When the Body Says Enough

A love letter to the exhausted, the exiled, and the ones finding their way home

I’ve been walking around with a story that I was just jetlagged.

That it was the long travel back from Bali to Canada and back again.

That it was the reentry into a full calendar, the transitions, the tasks.

That it was the emotional weight of a deeply meaningful visit—holding family, holding history, holding so many truths at once.

That it was hormones or stress or screen time.

And all of those things may be true.

But they are not the truth.

Because when I stopped explaining it—when I let the mental noise fall silent and simply felt—what I discovered was this:

I am exhausted.

Not just tired. Not depleted.

But deeply, profoundly exhausted.

In my bones.

In the spaces between my cells.

In the places that don’t have words but carry the memory of everything I’ve pushed through.

And the hardest part is this:

It’s not new.

This isn’t an acute crash.

This isn’t situational.

This is the quiet accumulation of decades lived in contradiction to my body.

Of waking before dawn not because I wanted to, but because I had to.

Of overriding hunger, thirst, rest, emotion—because they were inconvenient.

Of measuring success by how well I could abandon myself without anyone noticing.

Somewhere along the line, I built a life—created a life—that didn’t include space for my body.

Not really.

A life where being embodied was secondary to being efficient.

Where feelings were intellectualized.

Where exhaustion was a badge of honour, not a warning sign.

Where softness was weakness.

Where rest had to be earned.

And underneath all of that, a more painful truth:

I didn’t trust my body.

At times, I didn’t want a body.

I saw her needs as interruptions. Her shape as a problem.

I starved her, punished her, criticized her, numbed her.

She kept breathing.

She carried me.

She adapted. She endured. She never stopped trying to keep me alive, even when I refused to truly live inside her.

And now, she is saying—gently, but unmistakably—enough.

Enough performance.

Enough pretending that pace is purpose.

Enough structuring my life to accommodate everything and everyone except the being that is living it.

This is not burnout.

This is the body finally being heard.

And I know I’m not the only one.

I know there are millions of us—especially women, especially caregivers, especially those raised to believe we are what we do—who walk around each day silently dissociated from the wisdom of our own bodies.

We don’t just ignore our bodies.

We negotiate with them.

Bribe them. Bully them.

We force them to show up when they are already bleeding, grieving, aching, crying out.

We call that responsibility.

And when they scream—when the panic attacks come, or the illness, or the sudden tears we can’t explain—we call it weakness. Or collapse. Or failure.

But what if it’s none of those things?

What if it’s the only sane response to a life that hasn’t made room for your full humanity?

What if the body has never once betrayed you—but has been bearing the betrayal you’ve lived with for far too long?

What if exhaustion is the most faithful messenger you’ve ever known?

I am sitting with that.

Breathing with that.

Letting the enormity of it wash through me.

There is grief here.

Grief for how long I’ve lived like this.

Grief for what I’ve missed.

Grief for the tenderness I didn’t know I was allowed to feel.

There is also something else rising.

Something softer.

Something holy.

A vow.

To no longer build my days around suppression.

To no longer gaslight my own intuition.

To no longer participate in a world that asks me to abandon myself and calls it excellence.

I want to build a life that honours sensation.

That moves with rhythm instead of rigidity.

That lets joy be enough of a reason.

That centres nourishment—not as a luxury, but as a birthright.

I want to honour my appetite.

Not just for food, but for beauty, for truth, for slowness, for connection.

To eat when I’m hungry, rest when I’m tired, weep when I’m grieving, and ask for help when I can’t carry it alone.

And I want you to know:

If you are here too—aching, waking, remembering—

you’re not broken.

You’re just finally listening.

To the hum beneath the noise.

To the wisdom beneath the willpower.

To the truth you’ve always known, but couldn’t afford to feel—until now.

We do not need to prove our worth through self-erasure.

We do not need to earn rest.

We do not need to conquer the body to be whole.

We were never meant to transcend this flesh.

We were meant to inhabit it.

To remember that breath is sacred.

That aliveness is reason enough.

That softness is power.

So here’s to a new creation.

Not a productivity plan. Not another morning routine.

But a reclamation.

Of voice.

Of rhythm.

Of body.

Of being.

Come home, love.

We’re allowed to live here.