What burdens are you still carrying?

The last time I was in France, I visited my grandfather in hospital.

It would be the last conversation we would ever share.

He spoke often of Jesus. Every day, he prayed for forgiveness, yet he remained afraid.

"What if Jesus doesn't forgive me?"

With his permission, I did a gentle kinesiology balance beside his hospital bed. The emotion that surfaced was 'letting go'.

As we explored deeper, we began to see how his burdens had become like a great boulder he had carried through his entire life. So heavy, he no longer knew what it felt like to walk without it.

I remember asking him, "What if you've been forgiven already? The teacher who spoke of love, compassion and forgiveness—why wouldn't he forgive the first time you asked?

But have you forgiven yourself?"

Now, standing at his final resting place, I found myself reflecting on that conversation in a new way.

Perhaps the greatest burdens we carry are not imposed upon us by life.

Perhaps they are the ones we continue to pick up, day after day.

The guilt.

The resentment.

The regrets.

The identities we've built around old wounds.

Over time, they stop feeling like something we carry and begin feeling like who we are.

This, to me, is where Inner Coherence begins.

Not by forcing ourselves to "let go."

But by recognising that the burden is something we are experiencing—not something we are.

There is guilt.

There is regret.

There is grief.

But these are visitors.

They are not our identity.

And in the moment we can witness them rather than become them, a little space appears.

In that space, we remember that we have a choice.

A choice to keep carrying the stone.

Or a choice to gently place it back on the ground.

Again.

And again.

Until walking lightly becomes our natural way of being.

What if whatever we don't reconcile today is carried into tomorrow?

Do I want to carry this into tomorrow?

For me, the answer is no.

I want to live lightly.

To feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.

The scent of the ocean.

The breeze across my face.

To meet each day without dragging yesterday behind me.

I'm human.

I have made mistakes.

I will make more.

But I also know that the woman I am today is not the woman I was yesterday.

She has learned.

She has grown.

And she chooses differently.

Perhaps that is enough.

What burden am I carrying today that I could gently place back on the ground?

Not solve.

Not fix.

Simply stop carrying.

That is accessible.

That is practical.

That is coherence.

What burden am I carrying that I no longer need to carry?

• What intention do I choose today?

• What beauty did I notice today?

• What burden did I put down today?

That isn't just reflection.

It's nervous system hygiene.

Just as we shower our bodies, we gradually stop allowing emotional residue to accumulate.

Every day we are given an invisible choice.

Will I spend today's energy carrying yesterday, or living today?

When someone becomes coherent, they don't usually say,

"I have achieved autonomic nervous system regulation."

They say,

"I feel lighter."

Lighter in body.

Lighter in thought.

Lighter in relationship.

Lighter in spirit.

Inner Coherence is the gradual art of becoming light enough to meet life as it is, rather than through the weight of what we continue to carry.

In loving memory of my grandfather. ❤️

Here are some helpful Journal reflections:

What story am I replaying?

What identity am I defending?

What guilt have I mistaken for who I am?

What resentment has become familiar?