What Healing Really Looks Like (Hint: It’s Not Pretty)

When people talk about healing, they usually picture something soft.

Peaceful. Serene.

Like one day you wake up wrapped in sunlight, all your wounds magically closed, every scar a perfect little badge of honor.

I wish it worked that way.

But the truth? Healing is ugly 😞.

It’s dragging yourself out of bed when every part of you wants to disappear.

It’s facing the same old demons with shaking hands and a stomach full of dread — and doing it anyway.

It’s crying over things you thought you were "over" and realizing grief 🥀 has no expiration date.

Healing is messy.

It’s nonlinear 🛤️.

It’s two steps forward, three steps back, and then somehow still finding the strength to get up and try again.

Some days, healing looks like survival 🩹.

Some days, it looks like collapse.

And some days — the best days — it looks like fighting for a future you still can't fully see, but you’re stubborn enough to believe in anyway.

I used to think healing would feel like a celebration.

Instead, it feels more like a quiet kind of rebellion 🔥.

Every poem I wrote for The Shape of Healing ✍️📖 was a way of saying:

I am still here. I am still fighting. I am still becoming. 🌱

Not because I always wanted to.

But because somewhere inside me, the part that refused to quit kept whispering:

It doesn’t quit.

It doesn’t apologize.

It doesn’t even take a nap.

But neither do I. 🖤

If you’re somewhere in the middle of your own messy, imperfect healing — I see you.

You’re not alone 💪.

And you’re doing better than you think.