About a year ago, everything changed. Not in a poetic, glowing, Instagram-caption kind of way, but in a confusing, disorienting, what-the-hell-is-happening kind of way.

Brad and I began to bounce back and forth between feeling like we had this clear, almost sacred understanding of how everything connects — like we could see the threads tying people, nature, energy, God, all of it together — to drowning in information. Podcasts. Books. Videos. “Truth.” Counter-truth. Systems. Corruption. Ancient history. Consciousness. You name it. We absorbed it. Somewhere in that flood, we began to feel like we were loosing our footing.

We would feel crystal clear, inspired, and absolutely certain one day and unsure, exhausted, and completely spun out the next. We learned lessons that hurt and unlearned things that once made us feel safe. We saw through programming we didn’t even know we were running on. As we changed, some relationships did too. Things we used to care about didn’t hit the same anymore. Looking back now, it feels like watching evolution happen in real time. Not just in us, but everywhere. There’s more depth.

In August 2025, I wrote a short story called, “You Are Not the Box They Put You In” and one of the hard truths I believed then was this: “As a collective, we have the uncanny ability to allow our family, friends, society, put us in a box. We are programmed from birth to believe that as long as we keep our head down, get an education, pursue a prestigious career, buy a house, and maintain a good relationship with people we don’t even really know, we will be awarded with a happy, comfortable life at 65+. That’s bullshit.”

I still stand by that. But I see something deeper now that I am feeling tugged to share with you. The truth is… there is no “they.” We love having a “they.” It’s easier to cast blame outside of yourself (trust me, I know this all too well).

But no one physically picked me up and shoved me into a box. I built it. I laid the foundation, stacked the bricks, made it sturdy and safe…and neglected to add a door.

The limits I felt weren’t forced on me at gunpoint. I agreed with them, whether I realized it or not. I wanted to belong, desired approval, and wanted to be good. So I adapted and accepted labels. When I tried them on, some felt empowering, others felt suffocating, but most just felt “normal”.

In “You Are Not the Box They Put You In”, I gave examples of the bricks in the box I built for myself: an astronomer, a writer, the weird kid that writes poetry, a mom, a cook, a wife, a professional. Some of these bricks were dreams never achieved, others were labels placed and accepted, most were titles picked up along the way, many of which I am so proud of. But, at some point, I stopped being Jenni and started being the sum of those titles.

And you’ve done it too. Maybe your bricks look like “the responsible one.”
Or “the screw-up.”
Or “the strong one.”
Or “the victim.”
Or “the overachiever.”
Or “the good Christian.”
Or “the black sheep.”

We collect them without realizing we’re building walls.

So try this.
Close your eyes.

Picture yourself standing in a red brick box. It’s not scary, it’s familiar. You recognize the layout because you designed it.
Each brick holds a moment you became something. Childbirth. Divorce. A promotion. A failure. A haircut that made you feel powerful. A comment that made you shrink. Every time you adjusted yourself to survive or be loved.

Now pick just one brick. Pull it out and set it beside you. That’s it.

You don’t need to Miley Cyrus the whole thing down at once. In fact, I absolutely do NOT recommend that. Five or ten minutes a day. One or two bricks. Slow and intentional. Stack them next to you instead of around you.

Eventually… when the walls are gone and the bricks are sitting in a pile beside you… who’s standing there? When I first did this, I didn’t recognize her. There was no label or script. Just… me. It felt naked, uncomfortable, and almost wrong. That’s when you see how much of what you believed wasn’t actually yours. It was inherited, repeated, absorbed, or reinforced. Especially in a world that never stops telling you who you are supposed to be.

Meeting yourself without the noise is not peaceful at first. It can feel like losing your mind. Until you start noticing your body: what feels expansive, what feels tight, what feels like truth, and what feels like performance. You notice where your mind wanders when you’re not trying to control it. You start trusting those small internal signals instead of the loud external ones.

That’s where reconnection begins. Not with a system, with an ideology, or with another label. It begins with you.

You are not the box they put you in, because they never put you there to begin with. You did. That means you can break out of it and remember you were never meant to live inside walls you built to survive a version of yourself that doesn’t exist anymore.