Verse 27 of the Tao Te Ching offers us a beautiful and challenging teaching:

Every human is exactly where they need to be.

We are all somewhere on the path.

Some people meet us through love and openness. Others meet us through their conditioning, fears, wounds, defences and the level of awareness available to them at that point in their lives.

And sometimes… those encounters hurt.

But what if spiritual maturity isn't about pretending that harmful behaviour was okay?

What if it is learning to see clearly without closing our heart?

This week, I experienced this teaching personally through a cord-cutting meditation. I chose to release the energetic attachment I still felt to five people from my life—not because I had decided they were bad people, but because I no longer wanted those experiences taking up space within me.

Their energy was simply no longer aligned with the energy I am choosing to cultivate.

And I realised something:

Judgment can be a cord too.

We can physically walk away from someone while continuing to carry them through resentment, imaginary conversations, anger and the belief that they should have behaved differently.

True release can look different.

We can acknowledge what happened.

We can call harmful behaviour what it was.

We can establish sacred boundaries.

And still release the need to condemn another human being for where they currently are on their journey.

Their becoming belongs to them.

Our becoming belongs to us.

In this episode, we explore compassion without self-abandonment, boundaries without bitterness, releasing the inner war, and allowing people the dignity of walking their own path.

Perhaps our work isn't to force another person to change.

Perhaps it is to become so rooted in our own truth that our life quietly says:

This is where I stand now.

This is how I choose to love.

This is how I choose to be treated.

And if you wish to meet me here, you are welcome to find your own way.

Because we don't need another person to become different in order for us to become peaceful.

Take a breath…

and step through Door 27.

✨ Reflection: Can I allow someone to be where they are without abandoning where I am?

🌙 81 Days of Tao — ancient wisdom made living wisdom, one verse, one breath, one door at a time.