Restpiration

The Voice That Is Trying to Protect You

Dear Dreamer,

In my previous article, “The Roots Beneath Our Self-Sabotage,” we explored how the things we do to hold ourselves back are often only the visible branches of a deeper tree. We looked beneath procrastination, fear, people-pleasing, and the habit of giving up, and discovered that many of them grow from hidden beliefs about who we are and what we deserve.

Today, let us move a little deeper.

If our self-sabotaging behaviours are branches, and our beliefs are the roots, then who is constantly watering those roots?

Who is the voice that tells us we are not ready, not worthy, not capable, or not safe?

Have you ever noticed how quickly you can turn against yourself?

You make a small mistake, and suddenly your mind begins shouting.

“You always do this.”

“You are not good enough.”

“You will only embarrass yourself.”

“You should have known better.”

The situation may be small, but the reaction feels enormous. It is as though someone has opened an old cupboard inside you and released every painful memory stored there.

For a long time, we may believe that this voice is who we are. We call it our personality. We say, “I am just an anxious person,” or “I always ruin things,” or “I cannot trust myself.”

But what if that voice is not the whole of you?

What if it is a younger part of you that learned to speak this way because it was trying to keep you safe?

Smiling child crawling among colorful toys in a cozy playroom — A joyful child explores a cozy playroom surrounded by colorful toys and favorite stuffed animals.

Think of a child walking through a house at night. The room is familiar during the day, but in darkness, every shadow looks like a threat. The child may become alert, cautious, and afraid. Those reactions make sense in the dark.

But imagine that the child grows up and continues to live as though every room is dangerous.

That is what can happen within us.

A part of us remembers being rejected, criticised, ignored, embarrassed, or made to feel inadequate. It learns certain rules:

Do not speak too boldly.

Do not trust people too much.

Do not try unless you are certain you will succeed.

Do not become too visible.

Do not hope too deeply.

These rules may have helped us survive difficult moments. They may have protected us from disappointment or shame. But protection can become a prison when it is never questioned.

This is where the idea of the inner child becomes meaningful.

The inner child is not necessarily a literal little person living inside you. It is a way of understanding the emotional patterns we carry from earlier experiences. It is the frightened voice, the defensive reaction, the sudden urge to hide, please, control, or give up.

And then there is another voice.

A quieter knowing.

The part of you that can pause before reacting. The part that sees the bigger picture. The part that understands that one mistake is not a life sentence, and one rejection is not proof that you are unworthy.

You might call this your inner wisdom, your deeper self, or simply the part of you that is present beneath the noise.

The goal is not to fight the frightened voice.

A child who is afraid does not become peaceful because we scream at them to stop being afraid. The child becomes peaceful when someone safe sits beside them and says, “I am here. You do not have to handle this alone.”

You can begin to do the same for yourself.

When fear rises, instead of saying, “Why am I like this?” try asking, “What are you afraid might happen?”

When shame appears, ask, “What are you trying to protect me from?”

When you feel the urge to run from something meaningful, pause and listen.

You may discover that beneath the self-sabotage is not hatred, but fear. Not weakness, but an old attempt to remain safe.

You are allowed to thank that part of yourself for trying to help.

And you are also allowed to tell it, with love, that the present is different from the past.

You are older now. You have more understanding, more choices, and more room to respond.

The frightened voice may still visit. But it does not have to drive.

You can listen to it without obeying it.

You can comfort it without becoming it.

And slowly, dear Dreamer, you can learn to trust the wiser part of you that has been there all along.

With all my love,

Restpirant Jerome

The Roots Beneath Our Self-Sabotage

Have you ever found yourself doing the very thing you promised yourself you wouldn’t do?

You know what needs to be done. You even know how much it matters to you. Yet, when the moment arrives, you hesitate. You postpone. You keep quiet. You choose the familiar, even when the familiar has become uncomfortable.

And afterwards, you wonder, “Why do I keep doing this to myself?”

It is a frustrating question. But perhaps there is another way to look at it.

Perhaps the problem is not always the behavior itself. Perhaps there is a belief beneath it, quietly guiding your choices.

Think of a tree.

When you notice a branch growing in an unwanted direction, you can cut it off. But if the root remains untouched, another branch may grow in its place. You may spend years trimming branches, wondering why the tree keeps returning to the same shape.

Our lives can be like that.

We try to stop procrastinating. We promise to be more confident. We tell ourselves to stop seeking approval. We decide that this time, we will finally change.

But sometimes, the behavior is only the visible branch.

The unseen root may be a belief such as, “I am not capable.” Or, “If I speak honestly, people will reject me.” Or perhaps, “If I make a mistake, I will lose my worth.”

When such beliefs sit quietly beneath our choices, even self-sabotage can begin to look like a sensible thing to do.

If you believe you are incapable, hesitation feels reasonable.

If you believe rejection makes you unworthy, hiding feels protective.

