Original Advice
“DONT: Confuse independence with immunity to feelings.”
Your Independence Isn’t Emotional Teflon
Stop pretending your cool detachment is a shield. Feelings slip in anyway, through cracked windows and offhand jokes. You didn’t opt out of grief, envy, or tenderness when you chose autonomy. When you ghost a need, it lingers and shapes you. Call empathy “drama” and you become the drama. Admit it: you want closeness. Refusal doesn’t make you strong; it makes you thirsty.
Independence is a structure, not anesthetic. It keeps your life spacious so connection can breathe, not so you can ration oxygen. Real boundaries let feelings move and inform decisions; fake stoicism traps them until they leak as sarcasm, burnout, or sudden exits. Courage isn’t isolation, it’s exposure with intention. Risk the awkward sentence. Risk the unflattering truth. Your ideals mean nothing if no one can reach you.
Cosmic Context
Fixed air forgets it has lungs. You’re the Water Bearer: you carry feelings for the collective, then forget to drink.
Action
──────Text the person you avoided and name one real feeling.
✨ You are allowed to be held without losing your edge. ✨