Here are mine….
Some wounds need to be put into words. Not to point fingers or dwell on what already hurt. Just to understand what happened and what the hell we do about it all today.
One of the things I love most about my life now is noticing how I’m recovering. With more grace, more maturity, and, although it’s still hard for me to say it out loud some days, with much more self-love. I’m not talking about trying to be perfect or about ceasing to feel fear, anger, or disappointment. I’m talking about learning to feel without destroying ourselves. About responding from the woman I’m building, not from the one still carrying old wounds.
And yes, that takes time. Luckily, I have time. Plenty. Although, to be honest, having so much free time has also gotten me into trouble. Hahaha. Because it’s one thing to have time to live, and quite another to have so much time to think that you end up holding an extraordinary assembly with every single thought. You know what I mean.
Life has a very particular way of testing you.
We think we’ve overcome certain things until they suddenly resurface. And that version of ourselves we thought was dead appears: the one who needs approval, the one who doubts her worth, the one who wonders “what did I do wrong,” the one who wants to explain too much. And that’s when you realize how much you’ve truly come a long way.
Listen up, healing for me doesn’t mean you’ll never stumble again. No, no, no, no. Not at all. Healing is being able to stop in time and ask yourself: Do I really want to relive this? Is this answer from the woman I am today or from the woman I was before? Am I acting from self-love or from the fear of not being enough? These questions change everything.
“ Love” does not justify all our actions
I’ve felt a lot of sadness, grief, confusion, and anxiety, but none of that has stopped me from moving forward. I’ve learned to express how I feel even when I’m a mess, to tell people that I love myself, that I care about them, to ask for space without turning it into a war, and to no longer use my pain as an excuse to hurt anyone. Because feeling pain is one thing, but using it as permission to cause harm is quite another.
We can love someone deeply and still behave like a stinking bag of garbage. We can say “I love you” while acting out of fear, pride, or a need for control. We can demand understanding without being willing to understand ourselves. Feeling love doesn’t exempt us from learning to love better.
Not everything we feel needs to become a reaction
I’m bothered by the silences that prevent important conversations.
I’m bothered by a lack of tact.
I’m bothered by immaturity.
I’m bothered by how some people only think of themselves.
That inability to stop for a moment and wonder how the person we’re interacting with might be feeling.
And above all, it saddens me to see how we can cling to our own wounds until they become a way of relating to the world. As if suffering gives us permission to avoid taking responsibility for our actions. As if being hurt means we never have to re-examine how we love.
Oh no.
One gets fed up with that nonsense.
And let no one be mistaken: promoting awareness doesn’t mean I don’t experience fear, grief, anger, or sadness. Of course I do! Sometimes even more intensely than before.
The difference is that now I have more tools to recognize what I’m feeling. I can identify when I’m reacting from a place of hurt. I can give myself a moment before responding. I can express my discomfort. I can ask for space. And I can also recognize when I need to re-evaluate my own expectations.
Consciousness isn’t about ceasing to feel. It’s about learning to relate more honestly to what we feel. And that includes accepting that we still have things to work on.
A conversation in Brussels that still echoes in my head
Brussels was spectacular in so many ways that even the sad and unpleasant things I experienced have been overshadowed by such beautiful experiences that they deserve to be remembered.
There I met a wonderful group of young people. But one in particular. A boy from France. He possesses a rare wisdom, the kind that truly impacts me. He’s one of those people you can talk to for hours and leave feeling changed. A self-assured young man, with extraordinary values and enviable emotional intelligence. I told him something I needed to express; I was honest, and so was he. And he said something that still resonates with me: “We’re going to die. We don’t have time to mess things up or leave questions unanswered.” Direct. Raw. Unvarnished. And it stopped me in my tracks.
It was so fitting, especially given the moment it came. I felt lost, with the emotions of the past swirling around, my concentration and creativity a jumble, and I was already feeling uneasy. I knew where it was all coming from and that I had to stop… but my stubbornness didn’t want to accept that it was absurd and that I had to withdraw my energy from there urgently.
Since then, I try to act more authentically. To say what I feel without making it a demand. To express what matters to me without trying to control the other person’s response. And to accept that not everyone is ready to listen, but that doesn’t mean I have to betray myself to avoid making them uncomfortable.
There are signs I no longer want to ignore.
Today I pay closer attention to how I feel within my relationships. Not just to what others say to me, but to what happens inside me when I’m around that person. If I constantly feel insecure, I stop. If I don’t feel free to express myself, I ask myself why. If something drains me more than it gives me, I face it head-on. Not all discomfort means leaving. Relationships also challenge us and help us grow. But there’s a huge difference between going through a difficulty that makes you better and staying in a dynamic that forces you to abandon yourself time and time again.
My worth is not in anyone’s hands
There are still days when old wounds resurface and thoughts I thought I’d overcome return. But I can also see all that I’ve built: the ability to observe myself, the commitment to keep learning, the freedom to change my mind, and the courage to stop and listen to myself.
For a long time, I thought healing meant reaching a point where nothing could affect me. Today I see it differently. Healing is being able to feel sadness without thinking you’ve regressed. It’s being afraid and still not letting fear decide for you. It’s acknowledging a wound without making it your identity.
My value doesn’t increase when someone chooses me, nor does it decrease when someone leaves. It’s not up for negotiation. And neither is yours.
Perhaps that’s why I write. Because some things need to come out so we can face them head-on. Because sometimes a word can bring order to chaos. And because, even though we can’t change everything that’s happened to us, we can decide what meaning we give to our story.
And this isn’t even half of what I wanted to write when I first thought about this topic, but I’ll leave it at that for now. I’m still observing; I’ll always be my own laboratory.
Therefore, it’s not about never falling again. I feel it’s more about learning to get back up without giving up again.
Life is short. And there are so many beautiful things to do with it.
