The Unseen Pulse - #PrideOnThePage Day 19
How my truth finally broke through and the rhythms I now try to live by.
"What I know now: the deepest truths don’t destroy. They unbind. They give back breath. They return the room I was made to shrink inside.
My rhythm wasn’t lost. I learned early to forget what was mine and replace it with what was placed into me. Layer by layer. Command by comment. Every rule dressed up as care. Every silence performed like dignity. The original pulse never left—it kept knocking, quiet and steady beneath “should,” behind teeth trained to smile through warning signs.
Still, here I am.
I didn’t shatter. I adapted. I became fluent in translation. I learned the pattern of inspection and how to meet it without giving myself away entirely. That became the rhythm that held me together.
What do I listen for when everything else goes still? I don’t mean silence. I mean the beat that stays when nothing performs. The one I buried under grief, under survival, under names I was called before I had my own.
Mine started as a pause. A held breath I mistook for weakness. The moment I tried to disappear and then realized—I never exhaled. Not for years.
The rhythms I live by weren’t natural. They were trained. Trained by trauma. Trained by culture. Trained by everything I was told I had to swallow to become someone tolerable.
I walked away from myself again and again to make it through.
And still, something remained. Not the pace of their world, the one that prized performance and erased complexity. Something older. Slower. Wiser. It never pushed. Never threatened. It made space.
I didn’t go looking for it. I remembered it. I returned.
Since June last year, I often contemplate on an intention and affirmation for my day. What’s alive in me today? How would I like this day to unfold in front of me. I let the day speak. Today, it said: truth. Spaciousness.
My intention for today is: Truth
Truth is the quality or state of being in accordance with reality. It lives in honesty, clarity, and integrity—in our words, our actions, our way of being. Living in truth means letting the inside match the outside. It means seeing things as they are, especially when that’s the last thing I want to do.
From the Buddhist path: Truth lives at the heart of liberation. The Four Noble Truths (Pali: cattāri ariyasaccāni) map the nature of suffering and the way through. Right Speech (sammā-vācā) means not just truth-telling—it means truth that nourishes. Words that don’t harm. Seeing clearly (yathābhūtaṃ) is where wisdom begins. And freedom.
Living truthfully looks like:
Saying what’s real, even when it shakes something loose
Noticing the moment I start performing, and pausing instead
Aligning my actions with what I say I value
A place to begin:
Where am I still hiding, even from myself?
What happens if I let truth breathe there?
If truth has a pulse, I’m learning to match it—not by perfect timing, rather by faithful return. And that’s the beat I offer. Nothing ornamental. Just alive.
Affirmation: I Am the Spaciousness I Seek
I am the spaciousness I seek. Within me, there is a gentle, open expanse—an inner landscape where all my thoughts, feelings, and experiences are welcome to arise and settle. I honor the quiet places inside myself, allowing old beliefs and distractions to dissolve, making room for clarity, rest, and new possibilities. I do not need to search outside for freedom or ease; I am the living space in which my life unfolds. With compassion and appreciation, I hold space for my own growth, my needs, and my unique way of being. I trust that by returning to this inner spaciousness, I can meet the world with greater presence, understanding, and kindness—both for myself and for others.
What grows at this tempo?
At the pace of my truth, shame becomes compost. I plant what I was taught to hide: softness, fury, complexity.
At the pace of my truth, I no longer translate myself for those who refuse to listen.
At the pace of my truth, I say this plainly:
I am the advocate I kept waiting for. I speak for the one in me who was told she had no place. I speak for the part of me who never got asked. I speak not to be louder—but to be exact.
This is the landscape:
truth seeded in scar tissue
patience braided through defiance
space cleared by breath, not permission
What I know now: the deepest truths don’t destroy. They unbind. They give back breath. They return the room I was made to shrink inside.
Spaciousness isn’t gifted. I don’t earn it. I remember it.
I spent years trying to outrun the discomfort. Trying to escape the story. Turns out, the pulse never left. It was always mine. Waiting.
If you're wondering where your truth lives—start where you feel most crowded. That’s likely where your spaciousness is still waiting to unfold.
Poem: “Pulse”
there’s a drum no one taught me
still it finds me
not in triumph,
in tremor—
a beat that doesn’t beg
only beckons
I walk its rhythm
not by grace
by practice
a tender thud
beneath broken skin
keeps saying
live here
The rhythms I live by are not efficient. They are not synced to clocks or calendars. They grow like bramble through bureaucratic cracks, leaving fruit in unlit rooms.
If truth has a pulse, I’m learning to match it—not by perfect timing, rather by faithful return.
And that’s the beat I offer. Nothing ornamental. Just alive.
Always pulsing,
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I love it Jay! My first experience of love was space. The walls fell away from my mind - one, two, three, four. Then the ceiling lifted off and the floor fell away. Space. I was space. It was amazing. Not at all what I expected love to look like, or feel like, but it was love all the same.
Beautiful, Jay! The vast space and canyon of being. Wow.