If the Pain Was Deep, You’re Going to Have to Let It Go More Than Once
There is a version of healing that sounds really nice.
Forgive.Release.Let go.Move forward.
Like we can have one big breakthrough, cry the right tears, burn the letter, go to therapy, meditate under the full moon, take the damn salt bath and suddenly...
Poof. Healed.
Yeah. No.
If the pain was deep, you're probably going to have to let it go more than once.
Maybe many times.
I know because I have lived it.
I Thought Leaving Would Be the End of It
I spent years working in corrections and detention.
I knew how to walk into environments most people would find intimidating. I knew how to read a room. I knew how to handle conflict and stay composed when everything around me was anything but composed.
I loved what I did.
Then I was assaulted at work.
My body was injured. My career eventually ended. And the life I knew changed.
You would think leaving that environment would have been the release.
It wasn't.
Because I could leave the building.
My nervous system didn't necessarily leave with me.
And neither did the anger.
Or the grief.
Or the fear.
Or the loss of a career I had worked damn hard for.
Or the realization that some of the people I worked beside weren't who I thought they were.
There were things I was still carrying long after I walked out those doors.
And some of the hardest things to release didn't even come from the assault itself.
They came from the aftermath.
The Aftermath Can Become Its Own Wound
This is something we don't talk about enough.
Sometimes you survive the thing.
Then you have to survive what happens because of the thing.
And sometimes that part is fucking brutal.
There were injuries.
Surgeries.
Pain.
Changes to my body.
Changes to my career.
There was grief for the woman I had been before that night.
But there was also what happened when I returned to work.
The comments.
The behavior.
The humiliation.
The lack of compassion.
The feeling that somehow I had become the problem after I was the one who got hurt.
And yes, there were some fucking asshole coworkers.
There. I said it.
I'm not going to dress that sentence up because it makes a better inspirational story.
Some wounds came from the assault.
Others came from what happened after it.
And sometimes I think that is the part people don't understand about deep pain.
It isn't always one wound.
It can become layers.
The original event.
What happened afterward.
What you lost because of it.
How people responded.
What you started believing about yourself.
The anger you weren't ready to feel yet.
And the grief that doesn't always show up when it's convenient.
I have had moments where I genuinely thought:
I dealt with this already.
Then something happens.
A sound.
A conversation.
Someone crosses a boundary.
I don't feel heard.
Something reminds my body of a time when I didn't feel safe.
And suddenly there it is again.
For a long time I wondered:
Why am I still dealing with this?
Now I ask a different question:
What part of this am I ready to release now?
Healing Can Be a Spiral
We like to imagine healing as a straight line.
Pain → work on yourself → healed.
Cute.
Human beings are messier than that.
Healing can look more like a spiral.
You circle back around to something you swear you've already dealt with.
Except you aren't the same person this time.
You know more.
Your boundaries are stronger.
You recognize patterns sooner.
You have tools you didn't have before.
Maybe you finally feel safe enough to experience emotions you couldn't afford to feel when you were simply trying to survive.
So maybe you aren't back at the beginning.
Maybe you've reached another layer.
Letting Go Doesn't Mean It Was Okay
This is where I think parts of the wellness world get it very wrong.
Letting go doesn't mean:
It was fine.
Everything happens for a reason.
I'm grateful it happened.
I forgive everybody.
I don't care anymore.
Nope.
And it definitely doesn't mean slapping a positive affirmation over something that hurt like hell.
You don't have to turn your trauma into a blessing.
You don't have to forgive someone before you're allowed to heal.
And you don't have to make your story comfortable for other people.
Sometimes letting go simply means:
I am no longer willing to let this have the same amount of power over my life.
And you may have to make that decision repeatedly.
So How the Hell Do You Let It Go?
There isn't one magic technique.
Sometimes letting go is emotional.
Sometimes it's physical.
Sometimes it's spiritual.
Sometimes it's practical.
Sometimes letting go looks suspiciously like finally saying NO.
Move your body.
Walk.
Lift.
Stretch.
Shake out your arms.
Dance in your kitchen.
Hike.
Practice yoga.
Breathe.
Movement isn't a magic trauma eraser. But stress and emotion have physical components, and movement can help us reconnect with a body we may have spent a long time disconnecting from.
You don't have to punish your body into healing.
Move because you're learning how to inhabit it again.
Write the ugly version.
Not the inspirational version.
Write what you are actually angry about.
Write what you wish you could say.
Write what you lost.
Write what you deserved.
Write the sentence you keep censoring because you think you're supposed to be "over it."
Mine?
“I'm angry that I survived the assault, but then had to survive the fucking aftermath too.”
That's mine.
Because the assault was one night.
The aftermath lasted much longer.
And if I'm really going to tell the truth, I am still angry at some of my fucking asshole coworkers.
I'm angry about being injured and vulnerable while trying to hold onto a career I loved.
I'm angry about some of the things that were said.
