Healing Doesn’t Always Look Impressive -by Taha Tariq

 Healing is a weird thing. Some days, you feel like you’re making huge leaps, and other days, you’re just... surviving. And that’s okay. The truth is, real healing is rarely flashy. It doesn’t always come with big milestones, breakthroughs, or loud victories. Most of the time, it looks like showing up for yourself in quiet ways that no one else even notices.

We live in a world that glorifies transformation. Before-and-after stories, redemption arcs, glow-ups. Everyone wants to talk about how they bounced back better than ever. But what about the days when healing just means brushing your teeth, answering a text, or getting out of bed? That stuff doesn’t make it into Instagram captions, but it matters just as much. Maybe even more.

There’s this pressure to “get better” in a way that feels productive or visible. If you’re not journaling every morning, hitting the gym, meditating, or posting about your mental health wins, it’s easy to feel like you’re not doing enough. But healing isn’t a checklist. It’s not about how aesthetically pleasing your recovery looks. It’s about the small, invisible choices you make to care for yourself, even when no one sees.

Sometimes, healing means watching the same show on repeat because new things feel too overwhelming. Sometimes, it means saying no to plans because you know you need rest. It means forgiving yourself for how you coped in the past and not judging yourself for the fact that you’re still figuring things out. That’s not laziness. That’s survival. That’s healing.

According to Dr. Jennifer Rollin, a licensed therapist, “healing often isn’t linear, and progress can look like taking two steps forward and one step back.” She explains that many people feel discouraged when their healing process doesn’t follow a straight path, but that’s completely normal (Rollin). This messy, back-and-forth rhythm is actually a healthy part of recovery.

So if you’re not meditating, writing affirmations, or radically changing your life, that’s fine. If all you’re doing is trying to get through the day without collapsing, you’re still healing. The idea that healing has to be beautiful, productive, or constant is just another toxic message we’ve absorbed. It makes people feel like they’re failing when in reality, they’re just moving at their own pace.

No one posts about the boring parts of getting better. The mornings you cry for no reason. The nights you scroll too long just to avoid your thoughts. The hours you spend lying on the floor wondering what’s next. Those moments count too. You don’t have to look like you’re growing to be growing. You don’t have to feel strong to be strong. You are healing, even if it doesn’t look like much from the outside.

So give yourself some credit. Not everything has to be impressive to be meaningful. Some of the hardest battles happen in silence. Some of the greatest wins look like ordinary days. Keep going, even when it feels small. Especially then.


Works Cited
Rollin, Jennifer. “What Real Healing Looks Like.” The Eating Disorder Center, 6 Apr. 2021.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ReachEquilibria: A Nonprofit Organization With a Story Behind It

Image
  On July 20th, ReachEquilibria hosted their first ever bake sale at the Coppell Farmers Market. The bake sale was intended to raise money for the organizations mission to spread mental health awareness. This money would be donated to local clinics and hospitals and used to buy materials for care packages to send out to those in need of support. The stand was lined up with various different brownies, cakes, pastries, and cookies to be sold. The bake sale started at 8 AM and went through 12 PM on that Saturday.  From my personal experience, I started at 8 AM and was the early “shift” for the group. I was first nervous because of how it took quite a bit to get our first sale. Fortunately, that nervousness was quickly erased as people started coming by and learning about the ReachEquilibria cause. In my first hour there, the stand sold over $50 dollars worth of goods. This included a very generous donation by a lovely woman and her husband of $40 .  I left after the first h...
Read more

You Don’t Always Have to Reinvent Yourself -by Taha Tariq

  Lately it feels like everyone’s relaunching themselves. New persona. New image. Big transformation. And it can make staying the same seem boring- or even lazy. But have you ever considered that reinvention might not be as fulfilling as it’s cracked up to be? Studies show that people who chase constant self‑reinvention often feel less happy. Researchers at the University of Georgia found that Americans who change their identity frequently report lower well‑being compared to those who stay more consistent (Haas). Reinvention can feel like trying on a new mask, but underneath, you might be skipping the hard work of acceptance. Self‑reinvention is often glamorized as brave or bold, but Arianne Cohen writes for Fast Company that it can leave us feeling less happy, not more. She quotes a psychology professor pointing out that culturally, Americans view identity as something we can reconstruct- when in reality, what we often lose is a sense of authenticity and stability (Cohen). Reinve...
Read more

When Friendships Start To Fade -by Taha Tariq

  There’s this weird kind of pain that comes when a close friendship starts fading - not with an argument or some big falling-out, but with silence. It’s quiet. Subtle. One day you’re sending each other reels and talking about life, and then suddenly it’s been weeks. You check your phone and realize they haven’t replied. Or maybe you haven’t texted either - not because you didn’t want to, but because it started to feel like you were the only one who cared. That kind of fade hurts in a different way. It's not just about missing them. It's about mourning something that’s technically still there, just not the way it used to be. You keep thinking: did I do something wrong? Was there a moment where everything shifted? Or did life just naturally pull us apart? No one tells you that friendship grief can feel just as real as a breakup. But it absolutely does. Part of it is that there’s no closure. No conversation that says, “Hey, I think we’ve grown apart.” You’re left with unsent text...
Read more