Unwavering Faith. Unshakable Peace.
“You have to confront the brutal facts of reality that you might not pull it off, but at the same time have unwavering faith, complete unwavering faith, and you have to do both at the same time.” —John Batiste.
This morning, as the first light crept through my curtains, I reached for my journal. Writing has become more than a habit for me—it’s a lifeline. It’s where I make sense of the noise, where I tell the truth about what I feel, and where I remember who I am.
I meant to start on a fresh page, but instead, I found myself flipping back to the first entry of the year:
Feb 10, 2024
The Lunar New Year
“It’s the end and the beginning of a new beginning.
Once again, I’ve experienced death and rebirth. A realization. A reclamation. A remembrance.
The phoenix rises from the ashes yet again. I’ve stopped questioning and contemplating how often and how many deaths there will be in one lifetime.
I’ve fully surrendered to the process and all that I am. I feel centered and harmonious within the chaos of life. I feel excited for what’s to come while walking side by side with fear of the unknown. I want to run away, while at the same time, I want to run even faster toward my dreams.”
As I reread those words, I noticed how much peace I felt in them. Not peace as the absence of difficulty or fear, but peace that comes from living my truth. There’s no striving for balance; no tug of war between my responsibilities and myself. Instead, I let life flow through me, moving with it rather than against it.
“Finding balance” has never been the answer.
The world is obsessed with balance. We’re taught to distribute our time and energy evenly across every area of our lives—as if perfect balance will unlock some secret to happiness. But balance, as I’ve experienced it, is often an illusion.
The truth is, striving for balance never felt right to me.
In order to find balance, you have to take from one thing to give to another to evenly distribute the weight. So, where do you take it from? Yourself? Time with family? Working toward your dreams?
If I poured into my dreams, I was “stealing” from time with my family. If I carved out time for rest, I felt like I was neglecting my ambitions. No matter how hard I tried, balance always felt like a zero-sum game.
And more often than not, I took from myself.
For years, I was the one who put herself last. I gave my energy to everyone else—my partner, family, friends, coworkers—and convinced myself that this was what it meant to be a good person. But in all that giving, I lost sight of who I was.
I was living out of alignment with my truth.
I realized that harmony—not balance—is what I was truly seeking. Balance implies that every part of life should receive equal weight. Harmony, on the other hand, is about living in alignment with your truth and letting that truth guide your decisions, actions, and priorities.
Living in harmony means honoring what matters most to you in the present moment. It’s understanding that life moves in seasons. There are seasons where you pour yourself into your ambitions, seasons where you devote yourself to loved ones, and seasons for rest to nurture your inner world.
Harmony allows for the ebb and flow of life while staying true to yourself.
For me, living in harmony starts with authenticity. It’s about stripping away the expectations of who I’m supposed to be and coming home to who I truly am.
Authenticity isn’t easy. It requires you to confront the parts of yourself you’ve hidden or ignored. It asks you to let go of the masks you wear to please others and to embrace the messy, imperfect, raw truth of who you are.
John Batiste’s words strike at the heart of this dance. Confronting the brutal facts of reality while simultaneously having unwavering faith is no easy feat. It requires holding two truths at once:
- The reality of what is.
- The belief in what could be.
These truths often seem at odds, and yet they’re two sides of the same coin. Confronting reality doesn’t mean giving up hope. And having faith doesn’t mean ignoring the challenges you face.
It’s in the space between these two truths where transformation happens.
It’s in that space where I realized how many molds I had tried to fit into. I had followed the script of what success and happiness were supposed to look like, and yet, I still felt empty. I was living someone else’s version of life.
As I began to honor my uniqueness instead of fighting against it, I started to trust my intuition and allowed MY voice to be louder than anyone else’s.
That meant being honest about what I wanted and needed. It meant making peace with the parts of myself I had judged or rejected. And most importantly, it meant trusting myself enough to live my truth—even when it scared me.
Harmony doesn’t mean eliminating chaos. Life will always throw curveballs, and there will always be unexpected challenges. Harmony is learning to coexist with that chaos without losing yourself in it.
Think about music. A beautiful song isn’t made up of a single, steady note. It’s a combination of highs and lows, crescendos and rests tension and resolution. Harmony comes from how those notes work together—not from making them all equal.
The same is true in life. Harmony doesn’t erase the hard days, the fear, or the uncertainty. It allows you to hold those experiences without letting them define you. It reminds you that, even in the messiness of life, there is beauty, growth, and meaning.
When you embrace the chaos and see it as part of the dance, you stop fighting it. You can acknowledge the discomfort and the fear, but you don’t have to let them take the lead.
For me, this looked like releasing the need for control. I used to spend so much energy trying to predict, plan, and prepare for every outcome. But the truth is, the most meaningful moments in life come when we let go and allow things to unfold as they’re meant to.
Harmony also comes from being fully present. How often do we find ourselves stuck in the past, replaying old mistakes, holding onto what could have been, or projecting into the future and worrying about what might happen?
The present moment is the only place where life actually happens. When you’re grounded in the now, you’re not weighed down by regret or fear. You can fully experience the joy, beauty, and connection that surround you.
This doesn’t mean ignoring the past or the future. Instead, it’s about being mindful of when your energy is being pulled too far in either direction. The more you practice presence, the easier it becomes to find your center, no matter what’s happening around you.
Harmony begins within. It’s about coming back home to yourself—your truth, your essence, your authenticity. It’s about learning to integrate the different parts of who you are: The part that craves freedom and the part that fears change. The part that wants to be bold and the part that clings to safety. The part that longs for connection and the part that values solitude.
When you make peace with all of these parts and stop living from a place of “either/or,” you give yourself the freedom of full authentic expression.
If you’re longing to find harmony in your own life, start small. Here are some practices that have helped me along the way:
- Journaling: Writing helps me process my thoughts and connect with my inner truth.
- Meditation and Breathwork: These practices ground me and create space for clarity and calm.
- Nature: Time outside reminds me of the beauty and flow of life.
- Listening to My Intuition: Trusting my inner guidance has been one of the most transformative shifts in my life.
- Community: Surrounding myself with people who celebrate my truth (as I celebrate theirs) has made all the difference.
As I write these words, I’m reminded that harmony isn’t something you achieve once and for all. It’s a practice, a journey, and a choice you make every day.
There will be days when you feel completely at peace and days when you feel like you’re falling apart. Both are valid. Both are necessary.
Life isn’t about getting it “right” all the time. It’s about showing up, staying open, and embracing the fullness of the human experience—the joy, the sorrow, the growth, the stillness.
We are all works in progress. Each day offers a new opportunity to lean into our truest selves and realign in mind, body, and spirit.
In the end, harmony isn’t about achieving perfection. It’s about learning to dance with imperfection and finding beauty in the process.
So, here’s to the dance. Here’s to the journey. And here’s to the unwavering faith that even in the chaos, we can find our way back to ourselves.
