Healing Is Meant To Be A Life-Changing Transition

I used to believe healing happens once you have decided to forgive, forget, and move on. Some people say that healing is just a matter of time⁠—that you should surround yourself with people who light your path as you walk in the dark.

They would tell you to see the bright side of everything and expect you to have full of hope despite all the drawbacks and heartaches that took place. They would help you to pick up the pieces, but they will also expect you to get your shit together.

Toxic positivity is draining, not healing. Read that again. Because the truth is, healing is not always a rainbow of positivity. It’s not always beautiful and poetic. Healing doesn’t happen overnight⁠ and not always through self-help books and shots of vodka.

Oftentimes, healing is ugly and chaotic. It feels heavy that it would seem impossible to carry. It’s like continuously running away from the pain that you can barely catch your breath.

It’s exhausting, heart-wrenching, but also life-changing.

I have realized that the first step to heal is to accept that you got wounded. Acknowledge the pain and respect what you feel even if it’s too much.

It’s painful and sometimes a slow progress, but it is a continuous process.

Healing is not always about forgetting and moving on from an ex-lover, an ex-best friend, or whoever caused you that wound. It could be about a painful situation you were in—the day your loved one passed away, that moment you lost your job, or the night you got rejected by someone dear to you. It’s simply because pain comes in different forms and it happens in ways we least expect it.

The art of healing doesn’t happen in the arms of someone else. It only happens when you allow yourself to. When you are brave enough to restart unknowingly of what the future holds, and when you are ready to give yourself a chance to set new goals.

You heal when you start to practice gratitude for everything you have in the present and let go of what lacks in the past.

You heal when you realize that you cannot reach level 3 if you haven’t started level 1. It could take weeks, months, or even years and there’s nothing wrong with that. Healing was never a quick fix but rather a life-changing transition.