Healing & Why You Have to Want It

Happy 2023, lovers and friends 😊

I hope that you’re finding this blog post with a hopeful heart and a grateful spirit. It’s a new year, and a great time to reflect on where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going. No pressure. No sweat. Just awareness.

Honestly, all the resolutions and goals that I’ve set for this next year are pretty non-descript. But quite personal.

Whatever your opinion is on the new year, just know that there’s not a right way to do it. You don’t have to make resolutions, you don’t have to make any goals, and you don’t have to reconfigure your life aspirations.

Sometimes I feel like we can create goals as avenues for validating ourselves as acceptable and unacceptable. When we reach our goals, we are acceptable. When we don’t, we fail. It creates this toxic cycle, much like hustle culture, where we will never be enough or have enough. Whether we reach a goal or not, there’s still something to work toward. To prevent us from being content with where we are and enjoying the moment.

What if we framed our goals as the focal point with which we want our life to manifest? Because life is the ultimate manifestation, right?

And when we approach our goals with unconditional self-love, any outcome will be a successful one.

Easier said than done, I know.

One of my new year’s resolutions from last year was simply to heal. Specifically, from a broken heart. But, in general I feel as though the process of building my own life in a new city brought me closer to healing the innermost parts of my being that thought they were supposed to perform a certain way or be someone I wasn’t. I wanted to get over my ex, obviously, but I also wanted to grow into my new skin. To heal my relationship with myself that depended so much on a significant other and friends to be validated.

I wanted to create a life with purpose, and I wanted to find joy in the simplest things again. To romanticize all I am becoming.

I must be honest, I thought I was ready to heal. I really did. But I was still holding onto that version of myself. The version that was still trying to be good enough.

If you read some of my previous posts from this past year, you can probably see some of that bitterness and hurt; feelings that I disguised with inspirational woo woo talk.

Haha, I say that like this post itself isn’t inspirational woo woo talk. Whatever, I own it.

All this to say, I truly don’t think I was ready to accept a lot of the truths that I now understand. I was still fresh off a heartbreak, new to the city, adjusting to being away from friends and making new ones, and designing a new routine. Finding new simple joys. 

And it made me think.

Healing is not just a one-time thing.

But I do feel as though it takes a one-time event, typically some type of sudden loss to realize that we even relied on those constants in our lives at all. Our projection of the future is now muddled. Without these happy distractions, we are now forced to dive deep into depths of our minds we would rather avoid. Thoughts we would rather not work out.

When I was going through some deep loss and change in my life, I would convince myself I was okay. I would put up a façade of being over it, and I would lie to myself. Lie to my friends. After about 3 months of that, I became numb to most of my feelings, and I’d tune them out with new and exciting Chicago city life things.

And like clockwork, the feelings I never dealt with came crawling back into my subconscious. I slowly realized that this shit was no joke. I had to do the work. I had to start letting go.

And I did eventually. But damn, it wasn’t linear at all. I would take 4 steps forward and then 15 steps back. I’d talk it through in therapy, I’d cry myself to sleep, I’d reach out to the person I was trying to heal from, thinking that would help. (pro tip: it never does.)

I would find hope, then let it come crashing down again. It sucked.

But here I am today, fully acknowledging that this year is the year I’m ready to heal. I’m ready to think of a future without this person, without that version of my life. And to fully immerse myself in this one.

This healed version of me is not my most flawless self. I’m not immune to the sadness and nostalgia and grief. I’m just not controlled by it any longer.

And I’ve finally found it in me to forgive myself for being lost and feeling alone. Because I was never alone. I was way stronger than I thought. I just wanted to be weak. I wanted to feel small. If I hadn’t accessed that rock bottom version of me, I don’t think I would’ve had such perspective on my heartbreak.

And I was giving myself space to process before I moved forward completely. And you should always allow yourself that.

This was not the first time I walk through a healing journey, and it will certainly not be my last.

When you start to heal, you will see the ripple effect start to happen. It’s the purpose you didn’t even know you were working towards.

But, I know, it’s the hardest place to start. We want to blame everyone else for what they’re doing wrong. The last thing we want to do is look at ourselves in the mirror and identify the changes we need to implement. And it’s the fucking HARDEST thing to consistently show up for ourselves even when we don’t want to. We must hold ourselves accountable in healing ourselves.

When you go through a sudden loss, it’s like you need a parent to come push you out of the driver’s seat of your life, and take over the driving themselves. But, in my opinion, healing is being that adult version of yourself that is high-functioning and future-focused. A version of you that you can access when loss happens, and your plans go haywire.

I saw a tweet yesterday that said “the pinnacle of healing is when you have mastered how to keep your heart open amid all of life’s harsh lessons. Becoming jaded to human connection is the opposite of healing.”

Healing is acknowledging and expecting loss to happen in our lives but understanding that we will carry on any way.  It’s also one of the most beautiful parts of the human experience.

It’s understanding that the healthy, established, connected and thriving version of me has been here all along. It’s simply allowing her to show me my own potential.

So, in this chaotic first week of 2023, just remember how great it is to be you and to know you. Your light cannot and SHOULD not be extinguished by any of life’s obstacles. You’re way too precious to the world.

I love you guys.

Good things WILL happen to you. And keep showing up, until they do.

Talk soon,

Hannah <3