deepest kind of creativity happens

not when we force something to come through,

but when we become quiet enough

to let it come through us.

When I first started this journey, I kept coming across articles and teachings that said things like:

“You have to kill the ego if you want to be at peace.”

And for a while, I really believed it.

I tried to get rid of my ego.
Fight it.
Try to become “less ego-driven.”

Until one day, I suddenly realized:

My ego was trying to defeat my own ego. 😄
..

So I practiced:

Meditation.
Presence.
Observing the mind.
Opening my heart.
Love.
Trusting the deeper wisdom within me.

I stopped turning the attempt to get rid of my ego into another project of the ego.

I stopped constantly checking:

“Do I still have an ego today?” 😂

I simply returned to the practice.
Returned to presence.
..

The question on this journey isn’t:

“How do I get rid of my ego?”

It is:

“Am I mistaking my ego for who I am?”

In my country, we have a saying:

“Your inner world shapes your face.”

And the older I get, the more I see the truth in it.

When we are young, our face is largely something we receive from our parents.

Genes do their work.

But after many years of living, our face becomes more than just genetics.

It also begins to reflect the way we have lived.

Someone who spends years living with anger, resentment, suspicion, and constant tension may carry traces of those experiences in the way they look at the world.

Someone who spends years living with openness, gentleness, and a little more peace may carry something different.

Of course, our genes still deserve some credit. 😄

But perhaps they are not the only ones writing the story.

Every day, we practice something.

We practice anger.

We practice worry.

We practice defensiveness.

Or we practice patience.

We practice listening.

We practice letting go.

And little by little, these practices become part of the way we move through the world.

Perhaps this is what Suzuki meant when he said that when we are young, our face is given to us by our parents.

But as we grow older, our practice begins to give us our face.

So maybe the question is not only:

“How will I look when I get older?”

But also:

“What kind of person is the way I live today turning me into?”

I think all of us have faced situations we simply could not control:

Losing something and being unable to get it back.

Someone deciding to leave.

A flight being canceled.

Something in the past that has already happened.

Or having to wait for an outcome that we cannot change right now.

In situations like these, thinking about it 500 more times won't solve the problem.

But the mind still refuses to stop.

“If only…”

“I should have…”

“If I had done things differently…”

“Why did this happen?”

And sometimes, this is where suffering begins.

Not because there is something we can change,

but because we are still trying to change, in our minds, something that has already happened.

Eckhart Tolle says:

“If there is nothing you can do, face what is and say, ‘Well, right now, this is how it is. I can either accept it, or make myself miserable.’”

If you cannot change the situation,

fighting against reality in your mind usually won't change the situation either.

It only adds another layer of suffering.

Sometimes, acceptance simply begins with looking directly at what is and saying:

“Okay. Right now, this is how things are.”

And from there,

if there is something you can do,

do it.

And if there isn't,

perhaps we don't need to make ourselves suffer even more over something we cannot change.

Sometimes, peace doesn't come from making everything different.

It comes from the moment we stop fighting what already is.

In the past, one of my most common phrases was:

“It's okay.”

“I'm fine.”

While inside, I was screaming:

“Everything is not okay at all.”

I tried to become a “pleasant,” “kind,” “understanding” person
just to hold on to a relationship.

From the outside,
it may have looked like I was sacrificing myself for love.

But in reality,

I was abandoning myself.
..

And when I was constantly trying to hide who I really was
just to keep a relationship,

that relationship was being built
on a version of me
that wasn't completely real.

As I went deeper into this journey,

I began to be honest
with what was happening inside me.

I don't run away from my emotions.

I don't pretend I'm okay.

I don't turn myself into someone else
just to be accepted.

I don't say “yes”
when everything inside me says “no”
just because I'm afraid of upsetting someone.

I don't need to fight against other people.

I simply don't abandon myself.

And from there,
my loyalty to others
becomes more genuine, too.

Maybe today,

try taking a walk
without needing to go anywhere.

Without needing to achieve anything.

Without needing to become
a better version of yourself.

Without rushing to heal
or become someone new.

Just walk.

One step.

And then another.

Feel your feet touching the ground.
Feel your breath coming and going.
Feel the breeze against your face.

And for the first time in a while,
let walking be something
that does not have to take you anywhere.

Just walk.

Because perhaps,

we have spent too much of our lives
trying to get somewhere else,

and forgotten that

life is happening
in these very steps.

The people closest to us often know exactly how to make us react.

Not necessarily because they mean to.

They simply touch the things that are still alive inside us.

Our spouse can touch our need to be loved, understood, and acknowledged.

Our children can touch our need for control and our expectations.

Our parents can touch old wounds.

Our friends can touch our need for acceptance, validation, or our habit of comparing ourselves to others.

And sometimes, all it takes is one little sentence:

“You’re always like this.”

…to turn someone who just finished a 30-minute meditation into a defense attorney for themselves in three seconds. 😄

You think you’ve finally become peaceful.

Until someone presses exactly the right button.

And suddenly:

“Presence” is gone.
“Acceptance” is gone.
“Letting go” has disappeared somewhere too.

All that’s left is a mind preparing a 45-minute closing argument to prove:

“I’m not wrong.”

But perhaps moments like these are not failures.

Perhaps they simply show us that there is still more for us to see on this journey.

Byron Katie once said:

“Our job is unconditional love.
The job of everyone else in our life is to push our buttons.”

Maybe we don’t need to make everyone stop pushing our buttons.

Maybe our job is simply to notice:

Oh… so this button is still here.

And next time,

instead of immediately pressing “Reply,”

we might try pressing “Pause.”

Sometimes,

that alone is already a big step

on the way back to ourselves.

When you read these words,

you have probably been through days when you once thought:

“I can’t get through this.”

A breakup.

A failure.

A loss.

An unexpected event.

Or a period in your life when you simply didn’t know what to do next.

Suddenly, you were no longer sure who you were.

The things that once made you feel safe were no longer there.

The things you once believed in began to shake.

And sometimes, that sense of helplessness creates a crack in the shell we have built around ourselves.

Then, time passes.

And you begin to realize:

I survived the days I once thought I never would.

Not only that.

Those difficult days changed you.

You grew.

You learned to let go of things you once thought would stay with you forever.

You realized that not everything that leaves your life is a loss.

Some things have to leave

so that you can see yourself more clearly.

Some doors close

so that you stop trying to return to a place that no longer belongs to you.

And some pain

does not come to destroy you,

but to crack open the shell you once thought was who you were.

Eckhart Tolle writes:

“Suffering cracks open the shell of ego.”

Perhaps, at some point,

you look back on those days and realize:

The very things I once wanted to escape from

helped me let go of what I no longer needed to carry.

And then you begin to discover something you had never understood before:

Freedom is not about holding on to everything you love.

Sometimes,

freedom begins when you can let something leave

without losing yourself along with it.