When Healing Feels Lonely (and How to Move Through It) | The Mid Week Tease

This week on The Mid Week Tease, Adelle unpacks the part of healing we rarely talk about, the loneliness that comes with growth. When you start choosing yourself, setting boundaries, and evolving, it’s easy to feel like you’ve lost your people. But often, that loneliness is a sign that you’re shedding what no longer aligns with your peace. In this episode, Adelle explores:

💭 The quiet grief of outgrowing people
🌱 The in-between season between who you were and who you’re becoming
❤️ Why choosing yourself can feel like abandonment
🌻 How to find new forms of belonging that match your healed self

If your healing feels isolating right now, this episode will remind you that solitude isn’t punishment, it’s preparation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Midwick Teeth with me adele Jngle, where
I share some random and not to random thoughts on things.
And in this episode, I want to talk about the
loneliness that comes with healing. Yes, healing is this incredible
liberating thing, but along this journey there comes that strange

(00:22):
quiet space where you've outgrown certain people who made up
most of your community. You've outgrown certain habits that took
a lot of your time. You've out grown certain spaces
that you used to spend a lot of your time in,
but you haven't yet found your new rhythm, your new people,
your new habits, your new spaces. That space there is

(00:47):
hella lonely, and it's also confusing because when you're in
that season, it doesn't look like progress. It doesn't even
feel like it. It feels like distance. It feels like silence.
It feels like oh my god. And this one night,
hm I felt so many times and I think I'm
feeling it again with a particular friendship. It feels like

(01:09):
losing your people. But I have been thinking about it
for a long time and I think that this silence
isn't emptiness, it's space. Yeah, it's opportunity. It's a chance
for you to finally start meeting yourself again. Because healing
isn't just about learning new things right, it's also about

(01:33):
unlearning what no longer serves you, and sometimes that includes people.
Those endings are not always dramatic. It's not conflict, it's
not loudness. Sometimes it's just like you're realizing the conversations
that once made you feel seen now make you feel
like you're shrinking. For me, there were so many friendships

(01:53):
and relationships that I realized that the things that bonded
us were gossip more gossip. Did I say gossip? Uh huh?
Maybe for you it could be trauma, maybe it's overgiving,
And then you realize that those things that bonded you
like For me, I just realized, I don't want to

(02:14):
participate in gossip. I don't like how it makes me feel.
I don't like how it makes me view other people.
And as I was discovering who I am on my
healing journey, gossiping didn't align with my values. And so
when you start choosing peace, the people who thrived on
your chaos won't recognize you, and those relationships start to

(02:40):
get more distant. Some may even die, and the realization
that that is what is happening. It hurts because it's
like grief, right, you are grieving the death of a friendship,
the death of a relationship, the death of what you
thought a relationship was, the death of the spaces, the things,
the habits that you thought fed you. But I also

(03:04):
learned that, like, you can love people deeply and you
can still also accept that you're not meant to grow
in the same direction anymore. Yeah, like you evolving past
that friendship doesn't mean that you don't love that person.
And so it's okay if you miss the people you've outgrown.
You know, missing them doesn't mean that you all of
a sudden have to go back. It just is a

(03:26):
normal human feeling, you know what I mean. So let's
get back to like the awkward space between the season
and healing, when you are outgrowing people, habit spaces, but
you haven't figured out who you are yet, right, and
how that space can feel like nothingness. It can feel
like you're floating, It can feel like you've lost your

(03:47):
spark even but I like to look at it as
a transition. You know, I'm going to reference my garden
whenever I plant seeds, like right now, I've planted onions,
perfect timing because it's raining right, And for weeks on end,
sometimes even months, I go to that nursery bed and

(04:10):
it looks like nothing has happened. But you know what,
everything is happening. The roots are forming, and pretty soon
I'm going to see the signs of that. That's what
that space is. You are growing in silence. So even
if you feel disconnected, if you feel alone, if you

(04:33):
feel the loneliness, please don't mistake that stillness for regression
or that nothing is happening, or that you are stuck.
You're becoming. Another thing that came up for me is
the feeling of guilt, that guilt that creeps in when
you're evolving and outgrowing people, especially that guilt that creeps

(04:58):
in when you start choosing yourself right. For so many
of us, it feels like choosing you is a betrayal
because we're taught that being good means being available, being selfless,
being everything for everyone. So when you start saying no,
and when you stop over explaining, when you create distance

(05:21):
from people who drain you, or spaces and relationships that
you are outgrowing, it feels wrong. But it isn't wrong.
Does that make sense? Like you start wondering, am I
abandoning them? Am I the problem? I'm just here to
reinforce that you are not. You're just simply learning to

(05:44):
stop abandoning yourself, right, Because when when you decide to
choose peace, it isn't selfish, it's it's incredible. It's a
gift to yourself. It's a difference between living and survival
and actually healing. When you're healing, what changes is what
safety feels like. Right, So sometimes the communities and relationships

(06:07):
that once felt like home, they start feeling unsafe that part,
Like I really felt that part. And it's not because
they are bad people. But I think what it means,
at least for me, is that my needs had changed.
And so those spaces that used to feel safe because
they fulfilled the needs of an adele I no longer

(06:30):
am They aren't bad, They just don't they don't have
the capacity to fulfill the needs of this Adele, this
healed or healing version of Adele. You may find that
now you crave slower, softer, more intentional connections. You crave
conversations that nourish you and not drain you crave peace,

(06:54):
and the beauty of this space in healing that feels
like loneliness is that you may find that it pushes
you to seek or even create new spaces that honor
this new version of you, that honor your healing, that
honor your evolution. And maybe that looks like joining therapy groups,
joining journaling communities, or making friends with people who you

(07:18):
never ever imagined you'd be in the space, same space
with going for activities that you never imagine that you'd
be doing. For example, for me, there was a point
in my life that I was performing as an introvert
and when I really was intentionally on my healing journey.
I still am, I realize, and I still have this
realization to date. I'm an introvert. I love one on

(07:42):
one sessions with people that I love and I care for.
I don't want to go for the loud concert. I
don't want to go to the loud party. In fact,
it makes me so anxious when I have to do
those things. But there was a version of me who
loved that. Right, I've just joined a whatsop community of

(08:05):
people who are growing their own organic vegetables. If you
told past versions of me that that would be something
I was so excited about that I couldn't stop talking
to my person about I would have laughed, but that's
what I am craving now, right. So yes, the space

(08:25):
before you figure out you know what your new friendships
look like, what your new habits look like. May feel lonely,
but you're not losing people. You're actually finding your real ones. Right. So,
if you're healing feels lonely right now, I want you
to know this solitude isn't punishment, it's preparation. You are

(08:49):
shedding the noise so you can finally hear your own
voice clearly. And once you do that, trust me, you're
going to be attracting people who speak that same language
of peace. This week, please give yourself permission to be
in that space, even if it's quiet, even if it's tender,
because it's not the end of your story, and it
doesn't mean that you're healing wrong. It is the part

(09:12):
where you return home to yourself. Ah, I'm so happy
I get to share this with you today. Now I
want to hear from you, so make sure you drop
me a comment. Have you experienced this kind of loneliness
while healing and what helped you move through it. I
would love to hear your reflections. Drop it in the

(09:34):
comment section. I'm definitely gonna enjoy reading that, and if
you resonated with this episode, share it with someone that
you love. Thanks for listening to the midwik Tis, a
Legally Clueless Africa production. Episodes go out every Wednesday, and
you can learn more about us by going to legally
Clueless Africa dot com