What Healing Has Taught Me

When my previous relationship ended, it made me sit down and really evaluate why I was in this continuous pattern. Why did I keep doing this to myself? I got sick and tired of the victim game. I wasn’t the victim, especially when I had control over everything that was happening. Once I started shifting my mindset that’s when my eyes began to open fully into what I had been denying for years. I really didn’t love myself as much as I thought I did.

There were many things I learned throughout this journey that I wish I knew sooner. If I had, my life would be completely different.

1. I learned the true definition of boundaries and what they looked like in my everyday life. I also learned that setting a boundary isn’t the only thing you have to do, you have to keep that boundary. For so long, I was surrounded by people who did not respect boundaries. The boundaries I set caused people to define me as selfish, inconsiderate, disrespectful, and lazy. Because I was so afraid of judgment and being disliked, I set aside my boundaries to make others happy. I complied and bit my tongue, I became mute in situations where I should’ve been screaming to be heard. As I continued to learn about boundaries and process how I was going to implement them, I had to let go of my people pleasing traits. I had to stop caring about what everyone else felt. I had to stop making everyone comfortable while I was uncomfortable. Which meant, I had to honor the boundaries I set with myself.

2. Self-love is the only love you truly need. As cliche as it sounds, if you don’t love yourself you really won’t find the love you truly want. For years, I searched for acceptance from everyone. I fought to be heard, understood, and valued. I looked for acceptance in other people instead of myself. Deep down I hated myself, didn’t trust myself, and didn’t see the greatness in myself. I didn’t see the value in myself even when others did. My friends would constantly tell me how great I was and I questioned the truth behind it. That was until I started working on the old and new wounds I desperately tried to ignore. It began with me speaking kinder to myself. I allowed myself the space to make mistakes and not beat myself up. I took the time to learn what it meant to show yourself grace and patience. I took the time to listen to what my inner child had been trying to tell me for years. In the beginning it wasn’t easy. I was trying to learn and unlearn so much at the same time.

3. You can’t heal alone. I didn’t realize how much I kept to myself until I started speaking up and telling the whole truth. After hearing from everyone “I didn’t know this was going on” I started checking myself. What was I hiding from everyone? Why wasn’t I speaking up for myself? Why was I going through all of this alone? When I began to really talk about what was going on with me, it brought me closer to everyone and I felt great afterwards. I no longer felt alone.

4. You have to learn how to forgive yourself. Since I could remember, I always made sure to hold myself accountable for all my wrongdoings, to the point where I hated myself. I felt like I was a bad person who only did bad things. I didn’t always recognize the healthy and positive things I did for myself and for those around me. I checked myself more than I checked others and eventually that took a toll on me. Going back and reviewing all of the things you did wrong and could’ve done better causes you to be angry with yourself. I often used words like stupid and naive to describe myself because if I was smarter things would’ve turned out differently. For a while I beat myself up continuously, angry that I didn’t know any better. I blamed everything on myself not acknowledging all the wrong things people did to me. I eventually realized that in order to love myself, I had to forgive myself. I had to accept that I was ignorant and naive to a lot because I didn’t know what I know now. Now that I have the knowledge and the skills to be better, I can now do better..

5. Feel your feelings without shame. I have been told a lot of times that I logic myself out of my feelings instead of identifying them and feeling them. Instead of validating my feelings, I talked myself out of them. Then one day in October, I decided enough was enough. I wanted to feel my feelings without judgment or shame. I wanted to be sad and cry. I wanted to let it all out. And so I did. I dedicated one day to my feelings. I played music, drank as much alcohol that I wanted, smoked as much as I wanted, and ate as much as I wanted. I sat in bed and cried, danced around my apartment, and ended the night watching the Black Love series. I spent that whole day pouring into myself without feeling bad about it. I allowed myself to write and talk out my feelings. I sat at my ancestor altar and let out everything I was holding in. I was honoring the wounded side of me and it felt great.

I’ve learned much more than this but these are the things that truly mattered most to me. These are the lessons that helped me get to where I am now. I carry this knowledge everywhere with me because life will always life how it wants without any warnings. When you start to heal your inner child, you often hear that healing is not linear and it’s not. There aren’t always going to be happy days. There are going to be days where you are at your lowest and fighting to keep going, where your depression is seeming like it’s going to win, and where getting out of bed feels like you’re running a marathon. Healing is tough and messy but it’s also beautiful and refreshing. It takes time to get to where you want to be which means you have to remain patient and show yourself grace. I have to tell myself this daily because I often forget.

As always, I leave you with a question. What has healing taught you?