you're healing without even realizing it

healing isn't always pretty. it isn't picture-worthy. often, it's messy and can feel like the OPPOSITE of healing. but that doesn't mean you're not healing - it just means your healing looks a little different than how you think it "should" look. let's feel some feelings.

Welcome back to Feel Your Feelings with Ethan Jewell! I'm not a psychologist, a doctor, or a mental health professional. Instead, I'm here to guide you through the world of mental health from a casual, relatable lens. I've been there, I've felt that, and I understand what you're feeling. Let's feel some feelings.

Poetry book and more on my website:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠www.ethanjewell.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@jewellboi_

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What if I told you that cancelling plans, crying on your
floor, or just surviving the daymight actually be signs of
healing? That even when it feels like
you're going backwards, you're still moving forwards?
Today we're going to talk about why healing doesn't always look
like healing and why that's totally OK and part of the

(00:23):
process. My name is Ethan Jewell and
welcome back to FEEL Your Feelings.
Today I want to talk about something that's been on my mind
as somebody who has worked desperately to heal their mental
health. I've spent the last five or six
years trying very, very hard to heal my mental health.

(00:44):
If you're new here, welcome. My name is Ethan Jewell.
I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a
professional in the mental health industry whatsoever.
I'm a normal guy who started having some mental health issues
many, many years ago. And I realized that nobody was
really talking about it. And I mean really talking about
it, talking about it person to person instead of just pushing

(01:07):
statistics and studies. So that's what we're doing here
today. And one of those things that I
have been thinking about a lot recently is how we're pushed
this idea of how healing should look.
But the truth is, healing often doesn't even look like healing.
In fact, sometimes it can look like the opposite.

(01:28):
And that's not just OK, it's normal.
Let's be honest, a lot of what we see online points healing as
this aesthetically pleasing, peaceful journey.
You know, it's bubble baths and journaling with fairy lights, or
it's yoga in the morning. It's walks in the park, it's
smiling with friends. And hey, sometimes healing does

(01:49):
look like that. You know, sometimes we have
those moments where it feels like everything is working out,
feels like everything's coming together.
And that is an amazing and important part of the healing
process. It's not invalid.
Those things do help. But that's not the whole story,
because healing also looks like lying on the floor crying

(02:12):
because you finally let yourselffeel something that you've been
pushing down for years and years.
It looks like canceling plans, saying no, setting a boundary
that makes someone upset with you.
It looks like taking a nap instead of cleaning your room.
It looks like going silent, disappearing for a few days
because you're so emotionally exhausted.

(02:34):
And here's the thing. All of those are still healing.
You're still healing even if it doesn't look like it.
Even if it's not aesthetic, Evenif it's not clean.
Even if it's messy, healing is often quiet, and sometimes it's
ugly. Sometimes it's slow, boring,

(02:58):
invisible. But progress is still progress.
Even if it's not picture worthy,Even if it's not something that
you can post on your Instagram, you know, let me say that again
for anyone who needs to hear it.Progress is progress, even if it
doesn't feel like progress. Think about a seed underground.

(03:19):
You don't see it sprouting rightaway.
It's pushing through dirt, it's stretching towards light, but
it's still growing. There's still something powerful
happening, just not in a way that's visible yet.
So maybe your version of healingtoday is just not yelling at
yourself for having a bad day. It's allowing yourself to have

(03:41):
those messy moments, you know? It's letting yourself cry
instead of bottling it up and telling yourself that you need
to be tough. Maybe it's just surviving and
that's enough. There's no right way for your
healing to look. But I get it.
I've been there. It's really easy to fall into

(04:03):
the trap of comparing your healing to someone else's or
judging the pace at which you'rehealing, judging what your
healing looks like. We look at other people and
think they're going to therapy, they're meditating, they're
journaling every day. Why am I still struggling but
healing? It isn't a checklist, it's not a

(04:24):
race. There's no one-size-fits-all
path. Some people heal by talking,
others by being quiet. Some need structure.
Others need flexibility. Some people need years.
Some people need months. Some people just need space to
find themselves. And some people can go weeks

