stay in your lane
when you’ve spent years getting used to chaos, peace feels suspicious.
like… hang on a min… is this it? no drama? no adrenaline? no reason to constantly question myself? you almost miss the rush. the looking outside of yourself.
but once you remove chaos, you start feeling at home in your own space..like properly okay. your mornings feel clearer. the air feels breathable. this is how life’s meant to feel: steady, ordinary, calm. one foot in front of the other.
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for me, peace looks like minding my own business in the best possible way. not comparing myself to anyone. remembering who i am and why i am who i am. oiling my hair, cooking with my sound of my playlist…snuggled with a tea in bed. staying close to the small, ordinary things that keep me in check.
i don’t love myself every day; some days i don’t even like myself that much. but most days i do. and that’s enough.
i knew i’d made peace with myself when, no matter how much i scrolled, i never actually wanted anyone else’s life.
sure, i see the women with their light-soaked kitchens, kids in cute pyjamas, the best workout matching sets. sometimes i look and think, yeah, that looks nice…i’d like that. but would i swap? not a chance. i don’t want anyone else’s life.
i like my story. even the messy chapters, even the bits that could’ve been written better. because when you start comparing, you drift out of your own lane. you start swerving into other people’s worlds and lose sight of your own.
*the home inside yourself that needs nurturing.*
*that’s where peace begins
(king’s college london found people who spend more than three hours a day on social media report lower life satisfaction and higher anxiety — mostly because of comparison.)
you don’t need a study to know that though. you can feel it. when you’re deep in the comparison cage. the flatness in your chest, the scrolling that turns into searching and looking too deep into people’s lives. that’s what happens when your attention leaves home. the home inside yourself that needs nurturing.
peace isn’t an idea. it’s when your shoulders drop without you noticing.
i trust my lane now. even when it’s slow. even when nothing looks how i thought it would. i’ve got things i want and desire… big things. but i trust they’ll come when they’re meant to.
rushing someone else’s story never brings peace. i’d rather arrive late to my own life than early to someone else’s.
stillness can feel like withdrawal when you’re used to chaos. your body gets so familiar with the high of uncertainty that calm feels foreign.
but that’s where peace hides. in the gap between the old response and the new one. in that space where you breathe instead of chase. where you choose to stay when everything in you wants to sprint back to the familiar. that’s where trust with yourself builds. not just self-trust, but body trust.
staying in your lane is a spiritual practice. it’s the discipline of returning to yourself again and again. it’s noticing the noise but choosing not to feed it. it’s knowing your time will come, your turn will unfold, your chapter will make sense when it’s meant to. it’s refusing to abandon your own timing for someone else’s timeline.
maybe that’s what growing up actually is.
liking your own story enough to stop borrowing someone else’s.
finding peace in your version of life.
letting your life unfold in its own messy, beautiful order… like laundry drying in late sun, imperfect but exactly where it needs to be.
so yeah. I’m staying in my lane. and for real, it feels really good here.
And maybe that’s the question for you too -
what does your lane feel like when you stop swerving? When you stop speeding to catch up or slowing down to fit in? Maybe that’s where peace lives for you too….
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Soundtrack for this piece…..