The Moment I Realized Healing Isn’t Pretty

For a long time, I thought healing would feel peaceful. I imagined quiet mornings, soft light coming through the window, and journaling about lessons and growth. What I didn’t picture was how messy it actually gets. The nights when you can’t sleep (or the weeks). The heavy moments that don’t make sense yet. The version of you that’s trying so hard to keep it together while everything inside is shifting.

I used to think falling apart meant failure. Now I know it’s the part no one talks about, the collapse that comes before rebuilding.

I’ve fallen apart in ways I didn’t see coming. I've questioned everything I’ve ever known including who I am, what I want, and what I actually believe. The routines that once made me feel safe suddenly felt hollow. The things I used to cling to for meaning stopped working. It was like life held up a mirror and said, “You can’t keep living from the old versions of yourself.”

For a while, I fought it. I tried to stay grateful, positive, and productive. I kept repeating to myself that I was fine, that I just needed to “trust the process.” But the truth was that I was exhausted. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally. I was done pretending that holding it together meant I was strong.

One day I was home by myself and was being eaten alive by my thoughts. I was starting to break down and not in a movie-scene kind of way. This happened slowly that not even I could see it coming. I hadn't slept in a good few

weeks. I was jobless and isolated. I had never felt this lost before. All of a sudden tears filled my eyes and I could not get them to stop. I had officially lost it.

It took me months, but I finally realized that healing isn’t something you earn through effort. It's not something where you win an award to "keep on trucking". It’s something that happens when you finally stop trying to control it.

That’s when I understood that my exhaustion wasn’t laziness. My sadness wasn’t weakness. They were messages from the parts of me I’d ignored for too long. The part that needed rest. The part that needed softness. The part that didn’t want to perform being okay anymore.

Since then, I’ve been learning to let the cracks show. To stop hiding the messy parts of healing and just tell the truth: sometimes you have to completely fall apart to see what’s real. Sometimes the breakdown is the only thing strong enough to break you free.

Healing isn’t the pretty version we see online. It’s the quiet reckoning that forces you to rebuild from the inside out. It’s crying over things you thought you were “past.” It’s questioning your faith, your relationships, and your own patterns. It’s realizing you were never meant to be polished, but that you were meant to be whole.

Now, when I help others through their own healing, I remind them of this: falling apart doesn’t mean you’re lost. It means your old self is shedding so something truer can finally take its place.

If you’re in that in-between space right now, you know, the one where everything hurts and nothing feels stable, please know you’re not broken. You’re being remade. And even though it feels dark and uncertain, the version of you that’s emerging will be softer, wiser, and more real than anything that came before.

If this spoke to you, I’d love to connect. Feel free to send me an email or book a session. Your healing deserves to be witnessed.