When I wanted to heal my broken heart, I spent a lot of days praying to get to that healing place. Once I did, my mind was positioned to receive support from another person, someone who was able to encourage me through my healing process because she’d already mastered her own.

The only reason this was able to happen was because I was open and ready to finally heal from the things that were causing my heart to ache. It really all started from within.

My healing did not happen because someone came along and took away my heartache. Instead, I truly had to look deep down within. I had to figure out how to heal and what healing meant for me. Turned out healing, for me, was peace of mind.
But I didn’t always understand this.

In the past, I used to seek the healing I needed from other people, but the thing was, it never came permanently. It was always temporary. We know how impossible it is to change a person, right? No matter what you say or do, a person has to change because they want to change. They have to be open to change. So yes, the healing of my broken heart was temporary, because I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t in a place, within myself, to heal. I had to be willing, and I had to understand that no one else could change what I felt within myself. Only I could. And once I understood that, the healing started.

I knew if I wanted to heal I would need to stop holding things against the people who did me wrong, and would have to forgive myself for the things that I had done wrong, those things that caused me to live with a heavy heart. Although I never stayed angry at a person for long, I’d constantly think about what they did, which would never give me peace of mind. I realized that my healing would only happen when I took the time for myself. I learned that people can’t make me happy, and that people shouldn’t make me unhappy either.

Learning to forgive was one of the biggest challenges I faced throughout this process. It wasn’t just about saying, “I forgive you.” It was about honestly letting go of the things that had put me in the position where I needed to forgive in the first place.

At the start of my healing adventure, I experienced an inner peace that, at first, made me a little nervous because, up until that point, I hadn’t been in a place of peace for a long time. At the start of my healing process, I was also a bit lonely because I found myself surrounded by less people; but some solitude paid off.

I got comfortable with having peace of mind during those lonely days. I began to feel more comfortable with myself and within my life. Certain dilemmas I encountered weren’t as dramatic as I once made them out to be, because I was in a better place in my life and drama was becoming more of an old trend, at that point. I cared less about the negative noise that was coming out of people’s mouths. I fully owned the need to improve certain character flaws of mine, namely: my attitude, my insecurities and accepting people for who they are.

With that being said, I accepted certain qualities in the people I love, such as their ways of thinking and their lifestyles. I no longer allowed their lives to affect mine and, despite how I may have felt, I began learning how to love them for who they are, and not for what I thought they could be. Being able to realize my own insecurities made it easier to empathize with others who was also struggling: I understood where they were coming from because I’d once gone through something similar. So it made it easy to understand their struggles, that I may not have understood before.

In order to move towards a life that you desire, healing from past heartache is needed. Being healed doesn’t mean you’re perfect. But once you’ve healed from your hurt, you’re more aware of the struggles you’ve faced, and you become better able to deal with them, should those struggles arise again. The healing process only starts when you actually acknowledge that you need it. Once you do, you can then work to make it happen.

And while I do believe that people can help you through your healing process, if they haven’t healed from their own hurt, and haven’t overcome their own struggles, then it becomes a cycle of the blind leading the blind. I don’t believe that the broken can help the broken.

And so, as much as I sought the healing within myself, I had some support along the way from a special person who’d walked a similar path and who recognized my struggle. Still, it was up to me, at the end of the day, to decide if I wanted to be led or not. I had to make my healing a need instead of a want. I had to take the first step and I had to stop placing the responsibility on others. I had to stop looking for people to be the source of my happiness, and become my own happiness. I had to be open to healing.

Like they say, “You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” And the same can be said about healing. You will only be completely healed when you work from within and, sooner or later, it will reflect on the outside and your happiness will no longer depend on others.
The struggle is real but it can be healed. 

Keemah.G