Why Healing Feels So Hard And What No One Talks About

Healing isn't just about breakthroughs and transformations; it's about showing up when your nervous system is exhausted. We explore what inner work really means when it's not aesthetic, curated, or packaged for social media.

• The glamorization of inner work versus its rugged reality
• How our bodies store what our minds try to override
• Why silence becomes a shield when expression feels unsafe
• Guided breathing exercise for nervous system regulation
• The messy middle of healing that never makes it to Instagram
• Building capacity through pausing, breathing, and self-reflection
• Permission to be whole even when you're still figuring it out

Be kind to your nervous system and welcome home to yourself. If this resonated, leave a comment, share it, or send it to someone who's in the messy middle too.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Weight of Showing Up
• 0:57 The Real Inner Work
• 3:19 Mindful Breathing Exercise
• 4:23 Beyond Healing Soundbites
• 6:06 Honoring Your Healing Journey

Transcript

NatNat Be: 0:00

You ever cancel a therapy session the moment you're about to log on, not because you're avoiding the truth and not because you're giving up yet, because you're already holding so much that the idea of going in one more time just feels like too much. That's the part no one talks about, not the breakthroughs, not the glow up, the weight of showing up when your nervous system is already exhausted. Hey love, welcome back to the Lift One Self podcast, where we talk about what it really means to heal, when it's not aesthetic, not curated, not something you can package in a 30 second reel. Today I want to talk about the work, and I mean the real kind, not the quote card kind, not the just shift your mindset kind, the kind that breaks open your biology and rebuild your relationship with what it means to be human. Let's go there.

NatNat Be: 0:59

We often glamorize the idea of doing the inner work like it's this empowering, linear thing, and sometimes, yes, there are moments of clarity and power and at the same time, the work is rugged. It's sitting with feelings you've never allowed yourself to feel. It's looking at parts of yourself that developed not out of freedom, yet out of necessity. So many of us don't even know what authentic emotions feel like, because we've been performing since we were children Performing for safety, performing for connection, performing to belong. And yes, mindset, work matters. Yes, discipline, grit, reframing, these all have value. And even with all of that, your body still keeps score.

NatNat Be: 1:51

Your nervous system remembers what your mind tries to override. Eventually it leaks out through burnout, through relationships that repeat the same wounds, through not being able to cry when you want to or not being able to stop crying when you don't want to. And sometimes it leaks out of silence. How many times have you heard someone say what's the point in talking about it? It won't solve anything. That's not indifference. That's resignation, not giving up because you don't care. Yet because deep down, you do care and you've learned it's not safe to show it. That's a body that's been met with too many dismissive ears, not allowed to feel. That's a nervous system that learned if you speak, your pain, it either gets ignored, minimized or used against you. So silence becomes a shield, shutting down becomes protection and the ache stays unspoken, because expression started to feel like exposure.

NatNat Be: 3:00

Let's pause right here. Let's take a mindful moment. Let's pause right here. Let's take a mindful moment If it feels safe to do so. Place one hand on your heart, let your shoulders drop, breathe in through your nose slowly, hold for a moment and release through your mouth. Let that breath be an exhale for every time you held back what you needed to say. Let that breath be permission to exist without performance. You're not doing it wrong, you're just finally feeling what's been stored. Take a deep breath in, hold it Now. Let that ish out in your exhale. Take another deep breath in hold and let that ish out. Take a deep breath in and let that ish out. Take a deep breath in, hold it and let it out through your mouth. Let that ish out Now. Shake your hands a bit, move your body, wiggle around and let's get present again.

NatNat Be: 4:23

You see, when life hits hard and it will like it did in our community this week with a violent tragedy that's left so many shaken pain when ignored becomes something else entirely. We want easy narratives he should have done this, she didn't do that, this is right, that's wrong. And those narratives help us feel in control. Yet control isn't healing. Curiosity is Compassion, is, context, is Listening, is Because when we don't acknowledge someone's history, because when we don't acknowledge someone's history, their biology, trauma, environment, nervous system, we risk reducing their entire life to a single action or outcome, and that's not justice, that's dehumanization.

NatNat Be: 5:11

Social media is filled with healing soundbites Protect your peace, just say no, cut them off. And I get it. Those boundaries are real and we don't always see it. In the middle part, the part where your body trembles after setting that boundary, the part where you question if you're being too much, the part where your inner child is terrified because safety used to mean self-abandonment. No one posts that part, the messy middle, the sacred unraveling, the work it takes to trust yourself again and again, and again. And the truth Sometimes you just don't have the energy to keep going into these cycles, especially in family, where the patterns are so deep it feels like your body knows them before your mind does. Yet every time you pause, breathe, reflect, you're building new capacity, you're re-meeting yourself.

NatNat Be: 6:12

And if you're someone who just realized I've been doing this on my own since I was a kid that's a heavy truth to sit with. You didn't just choose that role. It chose you because something in your environment said no one's coming. You have to figure it out yourself. And now you're here holding all that weight.

NatNat Be: 6:36

So I just want to say you are not broken for struggling. You are not weak for needing rest, you are not too much for feeling deeply. And healing is not always pretty and it is rarely linear, and it doesn't always look the way other people think it should, but it's real and you're doing it. So keep sharpening your tools, keep returning to your breath, keep showing up not perfectly, just honestly Because you, my love, you're allowed to be a hole with a W, even when you're still trying to figure it out. If this resonated, leave a comment, share it, send it to someone who's in the messy middle too. You weren't meant to do this alone, even if we learn to survive that way. Until next time, be kind to your nervous system and, as always, welcome home to yourself.