Where Did All These Rules Come From?

There are so many rules.

Not the obvious ones.

Not the ones written down somewhere or spoken out loud.

The quiet ones.

The ones we follow without questioning.

The ones we somehow absorbed along the way and never stopped to ask…

Wait… who said this?

Somewhere along the way,

I picked up the idea that I should have it all figured out by now.

That I should respond a certain way.

Handle things better.

Be softer here, stronger there.

Less emotional.

More patient.

More organized.

More… something.

And the wild part?

I don’t remember agreeing to any of it.

Some of these “rules” came from watching.

Watching how the women around me moved.

What they tolerated.

What they stayed silent about.

What they carried… without ever putting it down.

Some came from things that were said directly.

Some came from things that were never said at all.

And some?

Some came from survival.

Because when you grow up learning how to read a room, adjust yourself, keep the peace, stay small enough to not disrupt anything…those don’t feel like rules.

They feel like who you are.

But lately, I’ve been noticing how heavy some of those rules feel.

How often I question myself.

How quickly I default to “I should…”

And I keep coming back to one question:

Do I actually believe this… or did I just inherit it?

Because not everything we carry is ours.

And maybe the work isn’t becoming someone new.

Maybe it’s unlearning.

Maybe it’s giving yourself permission to choose what actually belongs in your life now.