Labor Day weekend—one of the busiest weekends of the summer—I decided to take a spontaneous trip to Brooklyn.

But I didn’t go to submerge myself in the Labor Day hustle. My soul subconsciously gravitated away from that and into a restful, self-healing weekend.

For me, it doesn’t matter the city or setting, I can still tap into a healing weekend whether I’m in the middle of nature or a concrete jungle. We all have the power within us to tap into our inner oasis and recover, wherever we are.

My weekend was full of CBD oil, coffee, slow movements, deep hip stretches, and sunny balcony naps. There were nostalgic conversations and energy exchanges with my old roomie and her amazing partner. There were Netflix binges, journaling, and tea. You could say it was the normal, basic-bitch bundle to drop deep into my rest vibes. I felt a rewiring of my patterns revealing itself.

Then, just like that, the weekend was over, and as I was going over the Brooklyn bridge, capping my trip and beginning my short journey back to Philadelphia, I began thinking about bridges in an emotional sense. My energy had shifted as we got on the bridge, and I noticed a sense of relief wash over me as I felt safe.

Bridges are a sense of safety and reassurance, a place of connectivity. A safe space between then and now, back there and right here.

Bridges can become a metaphor for our emotional well-being. We can build these bridges from one emotional state to another. We can build bridges between our past, present, and future selves. During this transition through self-development and self-betterment, we can find ourselves, who we are in reference to our past.

The consistent story and labeling that has become a huge part of our identity can become debilitating. It can cause us to feel like we are walking through quicksand, heavy and challenging. Each step takes a huge amount of effort to dig ourselves out of the trenches we call our past. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can build a safety bridge, between our past selves, our past traumas, and our past lives (even though they’re all part of this same life and this same body). We can create a safe pathway for us to let go of the stories and boxes we have so easily trapped ourselves in from our traumatic situations.

We don’t have to completely sweep our past under the rug, but we can find balance with a bit of space. Holding onto our past isn’t going to allow us to heal, but in order to heal, we must embrace our past and move through the discomfort that it holds.

Building a solid bridge between the limiting beliefs of our past story and our present selves can help us build in space. It helps us keep our power over who we are now, rather than give it away to the past. The bridge creates understanding and space. It gives us a sense of knowing and understating who we are, even if we have a messy and traumatic past. We can move forward through our internalized and labeled histories and stories and move into being in the now.