The Shape My Joy Takes VII: What Wholeness Feels Like

This is a collection of essays not about surviving—but about living. Not about pain—but about presence. These are not reactionary—they are revolutionary in their refusal to look back.

This is a 10-part series of personal essays. Check back each day to read the next essay.

Want more softness, strength, and quiet joy? Click here to read the full Shape My Joy Takes series.

It feels like soft socks on warm floors.
Like the kettle humming and no one rushing you.
Like your breath arriving without effort—no catch in your chest, no ache in your ribs, no apology tucked under your tongue.

Wholeness isn’t loud.

It doesn’t announce itself with fanfare or fireworks.
It comes quietly, like Sunday light slipping across your kitchen table, touching the rim of your favourite mug just so.
It feels like belonging to yourself.
Like choosing not to explain.

It feels like the soft weight of a dog leaning into your leg because she knows you’re safe.
Like music that matches your heartbeat.
Like the scent of cinnamon and clean sheets and the skin of someone who loves you in the gentlest way possible.

It feels like enough.

Enough without trying. Without performing. Without twisting yourself into a version that earns your own affection.

Wholeness is not the absence of pain.
It’s the presence of peace.

It’s knowing what hurts and still choosing to open your heart.
It’s the trust that not every silence means something’s wrong.
It’s sitting still, with no need to fix, prove, or flee.

It feels like Sunday afternoons when nothing is urgent.
When time stretches out like honey.
When your to-do list stays crumpled in the other room and the sunlight is enough. The moment is enough. You are enough.

It feels like laughing in the middle of folding laundry.
Like dancing with your husband in the hallway while dinner waits on the stove.
Like catching your reflection and smiling—not because of how you look, but because of who you’ve become.

It’s the weightlessness that comes from not being afraid of yourself anymore.
From knowing you’re not a problem to be solved.
From being able to say I’m okay—and mean it.

It feels like your grandmother’s quilt.
Like a hot bath after a long day.
Like your cat choosing your lap for no reason at all.

It feels like the first page of a new book.
Like the last page of a hard chapter.
Like the life you didn’t think you’d get to live.

Wholeness is not a destination.

It’s a homecoming.
A remembering.
A breath you didn’t realise you’d been holding—finally let go.