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Personal Reflection

There’s a strange violence in release. We call it growth, but sometimes it feels like grief — like watching the parts of yourself that once felt sacred crumble into something you can’t hold anymore. Rumi knew that letting go isn’t graceful. It’s necessary.

A tree doesn’t argue with winter. It doesn’t try to keep what’s dying attached. It sheds, not out of despair, but wisdom — the knowing that life can’t thrive under the weight of what’s meant to fall. The tree doesn’t call this death; it calls it preparation.

We, on the other hand, cling. We hold on to people long after their presence has turned into silence. We keep carrying beliefs that don’t fit the person we’ve become. We confuse endurance with devotion, even when the holding has hollowed us out.

But the truth is, nothing real is lost in letting go. What remains after the shedding — that’s who you actually are. Bare. Honest. Stripped of performance. The wind moves through you differently when you stop pretending you’re still in bloom.

And maybe that’s the quiet power Rumi meant:
to know when a season has ended,
to stand unadorned,
and trust that what falls away was never yours to keep.

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Reflective Prompt

What are you afraid might die if you stop holding on?
What if that death is only a clearing — making space for what’s been waiting to grow in the open?