how does Your garden grow?

The Library of Flowers — Week Three: The Things We Are Allowed to Put Down 💜

What if becoming lighter doesn’t mean forgetting what happened—but deciding you don’t have to carry it forever?

This week on The Write Voice, we’re exploring the quiet courage of release: letting go of old expectations, guilt, unfinished conversations, and the pressure to have everything figured out. We’ll reflect on rest, boundaries, and the beautiful space that opens when we finally set the basket down.

Our flower for the Library of Flowers is lavender—a symbol of peace, release, and rest. 💜

Find a sprig, tuck it between the pages of your journal or favorite book, and carry this reminder into your week:

You can keep the lesson without carrying the weight.

Come sit with me awhile. The library is open, and perhaps it’s time to make a little room for what wants to bloom next. 🌿

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Hi, and welcome back to The Right Voice. I'm your host Jessica, and I'm really glad you're here. Before we turn another page this week and gather another flower and we discover a little piece of ourselves, I want you to start by taking one slow breath. Inhale and let it go. Again, but a little slower this time. There, the world can wait. Our little library is open, and last week we gathered rosemary. We talked about memory and the stories tucked away inside of us. We remembered without returning, and I invited you to find a sprig of rosemary and place it somewhere meaningful to begin creating your own little library of flowers. I wonder where yours is. Is it pressed inside of your journal? Sitting on your windowsill? Or maybe you never actually found rosemary at all, but you carry the question anyway. What beautiful quality has life been growing inside of me? That's what these flowers are really about. Little botanical bookmarks, marking the places where we've stopped long enough to notice our own lives. And today we're adding another lavender. But before we gather it, I think we need to talk about something many of us aren't very good at putting things down. I think somewhere along the way we just learned that being strong meant to carry so much. In our waking life, there are so many responsibilities and expectations, but that's coupled with disappointment and guilt, the people, the past. We became very capable. And capable people are interesting because the world keeps handing them things. Hey, can you handle this? Of course. Could you take care of that? Sure. Would you mind? Not at all. Well over time our arms become full. And then one day someone hands us one tiny thing, and we fall apart. We wonder why am I crying over this? Sweet friend. You probably aren't crying over this. You're crying because you've been carrying everything else. The smallest thing isn't always the problem. It's the final flower placed into an already overflowing basket. I imagine life sometimes as walking along a beautiful country road carrying an enormous basket, and at first the basket is light. Then life begins adding things. A responsibility here, a disappointment there, someone else's expectations, a mistake you made twelve years ago, a conversation you keep replaying, a relationship you're still trying to understand, a version of yourself you think you should have become by now. Into the basket they go, and eventually someone asks, Why don't you just enjoy the walk? And we think, enjoy it. I'm carrying 40 pounds of emotional luggage. And in that moment, we're called to examine the basket. So let's imagine setting it down for a moment. Right here, beside us, no one's throwing anything away. We're just looking. What's inside yours? Is there an old apology you never received? That's heavy. Is there guilt about a decision you made when you were doing the best that you could with what you knew? That's heavy. Is there responsibilities for someone else's happiness? Oh friend, that's very heavy. What about the expectation that your life should look different by now? Your marriage should be different, your career should be different, your body should be different, your bank account should be different, your family should be different. There should be a different version of you. And you've been carrying that imagined life alongside the one you're actually living. Well, it's a wonder why you're tired. Human beings do something fascinating when life feels uncertain. We try to control more, we organize, we predict, we replay, we plan conversations that haven't happened yet. We rehearse arguments no one started. We imagine every possible ending because somewhere inside of us, we believe that if we can anticipate disappointment, maybe it won't hurt as much. Control is an exhausting substitute for safety. Peace asks something different of us. Peace says I don't know what happens next, but I don't have to know everything today. There's a giant freedom in that sentence. You don't have to solve your whole life this afternoon or have a five year plan before dinner. You don't even have to know exactly how every relationship will unfold. Could it be the next right thing is enough? I once heard about a woman who kept a beautiful lavender garden. Every summer she harvested bundles and hung them upside down from wooden beams in her kitchen. And her granddaughter asked her why she hung the flowers upside down. Wouldn't they rather stand up? Her grandmother laughed. Then she explained that drying lavender requires letting go of the water that it's been holding naturally, and when the process is finished, the lavender becomes lighter. Yet somehow its fragrance remains. And I love that image because releasing doesn't mean that we lose everything. We can release the weight, the resentment, the relationship, the old versions of ourselves, and still keep the wisdom and the boundaries. We can keep what