30 Days of Radical Honesty Journalling Challenge – Day 30: What will I now longer carry into the rest of my life?

First, I need to be honest: I didn’t enjoy this challenge.

I don’t particularly like writing about myself. I don’t like sitting in my own reflection for too long. I prefer writing stories and weaving fiction—spinning new worlds that free me from the heaviness of this one. Stories are where I breathe most freely. Stories are where I feel the most me.

That said, I am grateful for the excavation this challenge allowed. And while this chapter closes, the writing won’t stop.

I’ll be continuing to share journalling prompts—gentler ones, creative ones, ones that allow for freedom and exploration—on my new Instagram channel, Journaling Muse. Follow along for daily prompts around a new theme each month. Occasionally, when the urge hits and the words insist on spilling out, I’ll join in too. But I’ll be writing on my terms now, pouring out what I want, when I want.

And now, onto this final prompt for April’s journaling challenge: What will I no longer carry into the rest of my life?

The weight of other people’s expectations.
Especially the ones shaped by the narcissists who occupied too much of my life without my consent.

I am finally, finally free of them.

Free of their control.

Free of their manufactured narratives.

Free of their endless thirst for my energy, my attention, my love they never intended to return.

And I am thriving.

I am living in peace, in love, in bliss, in the quiet harmony of a life I built with my own two hands. A life forged through storms, heartbreak, hope, and relentless self-trust. A life I choose every day, even when it was hard. Even when I didn’t know if it would ever feel easy.

I have been building this for a long time.

But for so long, I dragged with me a dead weight.

I dragged a horse—a symbol for the love I so desperately wished for from someone who shares my blood, someone who contributed half of my genetic material. I dragged it, believing that if I just loved hard enough, worked hard enough, hoped hard enough, it would come alive.

But it was dead.

It had been dead for a long time.

It had been beaten again and again by the very person I was trying to reach.

I performed CPR on it for years—artificially inflating its lungs, resuscitating a love that was never going to breathe on its own. I refused to call time of death. I refused to believe that something so essential could be gone. I carried it long past the point of exhaustion, all at immense cost to myself.

But not anymore.

I’ve let it go.

I gave it the respect it deserved—the last shreds of my hope, set gently into the water. A Viking funeral. A final, fiery farewell. I set it out to sea, not with hatred, but with clarity. With a steady hand. With a heart finally ready to let go.

And I walk forward lighter than I have ever been.

I no longer carry the dead.

I no longer carry the expectations of those who chose to wound instead of love.

I no longer carry the weight of anyone’s double bind approval. I carry only my own expectations.

I walk into my future with open hands.

With a heart full of stories.

With a life bursting with love.

And I am finally, gloriously, free.Peace, Love, and Inspiration,
~Britt Wolfe💚