What Offline Healing Looks Like
Maybe healing is maxing out your credit card so you can puke your guts out at an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, or TikTok quitting your corporate job to live that #vanlife, or smashing the patriarchy by going braless under your crunchy jumpsuit made from 100% organic, fair-traded hemp.
But it’s never been that for me.
It’s been going to the beach in a bikini, not as an exercise in body positivity, but to feel the ocean on more of my skin.
Not responding to the casual text from the brother who, months ago, demanded I call him Mr. LastName. My body didn’t start shaking, my brain didn’t wonder if I was crazy. That glassy, crystal pool inside of me just calmly whispered:
Nope.
My healing is a no thank you to cold plunges and ice baths and freezing showers although the whole world disagrees with me.
It’s crying into my sweat while lifting and pushing and pulling and slamming heavy things at the gym every day for eight months until I can pull myself up on the bar for the first time in my life. It’s being excited to hold a full coffee pot without shaking and not being embarrassed that this is how I measure my strength.
It’s accepting the sacred nature of bathroom floors and the tears dripping down my face onto cool tiles in steamy air.
