Healing used to feel like something I had to rush. Like there was a finish line I was supposed to cross, a version of myself I was supposed to arrive at, and once I did, everything would finally make sense. For a long time, I measured my progress by how productive I was, how strong I appeared, how little my past seemed to affect me, or how often I think of the issue that once bothered me.
This season has taught me something different.
It looks like pausing before I respond instead of explaining myself out of habit. it looks like listening to my body when it asks for rest, even when my mind insists, I should be doing more. It looks like choosing softness without guilt.
Lately, healing has also looked like returning to the work that reminds me why this journey matters so much. I’m currently working on a blog post centered on the research surrounding Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in Black and Brown children, and the long-term effects these early experiences can have on health, behavior, and overall well-being. Sitting with that research has been heavy at times but also clarifying.
ACEs came to me as the next blog post after realizing not a lot of people in our community know or understand what they are. ACEs also tie into the focus of the next journal volume. We’ll be taking a look at how early life stress shapes health, behavior, and healing across the lifespan. It’s a heavier conversation, but an important one. One that deserves care, context, and compassion.
It has reinforced something I’ve always known in my body: healing is not just personal, it’s generational. I’ll say it a thousand times over, there are three books that I look at as must reads to understand how intergenerational trauma affects our lives before we even enter the world.
Reading about how early exposure to trauma, instability, and systemic inequities shapes the nervous system and health outcomes has made me gentler with myself. More patient with the parts of me that learned to survive before they ever learned to feel safe. It has reminded me that so many of our own coping mechanisms didn’t come from nowhere; they came for adaptation.
In this season, healing looks like unlearning.
Unlearning the belief that my worth is tied to how much I carry for others. Unlearning the idea that I have to be strong at the expense of being honest. Unlearning the pressure to shrink my feelings so they fit into spaces that were never designed to hold them.
I’m learning to let my feelings exist without immediately fixing them. To sit with discomfort without turning it into self-criticism. To acknowledge grief and gratitude at the same time. Both can be true, and both are welcome here.
Healing also looks like redefining success.
Success is no longer just milestones or achievements. It’s choosing alignment. It’s waking up with less tension in my shoulders. It’s noticing when I feel emotionally safe and honoring that as progress.
Some days, healing looks like journaling until my hands hurt. Other days, it looks like closing the notebook and stepping outside for air. I’m learning that both are valid.
If you’re in a season where healing feels subtle or unfished, I want you to know this: you are not behind. You are not doing it wrong. Sometimes healing looks like simple staying, staying present, staying gentle, staying willing to keep listening to yourself.
And that, too, is growth.
I hope to meet you at the ACEs blog post when it’s ready!