You Can't Skip Healing, Sis
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We’ve all been there, girl. The heartache. The pain. The tears. The intrusive thoughts. These are all the things that follow right after a major let down. It could be relationship based; maybe you ended a romantic relationship you invested your all into. It could be career or school based; perhaps you just missed the mark on that final exam or didn’t get chosen for your dream position. It could even be family related; maybe a sudden, or even gradual, loss of a loved one or fragmented familial bonds are causing so much stress you can barely see straight.
Too often we bury our feelings after a hurtful situation instead of facing them head on. It’s not uncommon, at all. So it’s important to know you’re not alone. But it’s just as important to honor the healing process because you will eventually learn that you cannot move forward without it.
What Does ‘Skipping the Healing Process’ Look Like?
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Everyone’s hurting and healing will look different. However, if you’re avoiding any mention of the hurtful situation with your closest loved ones, it may be a sign that you’re holding in more than you’re letting out. When we’re hurting, we tend to feel hyper vulnerable. Any details of that event may bring us right back to feeling that initial hurt and unleash a flood of spontaneous tears. It’s natural to want to avoid it. But I encourage you to ask yourself the reason why you’re avoiding it. Are you avoiding it with the hopes that it will one day disappear? Unfortunately, that is not the healthiest solution. Are you avoiding it because you feel like you may be a burden to your loved ones? If you’ve always felt supported, loved and comforted by your loved ones, think about why that would change now. In these seasons of healing, it’s paramount to lean on your tribe for support. They want to see you healthy and healed more than you may know.
We often make emotional enemies out of the people who’ve done us wrong. We can begin to see them as the villain and we have to become the superhero of our own story to save ourselves. Specifically in breakups, we tend to adopt the winner/loser dichotomy. However, I challenge you to remove the ‘sides’ from the situation. What if there is no ‘winner’ and there is no ‘loser’? Winning, in the traditional sense, isn’t necessarily the goal. The goal is to reach personal peace and restore your self-confidence in the process. The other person hasn’t “won” because they hurt you. You’re winning because you’re choosing to heal.
Denial is another very common coping mechanism. You may try your best to feign nonchalance in front of others but deep down you know that isn’t reflective of how you really feel. Allow me to affirm your feelings by saying: It’s okay to be hurt. It’s okay to be outraged. It’s okay to be disappointed. There’s nothing abnormal about the emotions swirling through your mind. Admitting it to yourself can be scary because once you do that it, all of a sudden, becomes more real. Those feelings need to be acknowledged for what they truly are instead of swept under the proverbial rug. They may hide under there without notice at first, but it will eventually become too much to suppress.
Why Shouldn’t You Skip the Healing?
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The ‘Strong Black Woman’ trope has its pros and cons depending on who you ask. This commonly used phrase among the Black community will encourage some and alienate others. For the latter group, it can often cause feelings of shame for simply experiencing the range of emotions all humans naturally experience. This doesn’t make you any more weak than the next person. There’s also the idea of ‘toxic positivity’ which invalidates unwanted emotions by steamrolling over them with blind positivity. Carolyn Karoll, a psychotherapist based in Baltimore, says, “The pressure to appear ‘OK’ invalidates the range of emotions we all experience.”(1) There is a clear stigma tied to heartbreak and hurt feelings. But don’t allow this stigma to stunt your growth by making you feel weak for being in pain. Dr. Jaime Zuckerman, a clinical psychologist based in Pennsylvania, shares, “Avoidance or suppression of emotional discomfort leads to increased anxiety, depression, and overall worsening of mental health.”(1) Taking one step closer to healing will always be the healthier option.
How Should You Begin the Healing Process?
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Beginning the healing process can take many shapes and forms. Therapy, if it’s an available option, is one of the best ways to heal through a transitional situation. There's something so priceless about having an unbiased third-party reflect your thought process back to you. It’s a fantastic tool for getting started on your healing journey. Websites like Therapy for Black Girls and Psychology Today are helpful to begin your search for the right therapist.
Another option is leaning on that support system we spoke about earlier. Our loved ones cannot necessarily act as a replacement for a therapist. But if you’ve been holding in your emotions, simply talking out loud with someone you trust can help to alleviate the pressure that’s been building inside. Lastly, regularly journaling your thoughts is a great coping strategy as well. You may discover feelings you never even knew you felt until you wrote it down on paper. Once you’re farther along in your healing journey, you’ll even be able to look back on your journal entries and see how far you’ve come.
It’s often difficult to see what healing may look like in the moments of hurting. Maybe you’ve been actively avoiding it for your own reasons or maybe you thought you were healing just fine up until now. As Black women, we deserve to be well. We deserve to feel free. We deserve to be healed. With so many things outside of our control, we deserve to claim healing for ourselves and for the generations of Black women that will come after us.