This is an email from Newsletter By Fleurine, a newsletter by Notes By Fleurine.
May 1
Healing looks different for everyone
For the full experience, listen to Healing — Fletcher
Along the way, we all pick up our own scars. There is not a single person who hasn’t experienced a pain of some kind, who hasn’t gone through something that left them changed. It could be a breakup that left you feeling incomplete, a loss that you struggle to grieve, a betrayal of some kind. Whatever the pain is, however big it may seem to others, it had an effect on you.
These moments don’t take from us, they don’t make us less than we were before. They give us something, an ache, a burden, a lesson that we’ll clutch too painfully. These moments of pain add to who we are, and we struggle to carry that extra weight, until we finally begin to heal and find a place for it. We add it to the collection of who we are, as a scar that represents something we survived.
This healing can look different for everyone. This healing isn’t always achieved in the best ways, through mistakes and an attempt to numb ourselves. But however we heal, the point is that we’re trying to.
Everyone’s journey to healing is different, and sometimes the most difficult part is knowing we can’t help someone on it. We can’t do the work for them. We can’t take the pain for them. All we can do is be the anchor in rocky waters, and remind them that we’re not going anywhere.
This week, I recommend you take a moment to consider what healing is for you. Is it taking long walks alone with your thoughts? Is it running and trying to become a stronger version of yourself? Is it putting your emotions and experiences into a form of art, or just pen to paper? Is it going to therapy to work through it with the help of a trained professional?
Healing takes as long as it takes. You can’t undo what’s happened to you, but you can use it to build the new version of yourself, someone who is ready for whatever’s next.
Love,
Fleurine
“Breaking down, don’t mean I’m broken
Losing hope, don’t mean I’m hopeless
And maybe all I need is time
It never happens overnightI can’t erase all the things that I’ve done
But all the mistakes made me who I’ve become”
Here are three novels that follow a character healing:
“She’d thought she was settled. Fixed forever. Is she about to discover that no matter what our age, everything can change? Is it time to think again, Rachel?”
2. Waiting for the Winds to Change — Claire Beesley
“As her world caves in, she longs for the winds to change, to bring her a fresh new start. But will she realise that the only person who can change the course of her life, is her?”
3. After I Do — Taylor Jenkins-Reid
“This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple caught up in an old game — and searching for a new road to happily ever after.”
(affiliate links)
Don’t Underestimate How Much Healing Happens After Therapy
“Leaving therapy is like removing your training wheels. Because learning to ride a bike is hard, and you cry a lot, but it gets far more difficult when you remove those safety wheels. That’s when you really learn to ride a bike.”
Your Eating Disorder Is Still Valid
“Having an eating disorder often feels like you’re constantly validating your experience and trying to prove that you struggled, not only to other people but to yourself as well.
No matter what your experience was, your eating disorder is still valid, because you struggled.”
People Who Are Grieving Need to Hear These 5 Things
“Grief is uncomfortable, we don’t like to be close to it, and so it’s tempting to hide from it. Because grief is a reminder that we could lose someone as well; grief is a reminder that we could die, that we will die.”
If you want to learn more about the person behind the words, check out my About Me page! And if you’re thinking of getting a Medium membership, using my personal link will support my writing at no extra cost to you.
