Lately, I’ve been sitting with a feeling I don’t quite have a name for.
It isn’t exactly sadness.
It isn’t loneliness in the way people usually mean it.
It’s not emptiness either.
It feels more like the quiet aftermath — the space that shows up when you stop running, stop distracting, stop filling every gap with noise or people or plans. The part no one prepares you for. The art of simply being.
No one explains just how uncomfortable being uncomfortable actually feels.
We talk about healing like it’s a destination. Like one day you wake up lighter, brighter, whole. But no one talks about the middle — the raw, exposed place where the coping mechanisms fall away and you’re left alone with your own thoughts. Your own feelings. Your own body keeping score.
I keep telling myself I’m on a healing journey.
And it’s true — 2025 nearly broke me.
But some days I wonder:
Is this healing?
Or is this self-discovery?
Or is it the painful overlap of both?
Because healing isn’t always soft. Sometimes it’s sitting on the floor with feelings you’d rather avoid, it’s laying in bed all night because you can’t sleep, it’s listening to thoughts you’ve spent years silencing. It’s learning how to exist without reaching for someone or something to steady you. It’s realizing how often we abandon ourselves just to escape discomfort.
And this part… this part sucks.
There’s a strange grief in learning how to be alone with yourself — not because you are alone, but because you’re no longer hiding. You feel everything more clearly. The quiet gets louder. The distractions don’t work the way they used to. You can’t outrun what’s asking to be seen. Everything is exposed. And there’s so much power and strength sitting within that.
But here’s what I’m learning:
This isn’t nothingness.
It’s recalibration.
It’s the nervous system learning a new language.
It’s the heart re-rooting itself.
It’s the space between who you were and who you’re becoming.
And that space feels hollow before it feels holy.
Processing doesn’t mean drowning. It means letting feelings have edges instead of letting them flood you. It means sitting with the discomfort in small, intentional moments — not to fix it, but to witness it. To say, I’m here. I’m listening. I’m not leaving.
Some days, that’s the bravest thing you can do.
There’s hope in this phase, even when it doesn’t feel hopeful yet. Because learning how to stay with yourself — without numbing, without running, without needing someone else to carry you — changes everything. It builds a quiet strength. A grounded confidence. A sense of safety that comes from within instead of from outside validation. This is the hardest part. The part that breaks most.
You don’t have to romanticize this part.
You’re allowed to say it hurts.
You’re allowed to say you miss who you were — even as you outgrow them. Or that you don’t know who this person even is sometimes. Or how to experience this feeling.
Just remember: this phase isn’t permanent.
You are not meant to live in the discomfort forever. You’re passing through it, learning something essential on the way. You’re discovering that feelings can be intense without being destructive. That silence can be uncomfortable without being empty. That being with yourself is a skill — and one worth learning.
If you’re here too — in the in-between, in the quiet, in the uncomfortable — know this:
You’re not broken.
You’re not behind.
You’re not doing it wrong.
You’re learning how to stay.
And one day, that will feel like home.
