When You Can’t Walk Out and You Won’t Sell Your Soul.

Today I saw red.

Not blush, not brick, not some poetic shade of rust. No—red.
The kind of red that pulses behind your eyes and clenches in your gut. The kind that reminds you that even after all the somatic tools and shadow work and deep-breathing meditations… you are still gloriously, righteously human.

I won’t name names. This isn’t about them.

It’s about us—those of us who feel deeply, see clearly, and refuse to normalize environments that are energetically foul just because they're dressed in designer collaboration and corporate lingo.

I’ve spent years learning how to hold myself through conflict. But here’s the honest part—some situations are so toxic they make you question if your standards are too high or if your sensitivity is too loud.

Let me tell you right now:
Your sensitivity is not the problem.
Your body’s “overreaction” is actually a finely tuned warning system.
And your fire? That’s your compass, baby—not a liability.

But here's the paradox I sat in all day:
I can’t explode.
I can’t walk out.
I also can’t let this shit eat me alive.

So… what do I do?

I hold the line.

“Sometimes power looks like tuning into your energy when everything in you wants to scream.”

I regulate my breath while my hands shake under the desk. I ground through my heels while the room gaslights my intuition. I sip water like it’s sacred and pray silently to every ancestor who ever burned something down and still kept her earrings on.

And then I leave the room and do the real work—the sacred work of processing, recalibrating, not letting their poison become my pattern.

I go home. I light a candle.
I pour the bourbon.
I make it an old fashioned—because if I’m going to digest toxicity, I’ll do it on my terms.

And I write.
I write not to vent, but to anchor.
To remind myself that my anger isn’t a flaw. It’s an invitation. To sharpen. To redirect. To evolve. Without abandoning my ethics or my nervous system in the process.

So if you’ve been fuming—if your nervous system feels like it’s been hijacked by someone else’s dysfunction—I want you to hear this:

You don’t have to shrink.
You don’t have to smile through disrespect.
But you also don’t have to destroy yourself to prove a point.

Sometimes power looks like tuning into your energy when everything in you wants to scream.
Sometimes power looks like walking out of a meeting and into a ritual.
Sometimes power is simply remembering who the fuck you are—without apology.

So no, I didn’t flip a table. I didn’t storm out.
But I also didn’t let it slide.
I felt it. I honored it. I let it move through me.
And now… I transmute it.

Because I’ve got work to do.
And it doesn’t involve staying stuck in someone else’s storm.

xxChandraCrystal

Need a moment to exhale? To let it out without letting it eat you?

The Meditate on This series was made for moments just like this. Short, sensory, soul-soothing rituals that help you come back to your body—and your truth.

Click below to download your antidote for a toxic day. Breathwork, ritual, and a sharp dose of honesty included.