11/30/2025
When healing begins to do its quiet work, something powerful happens — the veil starts to lift. And suddenly, you’re no longer seeing people and situations through the lens of your fears, your wounds, or the version of yourself that was simply trying to survive. You begin to see things as they truly are, not as your nervous system once convinced you they needed to be.
All the stories you crafted to protect your heart — those narratives that once helped you cope, endure, or rationalize — they start to unravel. And with that unraveling comes a clarity that is both liberating and deeply uncomfortable.
You start to recognize the manipulation you once explained away…
The distance you minimized so you wouldn’t feel abandoned…
The emotional neglect you normalized just to keep the peace…
The inconsistency you accepted because chaos felt familiar.
What used to look like love, loyalty, or connection may suddenly feel unsafe, draining, or simply empty. And that shift can shake you to your core.
This part of healing feels like grief before it feels like peace. Because for so long, your body associated familiar with safe, even when familiar was unhealthy. It bonded to inconsistency because that’s what it knew. It clung to confusion because you were taught to earn love, not receive it freely. It held on to potential because letting go felt like failure.
But when the veil lifts, the illusion shatters. And in that moment, you see the truth you once weren’t ready to face:
What you called love was sometimes self-abandonment.
What you labeled loyalty was fear in disguise.
What you thought was chemistry was a dysregulated nervous system begging for relief.
And here's the thing — once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Awareness doesn’t let you turn back. It won’t let you shrink into the old version of yourself just because it’s comfortable. It asks you to rise. It asks you to build a new baseline for love, safety, and connection — one that isn’t powered by adrenaline, approval-seeking, or suffering disguised as devotion.
As certain relationships naturally fall away, you create space — space for truth, for gentleness, for people who don’t require you to lose yourself just to be loved.
Clarity may cost you some connections, yes…
But that clarity will return you to yourself.
And that is a home worth coming back to.
Bose Fawehinmi, MA Counselling Psychology, Marriage Matters