Nothing To Defend
There is a particular freedom in not feeling anything. Not overthinking every conversation. Not replaying those old insults. No allegiance to the moral standards that the world has created for you.
Everything that was handed down to you from childhood has been dismantled. You did it on your own, gradually, one pillar at a time. It is a liberating feeling. You are no longer tied to your past. The old memories no longer hurt you with the same intensity.
This sounds harder at first, but it is definitely possible. All the baggage is carried by your identity. All of those battles you are fighting are ultimately to safeguard that identity. You are defending something that was created to protect you. But the danger is already gone.
Letting go of that identity also frees you from the shackles associated with it. You build your own code based on the new reality and your understanding of the future.
This happens once you accept that the older identity wasn’t entirely wrong; it was serving a purpose for the time being. It kept you alive. It kept you going throughout your life. But now you are acknowledging that you need to transform. You need to adopt an identity that will serve you better through the next transformation.
When that realisation finally dawns upon you, it liberates you from everything you once felt. It becomes easier to forgive people because they, too, will eventually fade into the background of your life. All that trauma and those bad memories can be released along with the identity that carried them as wounds.
Free yourself from the identity that makes you see the world as a bad place. Build everything on your own. Let every opinion in your head come after deliberation. Carry no emotional baggage.
That will be true freedom.
Experience what liberation tastes like.
Let it go.