(04:47):
feeling OK, only to have one badday and think they've failed.
And if that's you, you haven't. You haven't failed.
That is healing, even if it's not linear.
Even if it's not pretty, even ifit doesn't feel like healing, if

(05:08):
you're feeling like you're back at square one, I promise you're
not. You're just on a bend in the
road. You've grown more than you may
ever realize. Sometimes it can be hard to
gauge your own process, especially if in the moment, the
healing doesn't feel good. I know for me personally,
healing often looks like alone time and it looks like quiet

(05:29):
moments. It looks like sitting in a room
just like this one. And, you know, playing my piano,
talking to my phone, writing a poem, or literally just
scrolling on my phone, You know,sometimes I find myself just
needing alone time. I don't have the energy to
engage with other people. And I don't guilt myself for
that anymore. I used to.

(05:50):
I used to tell myself that for me to be healing, for my healing
to be valid, I needed to be doing more.
Instead of, you know, sitting here and writing down a couple
lyrics on my phone, I needed to be performing in front of
people. Instead of sitting down and
doing this podcast or writing poetry, I needed to be, you

(06:10):
know, doubling up, doing more. I needed to be seeing friends
all the time in order to be healed.
I needed to act like a person that I thought was healed.
That's not the case. I've been healing this entire
time. I've been healing for the last
six years and I've been healing in those quiet moments.
I've been healing by myself. I've been healing in a messy

(06:33):
way. I've been healing in those
moments where I I break down crying.
Healing is not pretty. Often time it's quite the
opposite, but that doesn't mean that it's not healing.
So if you're listening to this and thinking, I don't feel like
I'm healing, I feel messy, I feel stuck, I feel tired, then I

(06:53):
want to say this, you're doing better than you think.
I spent years thinking that I wasn't healing when in reality
my journey just looked differentfrom what I'd seen on social
media and what I've been told. Healing doesn't always bring
immediate relief and it's not always about feeling good.
Sometimes it's about honesty andthat's hard, but it's real and

(07:18):
it's worth it. So let the healing be weird,
awkward, non linear, and raw because that's what real growth
usually looks like. I spent so long convincing
myself that something was wrong with me just because my healing
didn't look like other people's.Just because I didn't journal in
the morning, I didn't wake up and go on a run for the sake of

(07:40):
my mental health. I rotted in my bed.
But I was putting an effort. I wasn't guilting myself.
And whether or not I believed it, I was healing.
And you are too. Every day that you tell yourself
you are deserving of healing, you're deserving of love, You
deserve to feel your feelings and process them, you deserve to

(08:04):
heal. Every day that you are kind to
yourself, you're healing. Every day that you have a moment
alone, you're healing. Just because you're healing
doesn't happen in big dramatic moments and instead in the
quiet, small, lonely ones, it doesn't mean that you're not
healing. It just means you're doing it a
little bit differently from everyone else.

(08:26):
And that's perfectly OK. So wherever you're at today,
whether you're curled up in bed,you're finally calling a
therapist, trying to set a boundary, or just breathing,
please know your healing counts.It matters.
Even if no one else sees it, even if it doesn't look like

(08:48):
healing. You're showing up for yourself
and that is enough. You are enough.
That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
Thank you so much for being here.
If you need help feeling these feelings, if you need help with
your feeling process, you shouldcheck out my music on all
platforms under the name of Ethan Jewell.
I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.

(09:08):
Also, drop me a comment. Let's start the conversation
about our healing journeys. Tell me where you're at with
yours. Do you think you're healing in
these quiet moments? Maybe you need to stop comparing
yourself to other people's healing journeys quite so much.
I know that I personally am finally to a point where I'm OK
with my healing looking a littlebit differently than everyone
else's. I'd love to hear your thoughts

(09:28):
on the topic. So thank you so much for being
here. Thank you for understanding that
your healing might look a littlebit differently than everybody
else's. And as always, thank you for
feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.