Inviting My Demons to Tea: On Empathy, Healing and Kindness

September Trilogy: Chapter Two

This essay is part of my September Trilogy — three pieces that map my season of transformation. From the ashes that forced me to start over, to the demons I finally chose to face, to the discipline that carried me forward. Together, they tell the story of collapse, reckoning and rebuilding.

Read Chapter One here: Brick by Brick: After the Ashes

Not everything that haunts you is here to hurt you. Some demons are just maps back to yourself.

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Letting the Demons In

When the noise dies down and I’m finally alone, the quiet isn’t always gentle. Sometimes it’s sharp, pressing against my chest like an old wound that never fully healed. That’s when the demons show up — not in smoke or shadows, but in the heavy memories, the doubts that whisper, the shame that lingers too long.

For a long time, I tried to fight them off. I buried myself in travel, in work, in late nights and new cities. I told myself I was too busy to feel. But the truth is, demons don’t vanish when you ignore them. They wait — patient, persistent, always ready to pull up a chair the moment you stop running.

So now, I do something different. I pour them tea.

I let them sit across from me at the table. I let them tell their stories. Each one carries a piece of me — the part that felt abandoned, the one that needed too much, the one that believed I had to earn love through exhaustion. They aren’t here to destroy me. They’re here to remind me where I’ve been, what I’ve carried, and what I still need to heal.

It isn’t comfortable.

It isn’t easy.

But when I stop resisting, I realize they lose their power.

The demon of loneliness softens into a desire for connection.

The demon of failure becomes proof that I dared to try.

Even anger, sharp and blazing, can be an ember I use to keep going — not a fire that burns the house down.

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Lessons from Betrayal and Rebuilding

Still, there are rules at my table.

You get ten minutes, not ten days.

I’ll hear you, but I won’t believe you.

You don’t get the keys.

Because here’s the truth: I’m the one who holds them.

This is the work I keep returning to:

sitting in the quiet, pouring the tea, listening without judgment.

My demons aren’t the enemy.

They are the map back to myself.

And piece by piece, I’m learning to rebuild.

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Rules at My Table

I tore out what was rotten. I kept what was solid. I started again, brick by brick.

What that looks like now:

• I tell the truth.

• I take care of my body.

• I name grief.

• I sit with anger.

• I stop abandoning myself to make other people comfortable.

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Carrying Lessons, Not Weight

I’m not everything I want to be. But I am the woman I needed when I was younger.

The light in the dark.

The warmth in the cold.

The hand to hold in the storm.

I’ve met my demons. I’ve let them speak. I’ve poured them tea.

And still, I walk forward — carrying their lessons, not their weight.

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Building a True Life

This chapter isn’t about perfection.

It’s about rebuilding.

Not a flawless life.

A true one.

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September Trilogy

This essay is part of my September Trilogy. Read the next chapter: Before the Leap: September Was for Building.