I'm angry about how I was treated.
I'm angry that there were times when I felt like I had to defend myself when I was already fighting to put myself back together.
And I'm angry that sometimes the people who should have had my back didn't.
That is the ugly version.
And guess what?
I can love the life I am building now and still be furious about what it cost me to get here.
Those two truths can sit at the same damn table.
Healing doesn't require me to rewrite those people into good people.
It doesn't require me to excuse shitty behavior because enough time has passed.
And it sure as hell doesn't require me to pretend it didn't hurt so my healing story sounds more enlightened.
So write yours.
Don't make it pretty.
Don't make it spiritual.
Don't make it socially acceptable.
Write what is fucking true.
Then decide what happens to the page.
Keep it.
Burn it safely.
Tear it into a hundred pieces.
The point isn't the paper.
The point is finally giving the truth somewhere to exist besides inside of you.
Create the boundary.
Sometimes letting go isn't meditation.
Sometimes it's:
No.
I'm not available for that.
That doesn't work for me anymore.
You don't get access to me like that.
I'm done explaining myself.
A boundary can be an act of release because you're no longer volunteering for another round of the same wound.
Let someone witness it.
Talk to someone safe.
A therapist.
A trusted friend.
A support group.
Someone who doesn't immediately try to fix you, minimize what happened, explain the other person's behavior or rush you toward forgiveness.
Sometimes we need another human being to simply say:
I hear you.
Find stillness.
Meditation.
Breathwork.
Reiki.
Sound.
Sitting outside.
Walking through the woods.
Sitting near water.
Turning the damn phone off.
Sometimes we stay so busy trying to get past something that we never sit still long enough to hear what is underneath it.
Stillness has a funny way of introducing us to ourselves.
Create your own ritual.
Humans have used ritual to mark grief, endings, beginnings and transformation for thousands of years.
Light the candle.
Write the letter.
Sit under the moon.
Take something into the woods.
Burn the paper.
Bury something.
Speak the words out loud.
Create your own damn ceremony.
It doesn't have to make sense to anybody else.
It only has to mean something to you.
And sometimes, do absolutely nothing.
This might be the most rebellious one.
You don't have to turn every uncomfortable emotion into another healing assignment.
Sometimes you notice it.
You breathe.
You think:
Oh. You're here again.
And instead of fighting it, analyzing it, judging it or turning it into evidence that you're somehow failing at healing...
You let it move through.
That is healing too.
You May Have to Let It Go Again
There are things I have released more than once.
There are things I am still releasing.
And there will probably be things I have to release again.
I'm okay with that now.
Because I don't measure healing by whether something ever hurts again.
I look at what happens when it does.
Do I recognize it sooner?
Can I stay connected to myself?
Can I ask for what I need?
Can I say no?
Can I set the boundary?
Can I stop abandoning myself to keep somebody else comfortable?
Can I find my way back to myself a little faster?
That matters.
Maybe healing isn't becoming someone who never gets triggered, angry, scared or hurt again.
Maybe healing is becoming someone who knows how to come home to themselves when they do.
This Is Why Rebel Wellness Exists
My life experiences helped form Rebel Wellness into what it is today.
I know what it is like to rebuild. I know what it is like to live in a body that has been through some shit. And I know stress doesn't just live in our thoughts. We can feel it in our shoulders, our jaw, our breathing, our sleep, and in the ways we brace without even realizing it.
That changed the way I approach massage, wellness and coaching.
At Rebel Wellness, I'm not interested in forcing your body to surrender.
I'm interested in listening to it.
Sometimes healing happens on a massage table. Sometimes through movement, therapy, sound or stillness. Sometimes it happens when you finally set the boundary, admit you're fucking angry, or realize:
I don't want to carry this anymore.
I don't believe I can heal another person. That's not my job.
I can create space. I can listen. I can offer tools. And I can meet the person and the body in front of me without expecting healing to look a certain way.
Because healing isn't always one giant breakthrough.
Sometimes we put something down.
Then we put it down again.
As many damn times as it takes.
That is Rebel Wellness.
Real people. Real bodies. Real stories. And space to meet yourself exactly where you are.
My life experiences didn't just lead me here.
They helped build this place.
Look at Who Is Answering the Door Now
So when something you thought you released comes knocking again, don't immediately assume you've failed.
Before you beat yourself up for still feeling it...
Look at who is answering the door now.
Because you're not the same person who stood there the first time.
If the pain was deep, you may have to let it go many times.
That doesn't mean you're starting over.
It doesn't erase the healing you've already done.
It doesn't mean therapy didn't work, the boundary didn't matter or the release wasn't real.
It means there was more underneath it.
Another layer.
Another truth.
Another piece you're finally strong enough, safe enough or simply ready enough to put down.
You aren't starting over.
You're meeting another layer.
And maybe this time, you don't have to carry it quite as far.
Rebel Wellness
Healing doesn't have to look pretty to be real.
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