Let me pipe up real quick.

Some days I wake up tired before I even stand.
And it ain’t just physical. It’s something deeper—
like I’ve been dragging a suitcase full of things I never packed.

That’s when I realized:

The weight we carry ain’t always ours.

Sometimes we carry the silence of our fathers.
The expectations of our mothers.
The pressure to be strong, to be useful, to be okay… even when we’re not.

We carry guilt that ain’t ours.
Shame that started in someone else’s story.
Pain we inherited but never unpacked.

You ever sit with yourself and feel overwhelmed, but you can’t even point to why?

That’s what happens when you’ve been holding on to what everybody else dropped.
Their mistakes.
Their wounds.
Their voices in your head saying, “Be better,”
but never showing you how.

And even when we try to put it down, something in us feels guilty.
Like we’re dishonoring someone by not continuing their struggle.
Like healing makes us selfish.

But here’s the truth:

You can’t be free if your hands are full of ghosts.
And you can’t carry your future while you’re still bent under somebody else’s past.

It’s heavy because it’s not all yours.
And you weren’t meant to carry it forever.

You were meant to face it, name it, grieve it… and let it go.
Not to pretend it never happened,
but to finally say: “This ain’t mine. I release it.”

That’s not weakness.
That’s strength without the costume.

That’s the kind of man I’m becoming.
Not the one who never felt pain—
but the one who finally realized what pain was his… and what wasn’t.

Remember. We all carry something, but here you don’t have to carry it alone.

Pipe Up!

Unpacking this weight is hard, but sometimes journaling helps. Here you can download our free 7 Day Reflections Journal.

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