Milagros: Giving Shape to What We Carry
There are things we carry for so long that we forget what it feels like to set them down.
For me, anxiety has been one of those things. Thirty years of it. Quiet, loud, manageable, overwhelming. Sometimes all in the same day.
If you’ve lived with anxiety, you know it doesn’t always look like panic. Sometimes it looks like functioning. Like showing up. Like getting through the day while your mind is running a marathon you never signed up for.
The past few months were hard in a way that felt different. Heavier. Like something I had learned to manage was suddenly managing me. And yet, somewhere in that heaviness, something began to shift. Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just… a softening. A small opening. The faintest sense that maybe I wasn’t going to feel this way forever.
That feeling, that light at the end of the tunnel, is fragile. But it’s real.
And it made me start thinking about something I’ve always been drawn to…
In Mexican tradition, milagros are small metal charms, often shaped like hearts, hands, eyes, or specific body parts. They are offerings. Prayers made visible. Symbols of healing, protection, and gratitude. You’ll often find them pinned to altars, attached to sacred images, or incorporated into jewelry meant to be worn close to the body.
They exist alongside a longer tradition of ex-votos—small devotional pieces that tell the story of a hardship and the gratitude that follows. Together, they form a quiet language of survival.
They are, in many ways, a way of saying:
“This is what I am carrying.”
“This is what I need help with.”
“This is where I am hurting.”
And also:
“I am not alone in this.”
There’s something about that that feels deeply human to me. The act of turning something invisible, like pain or fear or anxiety, into something tangible.
Something you can hold. Something you can wear. Something you can place outside of yourself, even if just for a moment.
I think about how many of us are walking around carrying things no one else can see.
What would it mean if we all had a visible milagro for the things we’re holding?
Would we be gentler with each other?
Would we be gentler with ourselves?
Carrying, But Not Alone
I don’t think anxiety is something you just “get over.” At least, that hasn’t been my experience. But I do think there are ways we learn to carry it differently.
For me, that has started to look like small things: A piece of jewelry that means something. A symbol that reminds me to come back to myself. A moment of stillness I didn’t rush past.
Maybe that’s what milagros really are. Not miracles in the way we often think of them. Not sudden, life-changing transformations. But small, sacred acknowledgments.
Of pain.
Of hope.
Of survival.
Of the quiet strength it takes to keep going.
If you’re reading this and you’ve been carrying something heavy, especially something invisible, I want you to know this:
You are not weak for feeling it. You are not failing because it’s still there. And you are not alone in it.
Maybe your milagro isn’t a charm.
Maybe it’s a practice.
A memory.
A moment.
Or maybe it’s just the simple, powerful act of saying: “This is what I’m carrying.” And allowing that to be enough for today.