You Don't Need To Be Fixed. You Need To Feel Safe
There's absolutely nothing wrong with you
Some of us wake up every day with the same relentless questions tugging at us, unspoken but always there:
Why am I like this? Why can’t I relax? Why do I always feel like I’m too much or not enough? Why is it so hard to trust anyone?
Maybe you think there’s something wrong with you because you’re always on edge. You’re scanning every room for threats that don’t exist, every conversation for the subtle signs someone might hurt you. Or maybe it shows up in how hard it feels to take care of yourself, like even the smallest tasks are too much.
And somewhere along the way, you started to believe the problem is you. That you’re broken. That you’re too sensitive, too needy, too angry, too much.
You started to believe that the way you flinch when someone raises their voice, or the way your body tenses when someone gets too close, means there’s something fundamentally wrong with you. That the walls you built to protect yourself are proof you’re unlovable. That the fact you can’t relax, can’t let people in, can’t stop waiting for the worst to happen, means you’re damaged beyond repair.
But none of that is true. The truth is, you learned to feel this way because the world around you wasn’t safe. And you adapted in the only way you knew how.
Shame Ends Where Healing Begins
Today, I’m not here to offer you practical advice. If that’s what you’re looking for, you can find that in the other parts of this series (they’re packed with tips, insights, and actionable steps that made a world of a difference in my healing journey and might do the same for you).
Today, I’m here to validate your innermost feelings and emotions—which is just as important, if not more.
My journey has taught me that we can’t truly heal without first feeling seen, validated, and understood. We can’t heal from shame, because shame holds us hostage by making us believe that our pain is something to hide or fix, instead of something to feel and understand.