After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love

by Alexandra Elle

Despite all the work I have done to arrive in a place of joy and contentment, there is still so much more to be considered. There is still much more to be done. Unfolding never stops, no matter how successful we become, how full we feel, or how at ease we may believe ourselves to be. There is always a next step, another way, and more to absorb.

During my crusade through self-discovery, I am continuously reminded that I am a student, and I will always be one. That is the gift even when we feel uncertain or lost in our current season. In order to grow, we, like the transition of autumn and rebirth of spring, must also prepare to shed and begin again. In pursuance of blooming, there must be rain. As we wait for the downpour to cease and new light to emerge, patience is our best and dearest friend. The sun will be on the horizon again, eventually.

After the rain, truth finds a way to shine through the clouds, reminding us all that we are deserving of healing. That we’re worthy of change. That we are built to expand and stretch into our best selves.

The notion that I had the power to outgrow who I was, and start a new relationship with who I wanted to be, became clear to me when I was about twenty-one. Even though it felt impossible, I wanted badly to reroute my life and find joy, but I didn’t know where to start. Searching for and finding my how was the scariest thing I’d done in my life. Changing meant I had to start with being honest about who I was and who I wanted to be. It meant learning the difference between being alone and being lonely. I had to get my stuff together. And in order to do that, I knew I needed to leave people behind who were distracting me from my growth. I had to start from scratch and acknowledge my roles in the cycles that I said I wanted to break. Committing to change meant challenges and trust, which stripped me of everything that I knew.

I wasn’t trying my best, and it was time to get out of my own my way. I felt like a robot trapped in a cycle of never-ending mediocrity. I’d gotten comfortable with being average. For me, change required being brave enough to let go and vulnerable enough to start over, even if that meant trying more than once or twice to get it right.

Disliking who I was came easily to me as a child. I wore self-aversion like a second skin, and I mastered the unhealthy habit of picking my entire existence apart without hesitation.

Growing up, I never felt loved. At least not in the traditional sense. And definitely not how I saw some of my peers being loved, particularly by their parents. I often wondered why I was here. What was my purpose? Who needs me, anyway? And why would God, if there was one, give me this life? My sense of belonging, or lack thereof, molded me in an extremely unhealthy way. Unlearning self-hatred came with a unique set of challenges. This included removing the learned behavior of self-loathing and unhappiness, and replacing it with the possibility of self-love, fulfillment, and joy without relying on the validation of others. Without needing outsiders to love me first.

Self-love is birthed in the trenches of our darkest moments— that’s why the light feels so good when we finally find it.

My truth was my truth, and sometimes it exposed itself in messy and confusing ways, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t enough or worthy, she insisted. It meant I was still learning from whatever I thought I had already learned.

Hold your hurt, rest in your pain more often, stop running from fear. Don’t be afraid to touch and face what scares you the most. Asking for help doesn’t make you weak. Collapse into vulnerability; that is where you will find resilience. Take care of the soft and tender spots of your grief and process and bandage them up slowly. Rushing to rebuild won’t make you heal any faster.

The joy in my suffering has been standing in the truth that I can shift my story as I evolve and align more deeply with my possibilities, even when they seem far away. Giving myself unapologetic permission to look my heartache in the face and say, You won’t silence me, has changed how I navigate pain.

Hurt happens, but so does healing.

Life doesn’t stop when we grieve. Learning to soothe our suffering—choosing how to move through our pain—that is where the prize

My heart will stay soft and filled with love despite the hurt I will face. I am a student. I am learning to allow my pain to teach me, not harden me.

Time isn’t stopping or slowing down, and how we invest and spend it is almost an art form.

You don’t have to know what you’re doing to succeed, but you do have to be willing to try.

I am grateful to those who didn’t love me enough to stay; their absence taught me that self-love is my superpower.

There was no such thing as feeling complete and enough. My need for validation was rooted in my belief that I was born a broken girl. I didn’t know how to fix myself or find magic in the mess I was making, and I believed that in order to become whole, I needed someone else to put my pieces together.

When I was twenty-two, I became fast friends with Richmond, Virginia. More often than I should have, I would hop in my car and drive several hours to see someone I was barely dating there. With the benefit of hindsight, I now see that we were really only in the business of having unexceptional sex, eating below-average food, and sometimes engaging in dull conversations about life, none of which were better than mediocre. None of which made me feel the thing I was looking to feel. I doubt he even knew my last name. Nevertheless, he was nice enough and handsome enough, and I was searching to find all those missing parts of myself that I wouldn’t grow to know until years later. So I settled, and put a lot of miles on my car, driving from my home to his with this burning desire that he would want me a little more the next visit. He never did.

I walked away with a clearer understanding that I had to stop settling and forcing and being okay with the scraps of people’s effort and time.

I am my own validation, which now feels empowering rather than isolating and unnerving. While life is not meant to be done alone, it’s important to make room and hold space for intimate moments that don’t require company and praise to press forward. Validation starting with me gave me permission to trust myself in new ways, while holding myself accountable. It is no one else’s job to make me feel whole and good—only I can do that.

A year prior, I’d stopped having sex, stopped dating and entertaining people who I knew were temporary, and decided that settling was not an option in my life. Essentially, I stopped wasting my time and started figuring out who I was outside of motherhood and men.

Love requires vulnerability.

