emotional resilience

Assuming I belong

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There is always a part of me that feels I don’t belong. It doesn’t matter who I’m with — family or not, loving or not, accepting or not. The thought is persistent and irrational, a quiet but insistent whisper that lives somewhere in my mind.

I recognise it immediately when it appears. My heart sinks into the hollow between my breasts, my breath becomes shallow, and my body stiffens, then numbs. These physical signals are familiar to me. Inevitably, I feel disconnected from my surroundings, as though I’ve slipped into a psychological tunnel, far away from the people beside me — even when our shoulders are touching.

I know this thought, and the way my body responds to it, is unproductive and, frankly, toxic.

Yesterday, a friend invited me to a Sunday indoor spa afternoon with a group of women. My first instinct was to decline. Instead, I paused. I questioned the messages running through my mind — and the stories my eyes were already telling me.

I questioned my inner voice.

What if I do belong?
What if I simply assumed I belonged?

And then another thought followed: what if belonging requires nothing more than assumption? What if, in that assumption, my heart relaxed — and in relaxing, expanded outward? How differently would I experience my reality then?

So I assumed. And then I assumed some more. I even began to enjoy rewriting the evening in my mind, deciding — deliberately — that these women enjoyed and valued my company too.

There were five of us. We met at four in the afternoon. There was small talk, cheese platters, fruit, cake, soft drinks, and later coffee. We talked and laughed and shared stories until ten that night. Somewhere along the way, a warm, gentle bubble formed around us — and I was inside it.

We laughed freely. We ate without counting calories or weighing ourselves down with judgment. We were simply present.

I think when the whispers return — and they will — I won’t try to silence them. Instead, I’ll choose to assume a different truth. One that serves me.

I belong wherever I assume I belong.

And it is a delicious feeling.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

On Rising Quietly

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Dear Child,

as grown as you are, remember –

You will not always feel certain.
There will be mornings when the light feels strange,

and the night feels foreign.


You’ll wonder if you’ve taken a wrong turn now

or whether you had deceived yourself

and you had been on this road for a long time?

You will ask yourself, “Why did I not get off earlier?”

And I will tell you why.

You were not ready.

You had not accepted the learning yet.

And so, when you are left with your quiet thoughts

when self-doubt consumes you,

when you stab yourself with a thousand accusatory thoughts.

STOP.

Stop NOW.

You do not need this further negative clout.
whispering all the ways you could have done it better.

Do not mistake this moment for failure.
It is only the soul’s way of asking you to pause.
Rest your soul.

Be kind to your heart.

Connect with what you need

You have walked through too many storms
to doubt the sturdiness of your own feet now.
You know how to start over –

You know this with certainty.

Rise,

gracefully, quietly, without permission.
That is where your strength lies.

Not in getting everything right

but in knowing when you need to rise.


The ability to rise again

is actually the lesson in disguise.

So, do not announce your climb.

Take a deep breath.


And tend to yourself.
with your tender heart.

All my love,
— Evgenia Pimżin

The Quiet Rebellion of Happiness

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I spent a long time collecting reasons not to be happy – and all of them were valid.

I was hurt, overlooked, mistreated, misunderstood.

I carried what others should have carried. They should have known better, been accountable, changed their ways. I remembering trying to speak to them about their behaviour, or confided in someone who brushed off my experience.

Sometimes, I kept their secrets to protect a loved one, or endured their silences because I refused to play their game. I built walls not because I wanted to, but because the world taught me early that softness was unsafe.

There came to an impasse, where I had decide that the past no longer defined the quality of my present. Happiness , I decided, was not a reward for those who had an easy story – it was an act of rebellion for those like me.

It was a quiet, deliberate choice to stop rehearsing my pain and begin reclaiming my life on my terms, because deep down, I already knew what I knew.

Choosing happiness did not erase what happened. It did not excuse cruelty or dismiss my wounds. It simply meant I no longer was willing to make those wounds – or the people who caused them – my mental and emotional home. I can honour my pain without worshipping it. I can remember without reliving.

And yes, the world, kept insisting that happiness was naïve, that in choosing happiness, I ignored depth, injustice, reality and that I was a victim.

But now I know this – happiness, when chosen consciously, is the deepest form of wisdom.

It is not the absence of awareness; it is the presence of perspective. It is what happened when I stopped waiting for others to change and began building a life that nourishes my spirit today, on my terms.

So I released the need to make every scar my identity.

I allowed myself to have joy even if my story is unfinished, even if my heart still trembled when I trusted again. I refuse to believe that I am betraying my past when I choose to live fully.

I am redeeming my life. I am telling the past, I am done with being your prisoner.

And in that space, I learned happiness is neither always laughter or sunlight.

Sometimes it’s a quiet evening where I breath steady again.

Sometimes it’s choosing to let something go without bitterness.

Sometimes it’s simply waking up and saying, “I am still here, and that is enough for today.”

I have learned that the choice to be happy is not about pretending.

It is about returning to myself, and to the life that is still waiting beyond my pain.

I meet it daily noe because it has been waiting patiently for me.

~ Evgenia Pimżin