The Loneliness in Healing
Day 4 Journal Series: What I Thought Healing Would Look Like
"Healing may bring peace to your body, but it might also disturb the relationships that only knew you as unhealed."
I wasn’t prepared for how lonely healing would feel.
I thought it would be all about self-discovery, joy, and confidence. I didn’t realize it would also be a funeral. I didn’t realize it would feel like a slow letting go of relationships that were rooted in my silence and self-abandonment…my old identity.
I didn’t realize that growing into a more honest version of myself would also mean growing out of certain dynamics. I did not realize that setting boundaries would mean watching some people walk away, or that choosing myself would feel, at times, like a betrayal to others who were used to being chosen first.
Not all relationships ended the same way. Some relationships just drifted. I’d wake up and realize we hadn’t talked in weeks or months. I’d scroll past their name and feel a twinge of grief, but also a strange kind of peace. Because while I missed the connection, I didn’t miss who I had to be to keep it alive. Other relationships ended sharply. Words were said. Lines were drawn. I walked away or was pushed out. Either way, the rupture made things clear. Then there were the ones that surprised me, the people who stayed.
The ones who saw my mess and didn’t flinch.
The ones who met my boundaries with respect, not resistance.
The ones who made space for the me I was becoming.
Those relationships bloomed and blossomed in a way that I would have never expected, yet , for which I am eternally grateful.
Looking back, I used to think losing people was proof that I was doing something wrong. Now I see it differently. Healing creates a new energetic frequency. It invites clarity, and clarity does not always come quietly. Sometimes it rearranges your whole life. Sometimes it shows you who was tethered to your pain, not your truth.
Grieving those losses has been part of the healing, too. I’ve cried over texts I never got. I’ve felt the sting of birthdays forgotten. I’ve sat in the ache of one-sided effort. I’ve grieved the inside jokes no one else will understand. I’ve grieved the conversations I thought we’d still be having at eighty years old. I’ve grieved the part of myself that only existed in their presence, and now has nowhere to land. I’ve looked at old photos and wondered if it was ever really love or if I was just good at performing the version of me they needed.
Through the pain, though, there has been growth. The loneliness has taught me how to sit with myself, how to listen, how to not rush to fill the space just because it’s uncomfortable. It has taught me that solitude isn’t punishment. Sometimes it’s preservation.
I’ve also learned that the people who can meet you in your healing are not always the ones who met you in your trauma. In fact, some of the deepest love I’ve known has come after the loneliness.
I am talking the kind of love that does not demand my silence
The kind that doesn’t just tolerate my boundaries but honors them.
The kind that sees me—all of me—and stays anyway.
That love includes how I hold myself now, too.
Your Turn:
What relationships shifted during your healing? What did you learn in the spaces between connection and solitude?
Stay messy,
Michelle S.
About the Author
Michelle is a mother, herbalist, educator, and sacred truth-teller. She writes for the women carrying too much and pretending too little—the ones healing in plain sight. Her blog Messy Truths & Sacred Roots is where she spills the raw, the real, and the holy work of unbecoming what the world demanded in order to remember who she truly is.