Okay, here we go. Inner Healing
Inner healing sounds so pretty on Instagram, doesn’t it? Like you just buy a $78 journal and suddenly you’re glowing. Meanwhile I’m over here in my 2012 Tacoma at 4:47 a.m. somewhere outside Columbus, ugly-crying into a McDonald’s napkin because I just realized I still flinch when someone says “I’m proud of you.” That’s the real entry point for my inner healing journey, zero lotus flowers, 100% large Diet Coke. https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma
Why Inner Healing Felt Like Getting Punched by My Own Childhood Inner Healing
I thought I was fine. Like, “I’ve got trauma but it’s fine, I’m functional” fine. Then one random Tuesday I’m folding laundry and boom, flashback to being eight and hiding in my closet because yelling. Suddenly I’m thirty-four, sitting on my bedroom floor surrounded by unmatched socks, shaking like an idiot. That’s when I realized “fine” was a lie I’d been paying rent on for decades.
So I started therapy. Real therapy, not the Instagram kind where you just breathe fancy and call it a day. The kind where you say stuff out loud that makes you want to yeet yourself into the sun. My therapist (shoutout to Karen, queen of not letting me bullshit) made me say the sentence “My mom did the best she could” and I literally gagged. That’s inner healing, baby. Glamorous.
The Parking-Lot Sessions: Where the Real Inner Healing Happens Inner Healing
Forget sound baths. My actual sacred space became Meijer parking lots at 2 a.m. I’d sit there with the dome light on, journaling like a maniac while some dude bought cigarettes. One night I wrote “I am angry that nobody protected me” twenty times until my hand cramped and then, this is embarrassing, I screamed in my car so loud I set off my own car alarm. Healing? Maybe. Definitely got me some weird looks from the Uber Eats guy. https://www.theholisticpsychologist.com
Here’s what actually moved the needle for me (your mileage may vary, I’m just a messy human in Ohio):
- EMDR made me feel like I was glitching in the Matrix but holy crap it worked
- Writing letters I’ll never send (then burning them in my backyard like a witch)
- Letting myself buy the stupid $6 latte without guilt because joy is part of inner healing too, fight me
- Telling my friends the ugly stuff and realizing they didn’t leave (shocker)
Yeah, I Still Have Days Where Inner Healing Feels Like a Scam Inner Healing
Some mornings I wake up and the progress feels fake. Like I’ve just gotten better at pretending. Last week I had a full meltdown because someone used the word “disappointing” and I spiraled for three days. Inner healing isn’t linear, it’s more like drunk texting your trauma at 3 a.m. and then apologizing to yourself in the morning.
But then there are these tiny, ridiculous wins. Like last month I said “no” without explaining myself and didn’t spontaneously combust. Or when my niece hugged me and I didn’t freeze up waiting for the other shoe to drop. Those moments taste like the first sip of coffee after a red-eye flight, small, perfect, proof I’m not totally doomed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3957227/
Look, I’m still mid-journey. My truck still smells like old fries and regret. I still cry at Target sometimes (the lighting is brutal, okay?). But inner healing, for me, isn’t about becoming unbroken. It’s about carrying the cracks in a way that lets the light through without cutting everyone around me.
If you’re sitting in your own parking lot right now, napkin in hand, wondering if this crap ever gets better, yeah. It does. Slowly. Messily. With a lot of fast-food napkins and 2 a.m. voice memos to yourself.
Start where you are. Write the ugly thing. Say it out loud. Cry in inappropriate places. The fact that you’re even reading this means some part of you already knows this journey is worth it.
You got this. (And if you don’t today, that’s okay too. I’ll be over here in aisle 7 having my own moment.) Inner Healing
