Footsteps To Freedom

Healing Hurts!

There are so many emotions involved in healing. For me, it felt like I was free-falling, you know, just floating and falling without a true or real landing. I envisioned my fall to be beautiful and peaceful, but it was not that at all. It was scary and downright terrifying! But I could not stop falling. But I discovered while I was falling, I was shedding. Shedding pain, fear, contempt, betrayal, emptiness, aloneness, all the things that brought me to the realization that the relationship I thought was loving was nothing more than a farce, a lie! My brain wanted to stay calm, but my heart wanted to gut him like a fish! How dare you! How dare you hurt me like this! 

But healing can’t be about emotions, at least not all the way through the process, healing must be structured, strategic, organized. What?! Who can do that when they are hurting? I know, I know…but let’s think this thing through. You have learned the truth; the relationship is over, and everyone has moved on. Now you are alone, and the silence allows you to hear all the things you missed while being “in love”. Now comes the healing and it hurts. 

Fear of being alone-get rid of that emotion! Fear will make you FORGET EVERYTHING (YOU’VE EVER LEARNED) AND RUN! Don’t look at it as being alone, look at as “I’m dating myself. And what do we do when we date? We get to know this person, their likes, and dislikes, what makes them happy and sad, how they respond to good or bad news. Yes, those things we forget about because we were so busy focusing on the person we were so in love with. 

Contempt-disregard for something that should be taken into account- Well let’s use contempt as taking account for what weneed, we need to love ourselves, empower ourselves, appreciate ourselves; let’s not disregard our feelings anymore! 

Betrayal-Violation of a person’s trust or confidence- Now when I was free-falling, trust was the one thing I HAD to hold on to. Afterall if I did not trust that I would land safely, I would die. Betrayal is a hurt that feels like it’s coming from the gut. It punches you so hard, you lose wind in your lungs, you never see it coming until it’s up close and personal. But in healing! We trust only us! We have confidence in us!  

Emptiness-The state of containing NOTHING!! Now you have to know that this is a good thing concerning healing. Think about it; nothing! No lies, No distrust, No watching the clock and wondering, No betrayal, fear, hurt, NOTHING! Just you, dating yourself, learning to love yourself while unlearning the lies you were told, taking account for only YOUR feelings and only trusting YOURSELF! 

Healing hurts but healing also helps us get to know who we are at our lowest point. Healing hurts; but so, to a nice pair of stilettos after dancing for hours! They hurt but we feel good anyway!

Imma Be Okay! 

You ever sit in your stuff and say I am never going to get over this? This is going to be the one that takes me to a dark place and make me act a fool! I don’t wanna do this but I will feel so much better if I do! Then the voice of reason whispers “Imma be ok”. And you know what? You will! You remember when you thought you could never live without him/her. You couldn’t get out the bed or go to work because the very thought of starting your day without him/her was just too much to bear. You call out from work you stay in the bed all day and pull the covers over your head and tell yourself “I’ll get up tomorrow, I’ll starting moving forward tomorrow”. Life can do that to us. Things we have no control over can take us to a dark place. Trying to stay afloat when life shows up and knocks us down is difficult at times. But in order to get to where we need to be we must take the first step. We cannot afford the luxury of procrastination. We must take the bull by the horns and push past our stuff so that we can be better people for ourselves and those who love us. We must believe that we deserve to be happy. We deserve to have what we need to be healthy. We are not someone’s property or past time. We had some things happen to us that were not so great but gratitude can change a perspective. We don’t have a lot but what we have should be appreciated because there are so many without. Imma be ok. There is a beautiful songwriter named Leona Lewis. She wrote a song that says, “I thought I couldn’t live without you, 

This pandemic was one of the biggest blindsides I’ve ever experienced. It kept getting worse and worse. We couldn’t go outside, we were forced to work differently, move different, act differently because some unforeseen disease was rampant and taking no prisoners. The broadcasters never talked about cures and things we could do to stay safe, (expect for stay home and wear masks), all they reported were numbers, thousands of family, friends and strangers dying. But still that small still voice showed up and whispered “imma be ok”. Life has a funny way of working itself out. Even in our chaos and craziness, life seems to find a way to figure it out. I do a lot of reading and researching when I am writing my books. I go different places and I talk to different people to get perspectives. I think sometimes I hide behind all of my work to stop how I am feeling inside. But I have to remember Imma be ok.