When You're Ready, This Is How You Heal

by Brianna Wiest

You were never lost. You were only hidden. All the time you spent feeling so uncomfortable was just your deepest self trying to speak to you, trying to remind you of its presence. It was only the core of you saying: Keep going. There is more to life than this.

I know that your instinct is to do whatever you can to earn the good graces of everyone you can, but that is also the impulse that will rob you of your time, your energy and your sanity.

…But the longer you stay small, tucked into the familiarity of the people who use you as a cushion, a back burner option, a therapist and a ploy for their emotional labor, the longer you keep yourself out of the community you crave.

What you give it to each day is what you will create more and more of in your life. What you give your time to is what will define your existence.

It is not your job to show up for people and give away your life to them, little by little, moment by moment, because you pity them, because you feel bad, because you “should,” because you’re obligated, because, at the root of it all, you’re afraid to not be liked back.

See your discomfort as your subconscious way of telling yourself that you are capable of more, and better, than you have at this current moment.

If time is not resolving the matter, then time may be waiting on you.

State what you are feeling, in clear and honest terms. This will help you process and accept it, even if it doesn’t make complete sense to you right now.

For most of us, we don’t even realize that we have to let go, only that what we’re doing now is not working.

This thing most likely hadn’t been working for a long time, and you were in denial. Your delusions and dreams about how it would transform into something you want it to be are just that—unreal. It’s time to get out of that and into reality, into the now, into your actual life.

Deep down, the relationship that ended was a distraction from the relationship you don’t have with yourself.

The place you need to leave might have been right for a while, but you’ve outgrown it, and your life is no longer supporting the person you want to be or the place you want to go.

You will have to spend many nights by yourself, in candlelight, making yourself dinner, learning to love yourself, to be alone with yourself and enjoy that time.

You will have to stay precisely where you are and learn to mend the wound of your unworthine...

There is nowhere we can turn to that is an escape from ourselves. It’s time to start over, and it’s time to begin right here. Weed out what’s dead in your life. Nourish the garden around your soul. Start where you are and with what you have. Stand on what you’ve built. Close the gaps in your own foundation.

We cannot keep running in circles and expect our lives to blossom, we have to stay where we are and have the courage to heal what’s broken within us before turning to yet another outside source to mend the damage.

No matter where your life takes you, you are always with you—until the very end. Nobody else can save you from yourself.

When you begin your healing journey, you will be searching for epiphanies. Life-changing, soul-opening, mind-bending truths. Drastic changes, rapid uprooting, the fierce releasing of what you can no longer stand and the obsessive need to find something that makes you feel a little better, even just for a moment.

You must create even just one corner of peace within your own little world, recognizing finally that “home” was never a place that existed anywhere outside of your own heart.

Maybe your stress and dissatisfaction have simply just started to compile and you find yourself wondering how much longer you can sustain your current routine. Regardless, life almost never changes for the better unless a disruptor is present — something that makes us question, and dare to change, our own status quo.

The longer you resist these emotions, the longer they linger.

That message is not that we are worthless and unlovable, as they may often feel. Instead, the message is usually that we are not holding ourselves within life circumstances that fully honor our worth, and we are not acknowledging just how loved we truly are, and therefore, we aren’t seeking relationships in which we feel and see that truth reflected at us.

What this means is that we will remain what we have always been unless we consciously choose to become something else.

Sure, everyone evolves and adapts over time, but if you aren’t intentional about it, you’ll end up the product of who and what is around you as opposed to an authentic expression of who you really are.

Any time you’re looking to make a significant positive change in your life, a mindset shift must accompany it.

Real growth requires genuine exploration, a period of trial and error. It requires you to first admit that you might not know what you want.

Negativity bias limits us not because we aren’t able to be realistic, but because we don’t understand that positive outcomes are often more likely than worst case scenarios, they just aren’t as emotionally triggering.

You’re staying loyal to what you’ve put a lot of time into, even if it’s not what’s really right for you long-term.

It’s hard to let go, but it’s harder not to.

