You Don’t Have to Earn Your Place Here

I have shown up to things terrified.

Not the kind of terrified you can explain away. The kind that sits in your chest and tells you all the reasons you’re not ready. Not healed enough. Not put together enough. Not enough enough.

And somewhere underneath all of it, for me, was this very specific fear — looking like I couldn’t handle it in front of other Marines.

That followed me into my healing journey. Which is almost funny, if it didn’t hurt so much. Here I was, doing the most vulnerable, uncomfortable work of my life, and part of my brain was still standing at attention, refusing to flinch. The most insecure I have ever felt. And I kept showing up anyway.

Not because I had it figured out. Because I decided the fear didn’t get to make the call.

There’s something veterans rarely say out loud: the thing they miss most isn’t the mission. It’s each other. The camaraderie. The being-known-by-someone. The showing up and being seen.

That’s just connection. That’s what we’re all starving for.

And yet we tell ourselves we have to handle it alone. We’ve been through a lot, so we’ve got this. We don’t need to ask. We don’t need to lean. We can manage.

But managing isn’t the same as living. And isolation isn’t the same as strength.

I had plans to speak at high schools. I wanted to go, to share, to be useful. And I didn’t do it. For a long time, I filed that away as something I failed to follow through on.

Now I see it differently. My nervous system was pacing me. My body knew what it was ready for before my mind caught up. That wasn’t avoidance — that was wisdom I hadn’t learned to trust yet.

We put so much pressure on ourselves to do everything right, to heal on schedule, to show up perfectly or not at all.

But showing up imperfectly? Showing up uncertain, unfinished, still figuring it out?

That is the work.

I’m still practicing. Every time I walk into a room and explain what I do to someone who doesn’t quite have the language for it yet — I’m practicing. Every bonfire. Every hike. Every conversation that goes somewhere real.

I didn’t wait until I was ready. I got ready by going.

You don’t have to have it together to belong somewhere. You just have to show up.

That’s the whole thing. That’s the door.

TAKE ACTION: If any part of this felt familiar, you’re not alone — and there’s a place for you. Find community, explore what’s possible, or help us get more veterans out of isolation at sonyaachara.com.