Latest / The Beth B Shift / I Heal at My Own Pace
Transcript
- Beth B: I refuse to allow someone to tell me what healing should look like. I refuse to allow someone to tell me how I'm supposed to heal. I refuse to allow someone to tell me that I should be healed by now. Yeah. Healing unfiltered. Welcome back to the Beth Be Shift, where the vibe is unmuted, unafraid, and unapologetic. I'm Beth. And today I want to talk about something I should have shared a long time ago about healing. And not the pretty version of healing, the the real one, what my healing actually looked like. I had to learn that healing was a process and that I get to heal at my own pace. Here's a question I want to ask you today. What does healing really look like? What does it really look like when nobody's watching? because the truth is we don't heal out loud. We heal secretly. We heal in private, in cars, in bathrooms, in the middle of the night, when the house is quiet. And then we walk out the door acting and pretending like everything is okay. And I know because that's what I did. I was always the strong one. That's who I was in everybody's life. Every call, every crisis, I showed up. Somebody needed something. I handled it. Somebody needed something solid. That was me. And then my turn came. and I went through something that broke me down to a place where I didn't recognize myself. And when I finally reached out, and I needed somebody to be in my corner. I got the unexpected. The people I thought I could count on the most weren't there. The people I thought would be by my side couldn't be reached. And that season, taught me something. I never wanted to learn. You could be surrounded by people and still be carrying everything you got going on alone. I remember getting the worst diagnosis in the world. I remember not being able to manage that moment mentally. I remember not being able to cope with it emotionally. And all I wanted was an ear. And I'm not saying this because I want anybody to feel sorry to me, because that's not where my strength comes from. My strength comes from realizing that through my prayers with God, that I would come out of that space. Because other people have stuff going on in their lives too. I couldn't expect people to be where I wanted them to be or needed them to be at that time. Maybe they were busy. But it taught me a valuable lesson. It taught me that I had to come to grips with reality, manage the process, and during that process, see what it looked like to rescue myself. For a little while I hid. And I'm not ashamed to say that now. There was a time where I couldn't face the world. So I didn't. and everybody who knew the strong version of me just assumed I was fine because I always had been. But I wasn't fine. I was in a slump. I was in a slum I didn't know how to climb out of. And the worst part, I was rushing myself through it. I thought that's what strong people do. Get up, get over it, keep moving. And that's not healing, that's performing. So let me tell you what actually helped me heal. Let me tell you what actually helped me come out of that slump. Not theory, not something I read, what I did. I stopped lying to myself. Before I could heal, I needed to admit where I actually was. Not where I wanted to be, not where everybody thought I was. I had to admit where I actually was. And awareness is a tool. And the first person I had to use that awareness was on me. That was the first thing. The second step is I went back to God daily and not just in a crisis. Daily, not just in the moment or instance where I needed to find him or I needed him to rescue me or I needed refuge. Nursed myself back with my faith. Prayer wasn't an emergency button, not anymore. It became my routine. I talked to God when it was ugly. I talked to God when I didn't have the words. And slowly, slowly, I started to come back to myself. Step three. I stop hiding in small pieces. I didn't come out all at once. I came out honestly, a little at the time. First to myself, then to God, and then to people who were safe. Healing in secret kept me stuck. Remember Lot's wife? Yeah, I was stuck like that. Healing honestly set me free. Step four, I took back my clock. This is the one I need you to hear. People will hand you a schedule for your grief, for your recovery, for your comeback. No, you should be over that by now, they say. No, I decided that my healing would move at my speed my honesty, not the speed of anyone else's comfort. I healed at my own pace. And that is not denial. That is not weakness. That is me refusing to perform a recovery I hadn't actually had. And step five, I found my voice again. I learned how to speak. And this time I used it to speak, not just to defend. And I want to explain that really quick. When you are in a space where you're always justifying your actions, you're always giving reason to why you're doing something. You're always feeling guilty because you have something to say, and you can tell the people you're talking to don't really want to hear what you have to say. You Spin your wheels over and over and over again, trying to grasp at words that you think that are gonna attract them to the conversation. Girl no, that's that's just not gonna work. You have to find your voice and then listen to it first. If you can't hear you, who else will? For years I thought I was speaking up every time I defended myself, and I wasn't. Defending is survival mode. Speaking is totally different. Speaking is telling the truth from a healed place, not from a guarded one. This podcast, this voice is what that looks like now. And I'll tell you why this place matters so much, because most of us are trying to heal a person we aren't anymore. I'm not the person I was five, six years ago. I'm not her anymore. The wife, the mother, the daughter, the strong one. We carry all these identities. And then life changes. And those identities start to detach. And we stand there trying to run A healing schedule that belongs to a woman who doesn't live here anymore. And I know that sounds strange. but that's what nobody else can set the pace of, right? They don't know which woman is healing. Only you do. The parts of me that's a wife has to heal. The parts of me that's a mother has to heal. The parts of me that's a daughter definitely has to heal. And healing secretly versus healing out loud. We ride our healing because we don't want anyone wearing our grief. Sometimes it's embarrassing to share. We don't want our timeline judged. We don't want to hear, you're still doing that? But here's what hiding costs, right? Here's what hiding that healing process costs. If we don't heal internally, it shows externally. It comes out of us in our tone, in our patience, in our bodies, in how we love other people. Because what hurt people, hurt people, right? If I'm bleeding, I'm gonna bleed on you. I'm not telling you to heal out loud for an audience. I'm telling you to heal honestly and at your own pace, in your own words, in your own time. The light doesn't have to be a stage. Sometimes the light is just one honest conversation. And so the woman listening right now, the one who is strong for everyone and has nobody, I need you to hear me and steer me clear. You are not behind. You are not broken. Your pace is not a problem to fix. You have carried everyone else. And it's not selfish to finally carry yourself. So, what does healing look like when everybody else is watching? What does that look like when everybody's watching? It looks like honesty. It looks like prayer on ordinary days. It looks like small steps that nobody will applaud. It looks like refusing to apologize for still hurting and refusing to perform I'm over it before it's really true. Healing is a process. and the process does not need your permission slip signed by anyone else. Give yourself the same grace you would hand to anyone else. You deserve grace too. And here's one thing, name one place where you've been rushing your own healing because somebody else set a clock. Take that clock back. Take that clock back. Awareness is a tool, And if this resonated with you in any way, please like, share, and subscribe. These words can help someone who is still confused about what healing out loud really looks like. Healing unfiltered can be a challenge. Awareness is a tool though. It's not a weapon. And until I see you guys again, remember, stay grounded.