If you believe mistakes diminish your value, perfection becomes a necessity.

And so, we find ourselves living according to beliefs we may never have consciously chosen.

Student cutting rope around stack of labeled academic books and papers — A student cuts the rope binding a towering stack of academic work labeled with deadlines and research tasks.

Some of these beliefs may have been learned long ago. Perhaps there was a time when staying quiet helped you avoid conflict. Perhaps pleasing everyone helped you feel accepted. Perhaps keeping your opinions to yourself made life easier.

There is nothing foolish about recognizing that these strategies may once have served a purpose.

But what protected you yesterday may not be what you need today.

A coat that kept you warm in the harmattan may become uncomfortable under the afternoon sun. You do not need to hate the coat. You simply need to recognize that the weather has changed.

The same can be true of our beliefs.

This is why curiosity can be more helpful than criticism.

Instead of asking, “Why am I ruining everything again?” we might ask, “What belief made this behavior seem like the right choice?”

That question changes the conversation.

It allows us to look beneath the branch and gently explore the root.

Perhaps we discover fear. Perhaps an old need for approval. Perhaps a belief that we must be perfect before we deserve to be seen.

Whatever we find, we do not have to attack ourselves for having learned it.

We can simply ask, “Is this still true?”

And sometimes, that question is the beginning of freedom.

Not because the old belief disappears in a single moment. Not because we suddenly become fearless.

But because we begin to see that a thought can be familiar without being true.

We begin to understand that our past may explain some of our patterns, but it does not have to write the rest of our story.

So, the next time you notice yourself repeating a behavior you dislike, pause for a moment.

Take a breath.

Look beneath the branch, and ask yourself:

What belief is guiding me right now?

And if that belief is no longer true, what small, honest steps could I take instead?

You do not have to change dramatically overnight.

Sometimes, the first step is simply noticing the root.

And in that gentle noticing, something begins to change.

You are no longer fighting yourself blindly.

You are beginning to understand.

And perhaps, dear Dreamer, that is where a more authentic life begins.

The Maestro’s Gold

Have you ever been in the presence of a maestro? I mean someone so in tune with his art that what takes years of practice appears almost effortless.

Perhaps you have heard how energy-draining and time-consuming mastery can be. From the outside, it can seem almost like a masochistic venture. No pain, no gain. Yet when you look closely at the face of the maestro, something is missing. You do not see the pains of practice etched across his face. You see the pleasures of participation.

And perhaps that is where the maestro differs from the rest of us.

Through insight, he has found something that many rarely discover in their pursuits. I call it the maestro’s gold.

In the mind of the maestro, there is no sharp separation between work and play. Work is simply glorified play. To work effectively, one must somehow recover the heart of playfulness.

So the maestro takes up his craft early in the morning and wonders what joys are waiting for him. He is not desperately trying to measure up. He is not performing for admiration. That is the least of his concerns.

His pursuit is not perfection for perfection’s sake. It is union.

He wants to become so acquainted with his craft that it begins to find expression through his thoughts and hands. There is a kind of effortless rhythm, a mysterious flow, where the craft seems to find its own voice without being constantly dictated to.

I love the description of the Brazilian team that won the 1958 World Cup. They were said to have danced their way to victory, bouncing the ball off every muscle of their bodies and making moves nobody thought possible. They made football look less like football and more like basketball.

The ball seemed to have found freedom at their feet.

There was a gleeful liberation in their play that the other teams seemed to lack. And don’t we all love seeing that? Someone so at home in what they do that effort begins to look like play and mastery begins to look like freedom.

Not all of us may be fortunate enough to be called maestros. But perhaps we can cultivate the mindset that makes labour more pleasurable and brings a deeper sense of rhythm and flow into everyday living.

That is what makes everything an art.

Living becomes an art. Relationships become an art. Writing, parenting, studying, creating, even the ordinary business of being human can become an art.

And art is perfected not through grim seriousness or fatalistic obsession, but through grace. Through a certain gentleness and ease. Through becoming flexible enough to accommodate the nuances of the craft itself.

This has little to do with showing off or knowing it all. It is about rhythm. It is about flow. It is about allowing something greater than our rigid plans to find expression through us.

Perhaps that is our vital participation in life.

To become conduits for ideas, beauty and creative sparks that have long been dormant, waiting for someone willing to let them breathe.

Maybe the maestro’s gold is not mastery after all.

Maybe it is the joy of becoming one with what we were made to do.

You’re Making More Progress Than You Think

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes when you are trying to grow, but you cannot seem to see the growth.

You study and study, yet the goal still feels far away. You work hard, but the results are taking their time. You make an effort to change, but some days you find yourself wondering whether you have really changed at all.

It is easy to conclude that you are going nowhere.

But perhaps you are looking at your journey from too close a distance.

I once came across a graph that perfectly captured something I had struggled to understand about progress. It looked like a wave. It went up, then down. Up again, then down again. But there was something else happening. When you compared the movement with the horizontal axis, the overall direction was upward.

