Growing up with my grandparents, I fell victim to this wisdom many times. The person who asked was sometimes the one who got served last. Sometimes, even if something was meant for you, if you asked for it and insisted too much, well, it might be given to someone else.

One thing was clear: you weren’t supposed to ask.

You had to be patient and wait for others to offer you something, and they expected the same from you.

Summer is avocado season, and we had plenty of them at my grandparents’ house. There were all kinds, some more appreciated than others. I remember one time my little brother found one from a tree that rarely produced fruit, but when it did, the avocados were always really good. So he ate it without really thinking about sharing it with anyone.

After he finished eating it, my grandmother complained.

“Hmm, you ate that whole avocado and didn’t even offer me a little piece?!” she said, sounding shocked.

My little brother replied, “There are avocados everywhere. You could’ve just told me you wanted some of mine.”

“Merite pa mande,” she replied.

My little brother was right. There were so many avocados that we couldn’t even eat them all. At that time of year, you almost never shared an avocado. But my little brother’s avocado was rarer, so everyone appreciated it more.

My grandmother wanted some, but prisoner to that old wisdom, she didn’t dare ask.

It’s a bit of a twisted saying, if you ask me.

Today, I understand that this saying may carry a different kind of wisdom from the one I took from it as a child. But whatever its original intention may have been, the lesson I learned from it was much simpler:

Don’t ask.

Because asking almost felt like a sin.

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Why am I telling you this?

Simply to say that asking for something has never been one of my strengths. Even though I now understand this saying differently, I still sometimes carry the old psychological chains of my childhood.

Asking makes me uncomfortable.

So instead, I put in extra effort, hoping other people would recognize the value of what I do.

It’s the same pattern I’ve repeated with The Mirror Room.

It’s true that I want my writing to remain accessible to everyone, but I would also like to earn something from my writing. I put my heart, my time, and all my attention into it. I create guides, experiment with new concepts, and then publish them, hoping the right people will find them.

And looking at the results, I can recognize that this isn’t a sustainable strategy.

Before, I was mainly juggling work and writing. Now, there are my studies too, along with more responsibilities. I had to take a little step back to breathe, but more importantly, to think about how I want to continue this journey, because The Mirror Room means a great deal to me.

I can’t simply keep producing more and more writing while staying silent and hoping people will eventually invest in what I create.

It’s not because I think my readers don’t want to support my work or don’t find value in it.

Far from it.

I simply came to understand something pretty obvious: when we say nothing, people can easily assume everything is fine.

They often say no news is good news.

And sometimes, people would be perfectly willing to support us, but they can’t know we need their support if we never tell them.

It’s even written in the Bible:

“Ask, and it will be given to you.”

So this time, I’m asking.

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Whether you’ve been following The Mirror Room for a while or you’ve just arrived, if the writing I share here brings you a little clarity, if it resonates with you, helps you understand yourself differently, or offers you new perspectives, I invite you to support this work.

The best way to support this work is by getting the Monthly Guide.

Each month, I transform the themes we explore in The Mirror Room into a personal development workbook: a guided journey made of reflections, exercises, and practices designed to help you explore these ideas in your own life.

This month, we explored two subjects that may seem very different at first: the freedom to choose for ourselves and the stories we carry about others.

But when we look more closely, both bring us back to the same idea:

the freedom to be yourself—and to give others that same freedom.

So I redesigned the workbook around two guided journeys.

The first invites you to recognize the choices and expectations you inherited, distinguish between what you simply follow and what you genuinely choose, and then practice the act of choosing for yourself.

The second turns the mirror toward others: the stories we’ve learned about certain groups, the assumptions that can grow from those stories, and the possibility of allowing the individual to show us who they actually are.

This isn’t simply a compilation of the reflections published throughout the month. It’s a journey designed to help you take these ideas and explore them in your own life.

You can get the workbook directly on Gumroad as an individual purchase, or become a paid subscriber to The Mirror Room. Paid subscribers can get each new workbook for half price on Gumroad.

For a long time, I believed that doing good work, continuing to create, and waiting for people to recognize its value would be enough.

Today, I’m trying something different.

I’m asking.

This month, however, I’m not going to ask you to buy it.

I want to give it to you.

I’ve completely redesigned the format of my Monthly Guides, and rather than asking you to believe me when I tell you they’re worth your investment, I’d rather give you the opportunity to experience one for yourself.

