What I Didn’t Say Out Loud

Here’s what didn’t make it into the posts.

I didn’t say how afraid I was, at first, to write any of this. That maybe if I started telling the truth, it wouldn’t stop. That if I peeled back the layers, I might not like what was underneath. That maybe I’d find someone tired, bitter, unsalvageable.

But what I found was me. Just... quieter. Weirder. Still sarcastic, still grieving, still hiding snacks in the clinic break room. But softer in some ways I didn’t expect. More willing to name what hurts. Less willing to carry what isn’t mine.

This month, I wrote about noise and courage and dissonant music in unfinished basements. I wrote about saying no and meaning it. About the moment I stopped pretending to be okay and started building a life I could live in, not just survive.

And now that June is done, I’ll tell you this: Essentialism wasn’t a book about doing less. It was a call to come home to yourself.

To stop outsourcing your worth.
To stop performing your identity.
To stop being grateful for the scraps of time you get after you’ve given everything else away.

I’m not here to romanticize anything. I still work too much. I still forget to eat. I still chart at odd hours and wake up with cat fur in my mouth. My mother still asks if I’m lonely and then immediately critiques how I fold towels. My harp still sounds like a dying seagull on Tuesdays. Nothing is clean. Nothing is “optimized.”

But something has shifted.

There’s more breathing room between my responsibilities. More sacred pauses between patients. More evenings where I play music not to be good at it, but just to hear something that isn’t a demand.

The hardest part of this month wasn’t writing. It was sitting still long enough to know what I needed. What I wanted. What I no longer had to justify.

And maybe that’s the most essential thing of all:
Not what you do.
Not what you give.
But what you choose to hold close—and why.

So what now?

We rest. We reset. We let July be what it is—messy, in-between, hot as hell. We leave space where something used to be. We see what grows there.

And then in August, we begin again. New book. New stories. New cracks to climb through.

If Essentialism helped you lay something down, beautiful. If it didn’t, that’s okay too. There’s no one right way to reclaim yourself. But I hope you’ll stay with me. Because August is coming. And with it, another invitation to strip away the noise and dig into what matters.

Until then: take your coffee cold, your music imperfect, and your life on your own damn terms.

—Dr. Gwen Jung