We’re told to let go. We’re told to move on. We’re told to heal— like it’s a switch we can turn on.
They say it’s a journey, a winding road, but no one explains what we’re meant to unload.
I know I’ve had my trauma. I know I’ve cried my tears. I’ve shared in the anger, the betrayal, the painful years.
I struggle when I face the mirror, when my own eyes look back. It hurts to feel like I’m not enough, like I’m missing something I lack.
I carry my own bag of fears— some learned, some grown, some sewn. They say the journey’s a process, but where do we start alone?
So we journal. We read. We pray and we sing. We talk to our friends, do therapy—everything.
We name the wounds. We tell the story.
We relive it again and again. Hoping understanding will quiet the pain.
But what if healing isn’t fixing what’s wrong? What if it’s learning where we’ve belonged all along?
What if the process isn’t becoming someone new, but unlearning the version of us that pain made us be true to?
Maybe it’s noticing when old fears speak loud, and choosing ourselves without asking the crowd.
Maybe it’s taking back authorship, line by line, deciding which beliefs were never truly mine.
Maybe healing lives in how we stay,
with the parts of us hurting, day after day.
In the boundaries we set. In the love we refuse. In choosing peace over needing to be chosen.
Maybe it begins when we stop asking the mirror to prove we’re enough—
and start meeting our reflection with gentler love.
Because healing isn’t arrival. It isn’t “fixed” or “free.” It’s the quiet remembering we were never broken—
just learning how to be.
Because healing was never a checklist
with boxes to mark complete.
It was never about doing more,
or fixing what broke in me.
It’s a reorientation—
a turning inward, then back to self.
A new way of standing with my pain
instead of abandoning myself.
Most of us were told what to do,
but not what changes inside
when the work is working,
when something softens, when something aligns.
Healing is the moment I notice
I speak to myself with care.
The moment my worth stops asking
to be proven, earned, or spared.
Nothing dramatic. No final scene.
Just a quieter relationship
with everything I’ve been.
And maybe that’s the journey—
not becoming whole someday,
but learning to live
from a place that already stayed.
And maybe healing is simply learning to live with myself, treating my heart like something I’m meant to help.
When Does Healing End?
We often talk about healing as a journey—something we move through in order to come out on the other side. There’s an unspoken hope baked into that language: that one day there will be a moment of arrival. A clear shift. A noticeable change. A time when we can finally say, I’m healed now.
We imagine healing as transitional—painful, yes, but temporary. Something we endure so we can eventually return to ourselves, lighter and untouched. And while that hope makes sense, it can also quietly set us up for confusion.
Because healing rarely announces itself.
Most of the time, when we’re “going through it,” we want to be seen. We want people to look past the polite smiles and the automatic “I’m fine.” We want support without having to explain ourselves over and over. And sometimes we get really good at performing wellness—faking it until we make it—only to discover that some days we actually are okay… until suddenly we’re not.
That’s often the part no one warns us about.
Healing doesn’t move in a straight line. It comes in waves—ups and downs, calm stretches and sudden emotional drops. Some days feel strong and grounded. Others feel tender and confusing, even after we thought we were past the worst of it. And sometimes, without realizing it, we’re still in the healing process long after we assumed it was over.
Not because we’ve failed—but because healing isn’t something we complete. It’s something that continues to evolve as we do.
So when do we know we’re “done” healing?
Maybe we don’t.
Maybe healing isn’t about reaching a finish line, but about changing how we relate to ourselves along the way. Maybe the real shift isn’t marked by the absence of pain, but by how we respond when it shows up. The moments when we no longer shame ourselves for struggling. When we stop questioning whether we’re “doing it right.” When we offer ourselves the same patience we once reserved for everyone else.
Often, the most meaningful signs of healing are subtle:
We recover more quickly after emotional setbacks.
We recognize old patterns without immediately falling into them.
We speak to ourselves with more honesty and less cruelty.
We allow both good days and bad days to exist without panic.
Healing doesn’t always look like feeling better. Sometimes it looks like staying present. Like trusting yourself enough to know that a hard day doesn’t erase progress. Like understanding that needing support again doesn’t mean you’re back at the beginning.
The poem that accompanies this reflection came from that realization—that healing isn’t a checklist, and it isn’t a performance. It’s a reorientation. A quiet, ongoing shift in how we live with ourselves after pain. Most of us are told what to do when we’re healing, but not what’s actually changing inside when it’s working.
And maybe that’s the point.
Maybe healing isn’t something we finish. Maybe it’s something we learn to live with—without abandoning ourselves when it gets uncomfortable. Without rushing toward a version of ourselves that’s finally “okay.”
Maybe healing is simply learning to stay.