The honest truth is that no matter what you choose to do or be in life, to do it well and long-term, everything will become boring and monotonous at some point or another. That’s sometimes the reality of life. While you’ll undoubtedly feel more peace and fulfillment pursuing what’s really right for you, you’re going to have down days, you’re going to have periods of burnout, you’re going to have moments of second guessing yourself, and you’re absolutely going to realize that it’s often far more exciting and thrilling to decide to totally uproot and start again than it is to simply stick with the path day-in and day-out.

We so often yearn for and want the things that help us escape who we are, but the things that are actually meant for us—the ones that arrive and stay—they make us feel a sense of steady calm. We do not need to be swept off our feet, but grounded through them. In the moment is where love really exists. The moment is the only place we can come alive.

What’s right for us isn’t a harsh declaration, it isn’t something we have to force or wonder about for too long. It isn’t something that leaves us looking for signs, it doesn’t require us to poll our friends to gather their opinions. It doesn’t leave us questioning, grieving, self-doubting. It doesn’t put us on hold. It doesn’t feel as though we have to grab it before it is gone, but rather, that it will always be waiting for us when we are ready.

The love you desire is one you create with someone who is as equally willing to expand with you as you are with them. We do not lose love when we lack passion, we lose it when we lack any further potential for growth.

What we are looking for is not a way to convince ourselves that our bubble of serenity is all that exists, but to create our own personal safe haven as a constant reminder that it is possible to make a beautiful way within this world, it is possible to return home to yourself.

In place of what no longer serves, we are forced to reach for what will finally heal.

You are going to have to stop being afraid of fluctuating income or credit card debt or bad reviews or looking dumb or staying cool and pretending like you don’t care.

You will have to hold a torch for yourself first.

There is a path to everything you know is waiting for you, even if you don’t know what that is right now.

There is no merit in holding back, nothing gained but a life half lived. If you can say nothing else of yourself, say that you had courage. Say that at least you tried. And even if you never quite arrive, allow your legacy to be one of tenacity, one where you did not allow the fear to stop you from doing what you were born to do or having the life you were meant to experience.

Maybe the kindest possible thing you could do for yourself right now is just be honest with yourself. Trust yourself. Know that your feelings are valid and maybe they’re trying to move you somewhere you’ve never been before.

Maybe the kindest possible thing you could do for yourself is to be your whole self, even if you fear you won’t be accepted. Maybe the kindest thing you could do is to be as open to your own soul as you can be, even if not everyone understands you.

Your life is reaching toward you, and maybe the kindest possible thing you could do is reach back.

At the heart of discomfort is the potential for great wisdom. Every time we find ourselves feeling jealous, angry, regretful, resentful, self-hating, judgmental, closed-minded, and hopeless, we are also being handed an opportunity to transform our mindsets and change our lives. These emotions are not punishments, they’re signals of the shifts that need to take place to support the lives we deeply desire to create. Here are 16 of the most important ones.

Instead of responding to our emotions impulsively, we can observe them and then question them. Is this helpful? Is this truthful? Is this coming from a place of clear perspective, or a lingering past wound?

Small steps, taken almost daily, move you closer toward stability and success. You don’t need to do it all in order to be safe.

Our purpose is just to be alive.

We can either embrace people for who they are in this moment or decide to limit the presence they have in our lives.

Most importantly though, your ongoing relational issues are often pointing toward emotional blocks within yourself, the very blocks that are holding you back from the life you’re asking for—which is why they’re in your conscious awareness.

“My highest potential future life already exists.” When you close your eyes and imagine your future self or your future life, the one that feels so good, so right, so inspiring, and so hopeful — what you need to know is that it already exists. That person is you. That life is yours. The journey is bridging the gap between visualizing it and seeing it in reality. That journey contains releasing attachments, changing behaviors, shifting your belief system, and slowly taking action every day until you reach the other side. You are destined for what you most desire. The truths that pull you deeply do so for a reason.

And that part of you — the one that really wants to protect you? Maybe that’s your power speaking in a different way. Maybe that’s not a sign that you’ve abandoned yourself, but that you love yourself enough to safeguard whatever small parts of your heart remain untouched.