That is life.

When you are inside the wave, all you can see are the ups and downs.

You have a good week, then a difficult one. You feel motivated today and discouraged tomorrow. You make progress, then seem to fall back into an old habit. You receive an opportunity, then face a disappointment. You take two steps forward and sometimes feel as though you have taken one step backwards.

Because you are living inside the wave, the setbacks can feel bigger than the progress.

But step back.

Look at the whole picture.

You may discover that although you have had difficult moments, you are not the same person you were a year ago. You may not be where you want to be yet, but you are further along than where you started.

That is the irony of growth.

We often expect progress to look like a straight line. We imagine that once we decide to improve our lives, every day should be better than the previous one. But real growth is rarely that neat. There are fluctuations. There are pauses. There are days when you question everything.

The downward part of the wave does not necessarily mean you are going backward.

Sometimes it is simply part of moving forward.

Think about learning something difficult. There are days when everything suddenly makes sense. Then comes a day when you struggle with something you thought you understood. It feels like you have lost your progress. But you have not. Your understanding is being stretched and strengthened.

The same can happen with life.

Maybe you are building a career. Maybe you are pursuing an education. Maybe you are trying to become more disciplined, more patient, more confident or simply more comfortable with who you are.

Do not measure your entire journey by today’s feeling.

A bad day is not proof that you are failing.

A difficult season is not proof that you have made no progress.

And a temporary setback does not erase everything you have learned along the way.

Sometimes, we need to step outside the wave and look at the direction of the line.

Look at how far you have come.

Remember the things that once frightened you but no longer do. Remember the challenges you thought you would never survive. Remember the person you were when you started.

You might be surprised.

The wave is still moving.

And so are you.

Keep going. Even when the line dips. Even when the progress feels invisible. Even when all you can see is another rise and another fall.

Because from inside the wave, it may feel like you are simply going up and down.

But from a wider view, you may realise that you have been climbing all along.

The Art and Calling of Writing

Used rightly, writing can be one of the greatest forms of self-expression. There are things we struggle to say when speaking that somehow find their way onto paper. Words that get stuck in our mouths often flow freely through our fingers.

Speaking is spontaneous. We think, respond and move on, sometimes before we have had enough time to organise our thoughts. We may hesitate, repeat ourselves, forget the right word or say something that does not quite capture what we intended. Writing gives us something speaking often cannot: time.

You can pause. You can rethink a sentence. You can delete an entire paragraph and start again. You can search for a better word, rearrange your thoughts and read everything over before anyone else sees it. There is a certain freedom in knowing that you do not have to get everything right on the first attempt.

If you are like the rest of us who do not always have it together in speech, then perhaps the pen and paper are among the best allies you can find.

There are many forms through which you can express yourself: poetry, fiction, short stories, essays, novels, narratives and non-fiction. You do not have to master all of them. Find the form that allows your thoughts to breathe.

But who exactly is an accomplished writer?

Is it the person whose books sell millions of copies? Not necessarily. Success may come with recognition and financial reward, but there is something deeper than that. An accomplished writer is someone whose writing becomes more than an activity. The pen becomes an extension of the person. Writing becomes a way of seeing, processing and making sense of life.

Writing as an Art

Art is a skill that can be developed through study, practice and observation. Writing is no different.

Think of writing as something that can be cultivated. Read widely. Pay attention to how people speak and behave. Observe the world around you. Notice the little things that others overlook. Then write.

The more you read, observe and practise, the more naturally writing begins to take shape in you. You discover your voice. You learn what moves you and what you want your words to do.

And you do not have to torture yourself to become a good writer. Writing is not supposed to leave you constantly frustrated and exhausted. There is a patience to the process. Give yourself permission to write badly before you learn to write well. The first draft does not have to be perfect. It simply has to exist.

The Calling of a Writer

Behind many movements, revolutions and social changes is a writer who refused to remain silent.

Words have influence. They can challenge an idea, preserve a memory, comfort a broken heart, inspire courage and give language to experiences people could not previously explain.

For those of us who believe in God, writing can also be a calling.

Many of the people whose writings became part of Scripture were not professional authors. Yet they responded to something greater than themselves and put words to what they had been entrusted to communicate. Generations have since been shaped by those words.

Perhaps you have wondered whether you are called to write. Maybe there is an idea that keeps returning to you. A story you cannot stop thinking about. A message that burns within you. A desire to put your experiences into words that refuses to disappear.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Perhaps that persistent desire is worth paying attention to.

The calling of a writer does not always arrive with a dramatic voice from heaven. Sometimes, it begins as a quiet but persistent conviction that says, Write.

And when you recognise it, respond.

Pick up the pen. Open the blank document. Start somewhere.

Tell yourself, “Yes, I am a writer. I have something to say, and I will give myself to the craft of saying it well.”