There is grief in healing

In the past year I’ve learned that to begin to understand yourself, you must first listen to yourself. Really give yourself a minute and listen to what your intuition has to say, where it’s coming from, and why it’s coming up now. Granted, you will definitely need more than a minute, but the more often you tune in, the more you begin to develop a graceful relationship with yourself.

In the Voice Memos app of my phone sits a four-minute voice recording called “lemme cry for a hot minute (or four)”, in which I literally do cry for about four minutes, about desire and loneliness and uncertainty. Similarly on my Notion app is a whole block of pages that function as a digital journal for when a thought continues to pester me in the middle of my Capricornian work routine, so I can grab the chance to articulate it so it finally leaves me alone (temporarily). Likewise in my journal, there is page after page filled with illegible handwriting on feelings that have come up often in the dead of night, just as I’m about to sleep; thoughts and feelings I didn’t even realize I kept repressed until they finally met paper. In my personal journey of growth and introspection, I have come to realize that these moments — no matter how ugly they may be and despairing they may feel—are exactly the moments I need to keep myself afloat.

I’ve cried a lot in my times of solitude, sometimes about completely different things on separate occasions, other times about the same thing over and over again. The first time, it felt almost shameful to feel so awful, like I was doing someone a disservice by allowing myself to accept defeat. But when I realized how much lighter I felt after it, I began to welcome it, albeit hesitantly, because the more I repressed the heaviness, the more I gave it life.

The more I began to listen to myself and let myself feel heavy when I did, the more I realized how much these moments were meant to be met with the same grace just as much as everything else in the healing journey. In this sadness, I let myself grieve all the time I missed out on when I let myself stay with people that didn’t value me and how that experience shaped me; how big of a role my childhood and the way I was treated plays into my sense of self now as a young adult; how important it is to set boundaries that honor both myself and the person I set them with; and even how vital it was to accept the role I had played in giving life to destructive patterns that were passed on to me and patterns I created.

So while the beautiful moments in healing like meditation or yoga practice are still equally as valuable, granting myself the time and space to feel and cry and wallow became a vital part of the growth process as much as any. The path ahead of me is long and unwinding, but it’s one I’m willing to take if it means meeting my intuition and my thoughts with gratitude and with grace.