Soul Notes: For Your Journal Tonight

Come sit with me for a while.

I have my journal open, and tonight I’ve been thinking about something I suspect I do more often than I realize.

I turn healing into another thing I need to accomplish.

I want to know when I’ll be over something.

When I’ll stop thinking about it.

When something that hurt will finally stop hurting.

When I’ll feel like myself again.

And somewhere along the way, healing quietly becomes another deadline.

Another invisible date on a calendar.

Another thing I can somehow be late for.

But maybe healing doesn’t work particularly well under project management.

Maybe there are things I will understand quickly and things I’ll have to revisit again and again. Maybe I’ll feel completely fine one day and unexpectedly tender the next.

That doesn’t mean I’ve gone backwards.

It means I’m still moving through it.

I remember one day, many years ago, when I had fibromyalgia. I lived in constant pain. I just couldn’t get a good day. And then one day, in the office, I suddenly noticed that nothing was painful.

I remember it so vividly. I was standing near the window, looking down at the world. And then something clicked. 

Wait a minute… I feel no pain! There was nothing in my joints, my back, my neck, my legs. Nothing! Zero pain! 

Hallelujah! 

It was the first time I’ve experienced that in a long time. 

So that memory is precious to me. 

Because that also signaled my inevitable healing. 

I just had to be patient and wait for it. 

So tonight, this is what I’m writing in my journal to remind myself of that moment:

Where in my life am I trying to turn healing into a deadline?

And underneath it:

What would change if I stopped asking myself to be finished?

If you’d like, sit with me tonight.

Open your journal. Make yourself comfortable. Take your time with the question.

We don’t have to arrive at an answer together.

We can simply give ourselves somewhere quiet enough to hear it.

—-

With elegance and quiet fire,

Lady E
Founder, Glow by Lady E
An editorial space for stories, art, and intentional living