I didn’t quit because someone told me to.
I didn’t quit because it was “bad.”
I quit because I got tired of abandoning myself… in quiet, almost invisible ways.
Because addiction — whether it’s cigarettes or scrolling or needing everyone to like you — it’s rarely about the thing.
It’s about the ache underneath.
The ache that says:
I need relief.
I need soothing.
I need something to help me breathe when I forget how.
And I get it.
That version of me — the one who reached for a cigarette instead of her own self — she was doing the best she could.
She was surviving.
And I love her for that.
But I don’t need to survive anymore.
I want to live now.
So I began choosing presence over patterns.
Breath over craving.
Love over numbness.
Not all at once.
Not perfectly.
But tenderly.
Again and again and again.
If you’re in the middle of it — whatever your “it” is — I want you to know:
There’s no shame here.
Only love.
Only understanding.
Only an invitation to come closer to yourself.
Not to fix.
Not to force.
But to feel.
And maybe, just maybe…
one breath at a time,
you’ll remember that you don’t have to carry it alone.
✨ Come find your way back to you, with us.
Inside The Slow Secrets Tribe, you’ll meet kindreds walking their own sacred returns — into presence, into body, into quiet joy.
You belong here.
With love,
Julie