Starting with the next Monthly Guide, each workbook will be available individually for $30 on Gumroad.

Paid subscribers to The Mirror Room, at $15 per month, will receive a code each month allowing them to download the new guide for free. In other words, it will be included with their subscription.

Who Gets to Decide Who You Are?

Claim the August's Monthly Guide free

A Little Note Before I Go

Starting next week, The Mirror Room will return to its usual rhythm.

Poetry on Sundays, a reflection during the week, and one Monthly Clarity Guide each month.

And now that one journey is ending, I’ve been thinking about where we should go next.

I have two ideas for the next series.

The first is emotions—how we experience them, the way we respond to them, what they may be trying to tell us, and the relationship we develop with our own feelings.

The second would be a series of reflexions built around a book: reading through its ideas together, reflecting on what resonates, questioning what doesn’t, and exploring how some of those ideas show up in our own lives.

I have to admit, I’m leaning toward emotions. There are already a few things I want to explore there.

But The Mirror Room isn’t only about what I want to examine. I’m curious about what you would like us to explore together next.

So I’ll leave the choice with you:

Where should we turn the mirror next?

❤️ Emotions

or

📖 A Book

Let me know in the comments. I’ll be reading.

Until next week.

With Clarity,
Odel A.
The Mirror Room

We all carry an inheritance. Some things were passed down to us consciously. Others settled within us without us even realizing it. Ways of thinking. Automatic reactions. Fears we cannot always explain. Habits that simply seem to be part of our personality.

The June Monthly Guide invited us to revisit our past and our childhood wounds through the eyes of the adult we have become. By creating that distance, we can begin to see what the child could not understand at the time. This process requires neither forgiveness nor forgetting. But by uncovering the stories hidden behind certain wounds, we can begin to carry them differently—with greater compassion and understanding.

Throughout the month of July, our reflection on healing the inner child gradually led us to an even more personal subject: our identity. We began looking at our inheritances with greater perspective. Over time, some of them have become part of the person we are today.

In reality, many of our present-day attitudes are repeated behaviors the child developed to respond to a particular need or situation. In that sense, our childhood is the foundation of our identity.

If we compare ourselves to a tree, no matter how majestic it has become, it cannot look down on the seed from which it grew. Without that seed, it would not exist. It is, ultimately, the fully developed version of that seed.

The same is true for us. The adult is the developed version of the child.

In many cases, a seed does not choose the soil in which it falls. Some fall into rich soil and grow into strong, healthy trees. Others fall into less fertile ground and must struggle harder to grow. And sometimes a seed falls into barren soil, giving rise to a frail tree that struggles to survive and lives under difficult conditions.

Like the seed, we do not choose the country in which we are born, the culture in which we grow up, or the family that raises us. Yet those environments profoundly shape the people we become. We inherit far more from our surroundings than we often realize.

The purpose of this month’s guide is to revisit our past. The goal is not to reject or judge our childhood or the people around us, but to become aware of what we have inherited from them. In doing so, we can begin to determine what we want to carry forward and what we want to leave behind.

Some of our attitudes have already fulfilled the role they once served in childhood. Others simply need to be understood before they can be transformed. Not all of them need to be rejected. Some only ask that we change the way we carry them.

A tree cannot change the land in which it grows without outside help, but we can. That requires understanding our situation clearly so that we can finally see the changes we want to make within ourselves.

This guide is an invitation to develop that clarity. It does not seek to tell you who you are. It invites you to better understand what you have inherited so that you can choose more consciously what you wish to continue carrying.

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📖 The Monthly Clarity Guide — July 2026 is now available.

Inside you’ll find:

• Four in-depth reflections

• Four guided Clarity Practices

• Guided journaling prompts

• A complete monthly journey connecting every reflection together

• A closing reflection to help integrate everything you’ve explored

Whether you’re joining this journey for the first time or you’ve been reading these reflections for months, I hope this guide offers you what it offered me:

• A little more understanding.

• A little more clarity.

• And a little more freedom to become who you consciously choose to be.

Buy it on Gumroad

For paid subscribers

As always, this month’s guide is included with your subscription.

You’ll find an exclusive Gumroad discount code below that lets you download your personal copy at no additional cost. I distribute the guide through Gumroad so all editions are collected in one place, and it also gives readers the opportunity to leave a review if they found it valuable.

If you enjoy the guide, a short review would mean a great deal. It helps more readers discover The Mirror Room and supports the continued creation of these monthly workbooks.

