There were times, in the silencing of my own mind, when I simply watched tending the garden within, waiting for new shoots of being to rise that an old companion would enter: guilt. Guilt for not doing enough. Guilt for letting the world pass by unmeasured and unanswered, for failing to meet expectations that I once carried willingly the pressure to be busy, productive, ever-giving, ever-proving.

In those quiet moments, I felt as though I was resisting the world, standing at the edge of its current, watching as it rushed past, while I simply breathed.

Guilt’s voice is persistent, familiar but in the hush, another voice would come, softer than thought, a whisper inside the stillness: Be patient. There is no need to go anywhere,
no need to hurry or strive or prove. There is nothing to do but to be and it is good for you.

This is the lesson the garden teaches: that growth happens in rest, that nothing blooms by force, and that to tend the soul is as necessary as any work the world could ask.

In learning to listen beyond guilt,
I discover the healing in just being.
Permission to rest.
Permission to grow roots in silence.
Permission, at last, to be enough.