“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” —Rumi

The last days of the year felt like the right time to let go. I stood in my backyard with twenty-five years of journals—thick notebooks filled with prayers, confessions, and late-night spirals—ready to release them to the flames.

I wasn’t being dramatic. I was being deliberate. I stopped daily journaling several years ago.

For years, I’d used these journals as a kind of inner courtroom, constantly building a case against myself or others. Every page held evidence of failures, proof of my profoundly …