Giving myself permission to stretch, soften, and let things grow organically reminds me that I can change and make space for joy in ways that I had never imagined.

Believing that I was more than deserving of love opened up a new way of life for me.

Don’t let the hurt of your past or the doubts of others deter you from building the life you long for.

Overthinking made my body feel empty and numb. The voice of self-doubt crept up my spine like a monster from under my bed.

Verbal daggers were my go-to defense mechanism when I wanted to escape my fears rather than face them.

I knew what I was doing by trying to find a way out of the relationship. I was repeating what I’d so often done on plenty of occasions. I was running away from the unfamiliar and cowering back into my unhealthy space of comfort.

I’d grown accustomed to not feeling supported, and I’d gotten used to shutting down in order to protect my heart.

Many things in my life have been unspoken and carried away with the wind. So to remember that family and home are what we make them gives me a sense of ease and unity in moments of grief. It reassures me that I am not lacking, despite what my biological family looks like.

Being in silence can be intimidating. It requires my full attention, which is rare and cumbersome in my ever-evolving self-care practice. Getting still can be a burden on my plans. It makes me think and be in intimate company with myself, which can open a Pandora’s box of things I’ve stashed away, like hurt I’m still holding and regrets that have gone unaddressed. But this is what I needed. To stop busying myself and hiding from uncomfortable thoughts.

Fleeing felt easy and safe in my moments of uncertainty. Staying to repair what was broken felt threatening and way too vulnerable to stomach. Love didn’t feel strong enough to fix the cracks in our foundation.

I was hurting, and a part of me wanted him to know the feeling of devastation that I was wrestling with. For months I held him hostage to his mistake because I was so angry and hurt. But that wasn’t helping us. That wasn’t healthy for our end goal, and it wasn’t the forgiveness I said I wanted to offer.

I eventually saw that I had to be accountable for my choice to stay and my choice to heal. Healing my heart had to begin with me if I wanted things to move forward. It wasn’t up to my partner to fix me. His apologies and tears weren’t glue that could put me back together. There was nothing he could say to give me comfort.

That evening, I gave my daughter what my younger self needed: reassurance that blackness isn’t a blemish or a burden and that her skin wasn’t a curse or something to detest. It was important that she understood deep in her bones that other people’s hatred or negative perceptions of us say more about them than about anyone else.

There were no frills in her offerings. They merely were what they were. Giving me things was her way of showing that she cared. Regardless if I needed anything new or not, gifting was her display of hard work and attention.

Comparison is teaching me the importance of compassion. As I continue to unpack my emotional baggage and reflect on my childhood, I am learning to navigate each emotional entanglement with more grace for myself and those I’m in relationship with.

I realized that no relationship is without its challenges, even if it looks ideal from the outside. And I began to see that while it was easy to focus on my mom’s deficiencies, if I reframed my perspective, there was also a lot to appreciate in her.

But shortly after finding out what seemed to be the news of a lifetime, I miscarried and we ended up back at square one. I’m still not sure what we mourned more, not having to try anymore or the pregnancy itself. Perhaps each was just as devastating as the other.

Breaking the chains of unhealthy cycles begins with acceptance. Facing rejection is a challenge, but it continues to teach me how important it is to accept what I cannot change.

Practicing acceptance shows me that the baggage of others, even adult children, isn’t mine to bear.

One of the greatest things I’ve gained from this experience is self-trust—trusting myself and my instincts even when I feel like something is being lost or left behind in the process. I’ve had to work through loss and unpack patterns of codependency, which feels all too common in my ancestry.

There’s an air of self-awareness that you’ve grown to know deep in your bones. Where you’ve been and what you’ve walked through has shaped each footstep that you have left behind. And still, even though you’ve reached new heights in your quest and have come so far, there are some feelings of regret sprouting within the pieces of your story that you’d rather let slip away. But that’s not how pain or pursuit of understanding works. You can’t pretend the aching doesn’t exist. You can’t silence it. Why would you want to? Where is the lesson in that? Instead, sit with it all. Breathe through it and remember to cry. Give it life and let it go. Perhaps what scares you the most is not having that lingering feeling of suffering waiting for you to drop the ball or turn that corner. Remember, the goal isn’t to escape, become numb, or ignore what hurts or haunts. It’s to acknowledge, accept, and appreciate all that comes with the ebb and flow of healing.

It’s a challenge to create a new narrative when the old one feels like what you deserve. To forgive is to let go. To let go is to relinquish control and get acquainted with your vulnerability and courage.

Give yourself permission to release shame. You are not who you used to be. You’re more than your mistakes. Your past was practice, and everything you’ve walked through has helped get you to where you are today.

Forgive yourself for not knowing, not trusting, not caring, not understanding, and not getting back up when things felt too burdensome to hold. Forgive yourself for repeating the same thing and not learning from the past. Forgive yourself for the shame and guilt you carry. Forgive yourself for not finishing and having to start over. Forgive yourself for self-sabotaging and settling and thinking you were not good enough. Forgive yourself for not trusting your worth and deciding that selling yourself short was the only way to get by and be seen. Forgive yourself for staying too long when you should’ve left. Forgive yourself for not loving your body enough to value it as sacred. Forgive yourself for wasting time and being unkind and getting off track. You are worthy of everything good you thought you weren’t.

The sun will always emerge after the rain; you’ve just got to be committed enough to do the work while you wait it out.