With Clarity,

Odel A
The Mirror Room

Clarity before Direction.

For the past few weeks, we have been looking at childhood wounds from a slightly different perspective.

We explored the conclusions children sometimes form around painful experiences.

We asked what the child could not see.

And finally, we looked at what becomes possible when the adult returns to the story with greater knowledge, experience, and perspective.

I wanted to close this month’s journey differently.

Not with another explanation.

Not with another exercise.

But with a letter.

I originally wrote this letter while revisiting my own childhood wounds. It is a conversation between the child who lived through those experiences and the adult who can now see a little more of the picture.

Perhaps, somewhere in these words, you will recognize a part of your own story.

To the Child I Became

To the Child I Became

You know,

I grew up,
But I am not different from you,
Only an extension of you,
And you remain my foundation.

I inherited so much from you:
Your passions,
Your curiosity,
Your beautiful memories,
But also your scars.

Sometimes,
I still find myself carrying
Your resentment.

For a long time,
I kept moving forward
Without looking at it too closely.
Like you,
I did not yet have the tools
To care for our wounds.

I know you were hurt,
And you had to adapt in order to survive.
You were not wrong.
You did the best you could
With what you had.

Yes, you were simply trying to survive
In a world you did not yet understand.

Still, you could not see the whole picture.
Your conclusions were not wrong,
At least, not entirely.
We simply could not see
Everything that was there.

Come with me.
Come, let us try to see the whole picture together.

I know
Some memories still hurt
As if they happened yesterday.

But don’t be afraid.
I am with you.

And that past is already far behind us.
Let us reclaim our freedom
From the influence it still holds over us.

It is not easy.
I know.

But remember this:

Those who hurt us
May have been lost souls too,
Just like we were.

Perhaps they did not know what they were doing.

That does not erase our pain
Or the years we spent suffering.

That is true.

And perhaps
They will never understand
What they put us through.

But that no longer matters.

Today, we choose to work toward our healing.

We seek clarity,
Not for them,
But for ourselves.

For our freedom.

For our growth.

A Final Note

This letter closes our June journey through childhood wounds.

Over the past few weeks, we did more than revisit painful memories.

We explored a simple possibility:

The child may have lived the entire experience while still seeing only part of the story.

That does not make the pain less real.

It does not excuse what happened.

But sometimes, what we understand as adults allows us to return to an old story with questions the child in us was never able to ask.

What did I conclude?

What could I not see?

And now that I see more clearly, what do I choose to carry forward?

These three questions became the foundation of this month’s complete clarity journey.

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🪞 This Month’s Clarity Guide

Healing Childhood Wounds

See your childhood through adult eyes, understand the stories still shaping your present, and make more conscious choices about what you carry forward.

This month’s Monthly Clarity Guide brings our June journey together into one structured workbook designed to help you move from reflection to personal exploration.

Inside, you’ll find:

3 Core Reflections

15 Questions for Transformation

3 Guided Clarity Practices

7 Deep Journaling Prompts

The Mirror Letter

And the Adult-Eyes Framework:

Child’s Interpretation → Missing Context → Adult Understanding → Conscious Discernment

The goal is not to change your past.

It is to gain more freedom to live your present without unknowingly letting an old childhood conclusion guide the person you are becoming.

The complete June 2026 Monthly Clarity Guide: Healing Childhood Wounds is included with every paid subscription to The Mirror Room.

Become a paid subscriber to access this guide and the complete Clarity Practice experience.

Prefer a single copy without a subscription?

Healing Childhood Wounds is also available as a standalone workbook on Gumroad.

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• retaliation vs communication

• jealousy vs trust

• forgiveness vs permission

• maintenance vs neglect

Taken individually, they may seem unrelated.

But together, they point toward a larger question:

What happens when emotions stop being signals and begin directing our behavior?

Very often, many relationships do not deteriorate because love disappears. They weaken through repeated emotional patterns that go unobserved:

• pain that becomes strategy

• fear that becomes control

• forgiveness that becomes permission

• familiarity that becomes neglect

The challenge is not simply to feel less.

It is to understand what our emotions are trying to protect before they begin directing our behavior.

When emotions become signals, they create clarity. But when they become strategies, they often create distance.

This month's Monthly Clarity Guide explores these dynamics through structured reflection, guided questions, and a structured framework designed to move beyond recognition and toward deeper understanding.

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