If You Feel Like You Always Have to Be the Strong One, Read This

There are burdens we learn to carry not because they were given to us, but because we thought no one else would—the emotional weight of others’ expectations, the grief that belongs to a version of our life that didn’t unfold the way we imagined, the pressure to hold everything together—to be the strong one, the steady one, the one who never asks for help.

And in the quiet moments, it’s easy to confuse that kind of heaviness with holiness. It’s easy to think that if we’re carrying it well...