Everything I've learned about healing
on hanging on, letting go, and everything in-between
Healing changes everything. The way we view ourselves, the people around us, situations we’ve been in, and even the exact experiences that brought us where we are.
We try to make sense of it all. There’s a shift that happens when we can attach a tangible reason to help explain why things happened the way they did and what pulled us from point A to point B. We think that if there’s a way to make sense of something we find hard to understand, then maybe it’ll push us along the road to healing a little faster.
We never want to sit in the middle of it. And it prompts us to ask the question, do we even know how? We hear it all the time: healing isn’t linear, it’s a process that takes time and something we need to continually work through.
But the irony of it all, is that universally, we don’t know how to hold space for pain. For heartbreak, trauma, tragedy, and especially grief.
On the surface, it makes sense. It’s uncomfortable trying to figure out the right combination of words to make somebody feel better, the pressure to take away everything we know they don’t want to feel. We feel helpless when there isn’t a fix, when we can’t figure out how to solve a problem that there simply isn’t an answer to.
I’ve sat in the middle of healing long enough to know that it’s not about knowing exactly what to say. Because it’s not as black and white as we think it is. Sometimes there are no words, and we don’t have to scramble to find something that isn’t there.
What matters most when it comes to healing is having the space to feel. Not when we hear the perfect words strung together, but when we have a deep knowing that we aren’t alone. When we have presence, rather than absence, without feeling a sense of urgency to keep pushing through.
Sometimes it’s as simple as somebody seeing us for where we’re at. To remind us that there isn’t anything wrong with us if we aren’t over something like we thought we were. To reassure us it’s okay to let every emotion out, even if it means talking about the same situation five more times simply because we found a slightly different angle to look at it. And most importantly, to let us briefly fall apart when we’re trying to make sense of everything that’s taking place around us.
The longer we harbor our feelings, the deeper they take root and become embedded in us. And if we aren’t letting it out, we begin holding onto a heavy weight that we were never meant to carry alone.
Healing doesn’t demand answers. It asks for vulnerability, for time, for recognition.
It’s true that the most deeply human thing we can do is feel, so why are we expected to resist it or move through it as quickly as possible, as if there’s a specific timeline for how we process pain?
Even when we can’t understand it right away, there’s a reason for your pain. But when time feels like it’s at a standstill, as if each day keeps blending into the next, it doesn’t mean you’re behind in your healing journey.
The middle isn’t the part where you lose yourself, it’s when all the pieces you thought you lost along the way start coming together. There are moments we’ll experience that will change the way we see things forever, and there’s no right or wrong way to move through the hard seasons.
It’s not about what you’re going through, but rather, how you walk through it. Even if you don’t see it today or tomorrow, time will eventually reveal the purpose.
And when you reach the other side, what you’ll remember most won’t be the specific moments that broke you. It’ll be those who sat with you when you couldn’t see ahead, the ones who showed you light when you felt surrounded by darkness, and who carried you when you wanted to collapse.
The truth lying underneath it all is that healing isn’t as black and white as we think it is. It’s having a deep knowing that it’s okay to feel everything you’ve been trying to avoid, and allow yourself to sit with those feelings as long as you need to without rushing through them. And above all else, never forget: you’re always doing better than you think you are.
Thank you so much for reading! Be sure to check out more of my work at Truth Within Silence and follow along on Instagram.
