Why Healing is Not Pretty
It felt like dawn breaking across a night sky the moment I finally understood what healing actually is. We use that word so casually—breakups, trauma, addiction, depression, betrayal. Healing gets tossed around like a new episode of The Real Housewives of Dallas, something to binge, something to accessorize. And honestly, I’ve spent years wondering: How am I supposed to heal inside a culture that treats it like a trend?
So today, I’m choosing discipline. Stillness. A small act of devotion. I’m asking myself what healing really means when no one is watching.
One thing I know now: healing is not pretty.
No. Healing is feral. It’s unedited. It will not conform to the aesthetic of a curated square.
No. Healing is feral. It’s unedited. It will not conform to the aesthetic of a curated square.
It’s swollen eyes and canceled plans.
It’s admitting you stayed too long, that you kept the door open for someone who was never going to rise.
It’s grieving the time you wasted and still finding compassion for the version of you who didn’t know better.
It’s admitting you stayed too long, that you kept the door open for someone who was never going to rise.
It’s grieving the time you wasted and still finding compassion for the version of you who didn’t know better.
Healing is the moment your nervous system finally quiets enough for you to see the truth: the lifestyle that broke you cannot also save you. So you put down the bottle of wine. You trade in plane tickets for therapy sessions. You lose a few friends, and realize those characters were written out of your story long before you ever let them go.
Sometimes healing looks like lying on the floor because standing feels like betrayal. It’s sitting across from your own shadow and realizing you can’t bleed for anyone anymore. It’s setting a boundary and immediately fighting the urge to run back to your vice, your fantasy, your familiar chaos. It’s remembering the abuse—not to reopen the wound, but to stop pretending it didn’t shape you.
And just because you’re healing doesn’t mean you’re losing your mind.
It means you’re finally brave enough to feel everything you once numbed. It means you are strong enough to walk through the fire instead of decorating it.
It means you’re finally brave enough to feel everything you once numbed. It means you are strong enough to walk through the fire instead of decorating it.
Healing is not beautiful.
It’s humbling.
It’s stripping.
It’s starting over in a body that carries every story you’ve survived.
It’s humbling.
It’s stripping.
It’s starting over in a body that carries every story you’ve survived.
And yet—
Healing is the most honest thing you will ever do.
It’s the moment your life stops being a performance and becomes yours again.
It’s the quiet realization that peace is something you can build, even in solitude, even in the aftermath.
Healing is the most honest thing you will ever do.
It’s the moment your life stops being a performance and becomes yours again.
It’s the quiet realization that peace is something you can build, even in solitude, even in the aftermath.
Healing isn’t pretty.
But it is holy.
And it is yours.
But it is holy.
And it is yours.
Love Always,
P
