There’s a desperate feeling that creeps in when we experience something big. A need to share, to explain, to be understood. We often want others to see the raw edges of our lives, to grasp the depths of our emotions - not to cause any harm but simply to feel validated, to feel less alone. But in that urgency, there’s a subtle danger: when we try to explain, especially too soon, our story might still be unfinished. We’re navigating it, making sense of it. And when we share before we fully understand, we risk reducing our experience to something less than it actually is. Words spoken in the moment can feel like a balm, but they can also limit a story that’s still evolving.
Sometimes, I find myself in conversations where I want to explain everything—the intricate web of emotions, the bittersweet memories, the lessons I’m still unpacking. It’s tempting to paint the full picture, to make sure everyone understands why things happened the way they did. Yet, in those moments, I also realise how much space my thoughts need to breathe and transform without the weight of other people’s opinions or interpretations.
So what if you didn’t rush to explain?
There’s a quiet grace in the things we choose not to explain. An unspoken truth in the spaces we leave for silence. The world tells us to narrate our lives, to lay it all bare for others to understand, to keep ourselves in control of the story. But maybe we don’t need to prove or validate every corner of who we are. Maybe, sometimes, the truest parts of us don’t need explaining at all.
It’s a radical idea in a time that demands transparency, but there’s something beautifully rebellious in holding back, in knowing that not everyone deserves access to our innermost experiences. Because sometimes, the most meaningful things we go through don’t need to be justified or laid out for others to dissect and interpret. They simply need to be felt. Lived. Left alone to become part of who we are, without having to prove their worth by being understood.
Perhaps you know the feeling. You’re sitting with family or friends, and someone asks that loaded question “What happened?” They’re well-meaning, they care, they want to know why something ended or fell apart. But how do you break down the layers of a relationship that shifted over months, even years? How do you give words to the subtleties, the moments no one else saw, the reasons that even now feel too tender to be spoken aloud?
Or maybe it’s that friend who’s been by your side through countless changes, who sees themselves as part of your story. But now, you’re changing, discovering parts of yourself that don’t quite align with who they think you are. They ask you what’s going on, why you’ve been quieter or seem “different.” And you want to explain, but there’s no way to summarise the parts of you that are still in motion, the pieces that are rearranging themselves in ways you don’t yet understand. So instead, you let it be. You let time do the talking, let them see the shift as it unfolds naturally.
It’s hard to trust that others will understand without you spelling it out, but sometimes holding back isn’t about hiding; it’s about protecting the parts of ourselves that are still taking shape. It’s about trusting that the people who truly matter will see what they need to see in time, without us having to push our side of the story.
And maybe the most radical part is this is understanding that our story doesn’t owe anyone anything—not clarity, not explanation, not justification. We’re so used to rushing to make sense of things, to give a narrative, to be understood. But the truth is, many of the things we’re living through will make sense only as they settle over time, as we grow around them, as we see what parts stay with us and what parts fade.
It’s freeing to realise we don’t have to convince anyone of our experience. We don’t have to fill in the gaps for others. We can let people sit with their own questions, while we sit with our own answers, knowing they don’t need to align perfectly. And in the space of not telling, of choosing not to explain, we create room for the story to become what it’s meant to be.
Sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is let your story unfold in silence. Let people see what they see, when they’re meant to see it. Let time tell what it will. Some truths are meant to be held close, whispered only to ourselves, until the story is ready to be told by time itself. And sometimes, the only person who ever truly needs to understand it is you
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