Why I’m No Longer Ashamed to Say I’m Healing

The house is finally quiet.
Not the sacred, monastery kind of quiet—
the tired kind.

The dishwasher hums like a distant engine.
One sock is abandoned in the hallway,
inside-out, accusatory.
The light coming through the window has softened,
early morning edging closer to mid-morning,
dust floating like it has nowhere better to be.

I’m standing at the counter,
hands resting on the cool edge,
and I realize I’m holding my breath.

Again.

My shoulders are up near my ears,
as if they’ve been bracing for impact all day.
My jaw aches in that dull, familiar way.
There’s a quiet pressure behind my eyes—
not tears, exactly.
Just weight.

This is usually the part where I would tell myself
to do better.
To be more grateful.
More resilient.
More disciplined.

This is where I would roll my eyes at myself and think,
You’re fine. Other people have it worse.
This is where shame used to slip in,
uninvited but well-practiced.

Because somewhere along the way,
“healing” started to sound indulgent.
Soft.
Suspicious.

Something you should only need
if you were truly falling apart.

And I wasn’t falling apart.
I was functioning.

I was packing lunches and answering emails.
Holding space for clients.
Remembering birthdays.
Keeping everyone alive.

I was tired, yes—
but productive.

So I didn’t say I was healing.
I said I was busy.
I said I was just in a season.
I said I’d rest later.

Healing, I was taught—implicitly—
was something you did after the crisis (if it happened at all).
After the diagnosis.
After the divorce.
After the bottom fell out.

But no one taught us
what to do with the long murky middle.

The years where nothing is technically wrong,
but when everything feels heavy.

The kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix.
The kind of anxiety that hums under the surface,
even on good days.
The way joy feels muted,
like it’s happening behind glass.

If you’re a woman who has always been reliable,
you know this middle well.

You know how to show up.
You know how to carry things quietly.
You know how to keep going.

And maybe that’s why saying
“I’m healing”
felt embarrassing.

As if you were admitting weakness
instead of truth.

I used to think healing meant
I was broken.

That it meant I had failed at coping.
Failed at gratitude.
Failed at being “strong.”

But healing—real healing—
isn’t a dramatic before-and-after.

It’s not a montage.
It’s not a declaration.

It’s noticing, one afternoon,
that your body has been bracing for years.

It’s realizing your breath has been shallow
for so long it feels foreign to let it drop.

It’s standing in your kitchen,
hands on the counter,
thinking:
Oh. I’m tired and I deserve care.

Not fixing.
Care.

As a therapist, I’ve sat with hundreds of women
who whisper the same fear in different words:

“I don’t know why this feels so hard.”
“I should be grateful.”
“I don’t want to complain.”
“I’m scared this is just who I am.”

Their shoulders slump as they say it.
Their eyes drift downward.
Their bodies already apologizing.

And as a a fellow human,
I recognize that posture intimately.

The way your nervous system never fully clocks out.
The way someone always needs something—
a snack, a signature, a response, a version of you
that doesn’t feel depleted.

Even rest starts to feel like a task.
Something to earn.
Something to optimize.

So when we talk about healing,
we tend to imagine something else.
Something better.
Something future-you will do
once you finally get it together.

But healing doesn’t begin
when you become a better version of yourself.

It begins when you stop arguing with the truth
of where you are.

I’m no longer ashamed to say that I’m healing
because I finally understand what that word holds.

Healing is not a verdict.
It’s a relationship.

It’s listening when your body says
enough—
even if you don’t know what comes next.

It’s letting your nervous system downshift
without demanding an explanation.

It’s allowing support
before you collapse.

Some days, healing looks like insight.
Other days, it looks like sitting on the floor
because the couch feels too far away.

Sometimes it looks like therapy.
Sometimes it looks like staring out the window
for longer than feels productive.

Sometimes it looks like a tiny check-in—
a quiet moment where you ask yourself, gently,
How heavy is this right now?

Not to fix it.
Just to name it.

That question alone
can soften something that’s been clenched for years.

We were taught that rest was a reward.
That calm was something you earned
after finishing the list.

But your nervous system doesn’t understand productivity.
It understands safety.

And safety is built slowly—
through small, consistent signals
that you are allowed to pause.

That you don’t have to perform wellness
to deserve care.

This is why I believe so deeply
in gentle starting points.

Not sweeping transformations.
Not rigid routines.

But brief, compassionate moments
that meet you exactly where you are.

Sometimes that looks like
a two-minute check-in—
not a diagnosis, not a label—
just a soft mirror held up to your inner weather.

A way to understand your emotional load
without shame.
Without pressure.

A way to say:
This is what I’m carrying.
And let that be enough for today.

If you’ve been moving through your days on autopilot,
feeling both capable and exhausted,
a simple pause like this can be a kindness.

Not a commitment.
Not a promise.

Just information, held gently.

Healing doesn’t require perfect conditions.

It doesn’t wait for quiet houses
or empty calendars
or uninterrupted mornings.

It happens in fragments.

In the space between one obligation and the next.
In the breath you finally let out
when no one is watching.

It happens when you stop asking,
“What’s wrong with me?”
and start wondering,
“What has my body been trying to survive?”

That shift alone
can feel like setting down a heavy bag
you didn’t realize you were carrying.

I still have days where I rush.
Days where my shoulders creep back up.
Days where I forget to drink water
and wonder why my head hurts.

Healing hasn’t made me serene.
It’s made me honest.

Honest about my limits.
Honest about my needs.
Honest about the fact that being strong
was never meant to mean being alone.

So when I say I’m healing now,
I don’t mean I’m becoming someone else.

I mean I’m coming back.

Back to my body.
Back to my breath.
Back to the parts of me
that were whispering long before they ever screamed.

And if you’re here—
reading this with tired eyes,
feeling seen and exposed all at once—
you don’t have to claim anything today.

You don’t have to decide
what kind of healing you need
or how long it will take.

You can simply let this land:

There is nothing embarrassing
about tending to what’s been overworked.

Nothing weak
about needing care.

Nothing indulgent
about wanting to feel like yourself again.

Healing is not an admission of failure.

It’s an act of quiet respect
for the life you’re already living.

A soft return.

With warmth,
Julia