What 2025 Asked Me to Release — From the Body, From the Mind
Healing is often sold as light.
As relief.
As a clean upward arc.
2025 taught me that real healing is much darker than that.
When I returned from Bali, my body began to slow down before my mind was ready to follow. What I thought would be a gentle recalibration of my physical self became something far more confronting. As my nervous system softened, as the constant push finally eased, everything I had been outrunning surfaced.
Including the pain.
As my body began to heal, my mind entered unfamiliar territory. Without adrenaline, without distraction, without constant motion, the silence grew loud. Dark thoughts emerged—uninvited, heavy, persistent. Thoughts I had kept at bay for years by staying busy, capable, functional.
Depression crept in quietly.
Not dramatic.
Not chaotic.
Just a dull, exhausting weight.
There were moments when existing felt like too much. Moments where the desire wasn’t to die, exactly—but to stop. To no longer have to carry consciousness, responsibility, or feeling. A quiet wish to no longer be here.
This is the part of healing we don’t talk about enough.
When the body finally feels safe enough to rest, the mind releases what it’s been containing. And what surfaced for me was grief, exhaustion, and a deep reckoning with how much I had endured without ever truly stopping.
Recalibrating my physical body meant dismantling the systems that had kept me “high-functioning.” And without those systems, I had to sit with the truth: I had been surviving for a long time.
The days were slow. The nights were long. My body asked for gentleness while my mind spiraled into questions about meaning, worth, and whether the effort of healing was even worth it.
But I stayed.
Not heroically.
Not confidently.
Just… one breath at a time.
I learned that physical healing is not linear because we are not just bodies—we are stories stored in muscle, memory, and mood. As inflammation eased, emotional residue surfaced. As tension released, tears followed. As strength returned, so did clarity—but only after walking through the fog.
I didn’t “think” my way out of this season. I didn’t manifest my way through it. I let my body anchor me when my thoughts could not be trusted. I focused on what was tangible: breath, nourishment, sleep, movement, sunlight.
Some days, that was the win.
Healing asked me to choose life quietly, repeatedly, without certainty that it would feel better soon. And slowly—almost imperceptibly—it did.
Not happiness.
But steadiness.
A body that could hold me when my mind felt unsafe. A nervous system learning that rest would not lead to collapse. A version of myself that didn’t need to be exceptional to deserve being here.
Becoming a better version of myself in 2025 wasn’t about self-improvement. It was about survival turning into presence. It was about learning that wanting to stop living wasn’t a personal failure—it was a signal that something needed deep, compassionate attention.
What I shed this year wasn’t just physical tension or outdated identities.
I shed the belief that I had to suffer silently.
That darkness meant regression.
That healing should feel good.
What emerged was something quieter and truer.
A body that feels like an ally.
A mind that no longer runs the show unchecked.
A life that feels inhabitable again.
This is equilibrium—not balance as perfection, but balance as staying.
Staying through the dark.
Staying long enough to feel the light return.