it taught us about love, and we can keep the tenderness that we have for the person who survived that season. We don't have to carry the whole experience forever to prove that it mattered. There are things you are allowed to put down. You're allowed to put down the need to explain yourself to everyone. You're allowed to put down conversations that exist only in your imagination. You're allowed to stop auditioning for someone's approval. You're allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to outgrow an identity that once fit perfectly. You're allowed to love someone and still need distance. You're allowed to wish someone well without inviting them back into every room of your life. And you're absolutely allowed to rest before everything is finished. And that last one, let's sit with it. You're allowed to rest before everything is finished. Because everything will never be finished. There's always going to be another email, another load of laundry, another bill, another project, another person who needs something. And if we decide we can only rest once life becomes completely manageable, we spend our entire lives waiting for permission. Permission that we're allowed to give to ourselves. And here's where lavender becomes such a beautiful teacher. Lavender's presence is quiet and you often smell it before you notice it. And peace can be like that. We sometimes imagine peace as the absence of problems. Everything finally resolved. The bills are paid, the relationship is healed, the decisions are made, the future is certain, then peace. But life rarely gives us such tidy endings. We become wise when we understand that peace is what we practice while life is still unfinished. It shows up as a cup of tea while the problem still remains unsolved. A walk while you're still waiting for the answer. A good night's sleep even though tomorrow contains uncertainty. Laughing at dinner during a difficult season, buying yourself flowers before life becomes perfect. Those aren't acts of denial, they're declarations. Difficulty doesn't have to have every beautiful thing. And I want you to think about that. We postpone so much joy. We'll celebrate when, we'll travel when, we'll wear that when we'll rest when we'll be happy when. Life is happening in the when. Every day counts. And maybe you aren't standing where you thought you'd be, but you're standing somewhere. There's another kind of release I want to talk about. Releasing old versions of ourselves. We can become surprisingly loyal to who we used to be. Like maybe you were the person everyone depended on. You were the peacekeeper, the fixer, the responsible one, the person who never needed anything. Those identities may have helped you survive a particular season, and we can be grateful for them. But we can still say thank you. I don't need you in quite the same way anymore. Growth looks like becoming unfamiliar to yourself. You may be quieter or louder, more selective, less willing to explain, more willing to rest. You don't chase the same things, you don't tolerate the same things. You no longer are impressed by the things that once impressed you. And that's not necessarily losing yourself. It can be you meeting yourself again, or for the first time. So let me ask you a question. What would become possible if you weren't carrying what no longer belongs to you? Would you have more energy, more creativity, more patience? Would you finally begin something? Would you sleep better? Would you laugh more? Would there be room in your hands to receive something new? Because that's the part about letting go that we don't talk about enough. We focus on what leaves, but empty hands are also available hands. When we release something, we create space, and space is where new things arrive. So before we close our little library today, let's gather our flower. Last week we placed rosemary between the pages of remembrance and healing, and this week we're adding lavender, peace and release. Find a little sprig if you can, fresh or dried. Place it beside your rosemary. Press it between the pages of your journal, or just keep a little lavender somewhere you'll notice it. And when you do, ask yourself this question What am I ready to put down? And you don't need to answer right away. It could be guilt or comparison or somebody's opinion, maybe an old argument or the pressure to have everything figured out. But just for tonight, put down the dishes and just go to bed. That counts too. But before you press your lavender between the pages, write one sentence. I can keep the lesson without carrying the weight. And then close the book. Let it rest there. And let yourself rest too. So before we go, I want to leave you with this. There's gonna be seasons when growth looks like reaching, and seasons where growth looks like releasing. There's gonna be seasons for becoming more and seasons for discovering that you were carrying far too much. Both are growth and both matter, and neither needs to be rushed. So this week, carry lavender, open the windows, drink something slowly. Take the long way home once in a while. Notice the evening sky. Say no when no is the kindest answer. Say yes when joy knocks. And whenever your hands begin filling up with things that don't belong to you, remember you're allowed to set the basket down, you're allowed to rest, you're allowed to change, you're allowed to become lighter, and you're allowed to discover that a softer life can still be a very brave one. Until next time, friends, keep turning pages, noticing beauty growing gently. And wherever life plants you this week, I hope you find something beautiful in bloom. Oh, and don't forget your lavender. We'll have one more flower waiting for us next week. One more page for our little library. And have a feeling we're finally ready to talk about what comes after letting go. Hope. Take care.