The Slow Walk Back to Myself

A reflection on healing, awakening, and returning home to who I am.

There was a time in my life when I was living in pure survival. I couldn’t make sense of the choices I was making or why they felt acceptable in the moment. My nervous system was exhausted. The pain, the trauma, the confusion — it all blended together until I couldn’t tell what I was running from or what I was running toward. I lived in fight-or-flight, and most days, I chose flight.

I disappeared into distraction. Sometimes it looked like alcohol. Sometimes it was attention. Sometimes it was anything loud enough to drown out what I didn’t want to feel. I stayed busy, entertained, desired — anything to avoid the silence that would force me to face myself. Over time, chaos became familiar. Numbness became normal. I functioned, but I wasn’t living.

Through all of it, I still cared for my kids. I still cared for my body. But inside, I was undone. My spirit was fragile. My self-worth was fragmented. I kept looking for comfort in places that could never offer peace. It was easier to chase temporary relief than to believe I deserved something real.

But healing has a way of arriving quietly.

Not with a dramatic breakthrough, but with the smallest shift.

For me, it started with one honest moment… then one healthy choice… then another. I began creating boundaries that didn’t just protect me — they reminded me of who I was. I started listening to the parts of myself I had abandoned. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I began rebuilding from the inside out.

And with that came light.

Not loud, not overwhelming.

Just a soft, steady kind of strength I had never experienced before.

I no longer live in the dark. I no longer run. I no longer hide from the truth of who I am. I honor the parts of me that survived, and I use what I’ve learned to help women who feel stuck in the same place I once did — lost, overwhelmed, convinced they’re too broken to begin again.

I am living proof that transformation is possible.

Not overnight, not perfectly, but intentionally — one day, one breath, one brave decision at a time.

I still feel sadness. I still remember the betrayals — the ones done to me and the ones I did to myself. But now I move through those moments with awareness, not avoidance. The past is something I carry with compassion, not shame.

Healing didn’t erase where I’ve been.

It released the hold it had on me.

I know who I am now.

I know what my heart deserves.

I know how to stay connected to my worth.

And I will never go back.

This is me — grounded, present, and finally alive in my own skin.

Walking forward.

Walking home to myself.

One step at a time.

"If you’re navigating your own healing journey, you’re not alone. I’m here if you need support".