I used to think that once I choose forgiveness, real, full-hearted forgiveness. I would finally be free. Free from the chaos, the flashbacks, the spiraling thoughts, the anger that clawed at me from the inside. I believed healing would be a clean break, a doorway I could walk through and never look back.

But healing isn’t a straight line.

It isn’t a “one and done” moment.

And forgiveness doesn’t erase the body’s memory.

What I’ve learned painfully, slowly, and truthfully is that when you’ve lived through trauma, your body reacts before your mind can make sense of anything. Your nervous system remembers what your heart worked so hard to forget. You can say “I forgive them” or “I’m okay,” but until you sit with your past, face it, feel it, the past will rise up to meet you again and again.

For a long time, I tried to rush myself through this season.

Tried to run.

Tried to outpace the pain.

Tried to push through like it was something I could just get over.

But I’m not rushing anymore.

I’m crawling.

I’m learning.

I’m healing.

And in the middle of all of that, I’m allowing space for the moments when the past still creeps up. I’m giving myself permission to cry, to shake, to scream, to pray. I’m finally giving myself grace, the kind I’ve given everyone else so easily.

I am no longer putting on a mask for anyone.

I’m discovering that I can return to the soft, loving version of myself… but this time, she comes with boundaries.

This time, she honors herself.

This time, she is protected.

I also understand something I never had words for before. People mean well when they say, “Why can’t she just get over it?” They don’t know what it’s like to carry memories in your muscles, fear in your breath, tension in your spine. They don’t know what it’s like to be triggered by things you can’t even explain.

If I could turn off my emotions, my anxiety, my memories I would.

But that’s not how healing works.

And still… even with all of this weight, there have been people who held me when I couldn’t hold myself. People who listened without trying to fix me. People who guided me back to God, back to my own truth, back to the parts of myself I thought were gone forever.

To those people, thank you.

You have reminded me that I was never broken just surviving. And survival is not living.

So now, I am choosing a new direction.

A slower one.

A softer one.

A sacred one.

I’m choosing my future.

My body.

My mental and emotional health.

My relationships.

My rest.

My peace.

And my walk with God.

This is the season where I unlearn survival.

and relearn me.

And I hope you do the same 💕