when you stop running.

healing does not ask you to be fearless.
it does not demand perfection or certainty.
it only asks you to stop running from yourself.

for a long time, i thought i had to fix myself before i could find peace.
i thought i had to be wiser, stronger, better, something more than who i was.
but peace was never waiting at the end of some imaginary finish line.
it was waiting in the places i had abandoned.
the places within me that were still hurting, still hoping, still calling my name.

healing began the moment i stopped running.
the moment i turned inward and sat with everything i had tried to outrun.
the fear, the sadness, the anger, the loneliness.
i thought facing it would destroy me.
instead, it freed me.

nothing inside of you needs to be feared.
you are not too much. you are not broken.
you are a living, breathing story of survival, longing, and love.

this is what healing really is.
not becoming someone different, but becoming someone who no longer abandons themselves.

welcome home.