I was lying in bed this morning, somewhere in that in-between space where you don’t really know if you’re dreaming or already awake. The sheets still felt like a warm hug. My eyes were still closed. My body was relaxed and comfortable, not ready to move yet.
And then, in the middle of that silent, cozy moment, it came.
A sentence that felt like a message.
It landed in my head right before my eyes opened, the way certain phrases do when our minds haven’t had time to overthink yet:
“True wisdom comes to you when you let go of your inner yunque.”
Yunque…
I know that word. Yunque is Spanish for anvil — that heavy iron block a blacksmith uses to hammer and shape metal. Although in that exact moment, I didn’t even remember the translation.
It just popped in exactly like that: inner yunque.
Then I got up — it was about 6 a.m. — grabbed my phone from the nightstand with the intention of writing that sentence before I could forget.
As I was walking to the bathroom, my brain, without me realizing it, swapped the word “wisdom” for “freedom.” Suddenly it became:
“True freedom comes to you when you let go of your inner yunque.”
That one felt good too. So I wrote them both in my notes app on my phone. Both felt like truth.
In that moment, I started to wonder — what is the inner yunque?
My first thought was, maybe it’s just a fancy way of saying “inner garbage.” But immediately that felt wrong. Dismissive.
Something inside me stopped me from calling it that, like it was telling me that the things that make up the inner yunque… they’re not trash. They came from a real place, for a real reason. They’re more like leftover weight from earlier versions of ourselves. Versions that were just doing the best they could with what they knew back then. Versions that, in their own way, were trying.
So no — it’s not garbage. It doesn’t deserve that label.
What is it then? I kept asking mentally as I finished brushing my teeth and walked to the kitchen to drink my big glass of dandelion tea that I’d premade the night before.
The question kept circling in my head.
Still pondering, I made my way to the room where I keep my treadmill.
I opened my laptop, which I place on top of it right before I start walking, and started trying to make sense of this in writing:
Maybe the inner yunque is all the stuff we’ve bottled up over the years:
- The leftover resentment we swore we forgave, until someone brushes against that old wound and we snap without knowing why.
- The accumulated sadness we never expressed because “there was no time for that,” so now even a smell or a song makes us cry for no apparent reason.
- The old insecurities we thought we overcame, until a casual joke makes us feel unworthy of the air we breathe.
- The anger we’ve labeled “bad” or “wrong,” so we pretend it’s not there… for the sake of “staying positive” — but then a bobby pin falls on the floor and we explode like somebody just threw dog poop on our face.
I could go on. We probably all could.
To be honest, I do believe that the inner yunque — whatever it’s made of — is there for a reason.
It’s the weight that shaped us. The proof of a past we survived.
It becomes “bad” only when it sits inside too long, untouched. Until it rusts and hardens and keeps us from moving forward.
So maybe the message that dropped in this morning was simple:
Let go of the heaviness you’ve been carrying inside. Feel it. Face it. Process it. Release it.
Not because it’s garbage. But because it’s done its job — and now it’s time to let it go.
On the other side of that?
Wisdom.
Freedom.
Maybe both.
Maybe one is what we gain while we’re working through it. The other is what we feel when it’s gone.
If this reflection resonated and you want to share your thoughts with me, email me at mary@marybejaranomoore.com. I read every email.
Mary Bejarano Moore 