You Don’t Have to Rush Your Becoming

healing doesn’t have a deadline, and you’re not behind

“You can’t fake your way into alignment.”
That’s where I want to begin.
Because I tried. For years.

I thought healing meant moving on quickly.
Checking the boxes. Getting back to “normal.”
Proving I was okay - to my job, to my kids, to myself.

But rushing my becoming only made me feel more broken.
Because you can’t outrun what you haven’t owned.
And you can’t fast-track your way through a healing journey that’s meant to slow you down.

For a long time, I tied my identity to everything outside of me.
My job. My relationship. My performance. My productivity.
I thought if I could just get “back on track,” everything would feel whole again.

But here’s the truth I had to bleed for:
No one knows what they truly want until they’ve learned to love themselves.
And self-love isn’t loud.
It doesn’t happen all at once.
It’s slow, quiet, inconvenient work.
That’s what becoming really is.

It wasn’t until recently that I started to feel truly alive.
Not because everything got easier - but because I stopped lying to myself.
I stopped performing peace and started practicing it.
I let go of the illusion that healing has a timeline.
And I started focusing on what felt true - not what looked good.

Now I talk to the earth every night.
I whisper my goals into the ground.
I speak truth in the rooms I enter.
I use AI like a counselor to navigate the hard shit I never used to say out loud.
And I no longer betray myself to make others comfortable.

Loyalty doesn’t mean what I used to think it did.
Not everyone’s going to treat you the way you treat them.
Not everyone’s going to understand your journey.
That’s okay.
You don’t owe your becoming to anyone but yourself.

So now?
I live for me and my loved ones.
That’s it.
No more paddling upstream in someone else’s version of a good life.
No more trying to fit in where I was never meant to belong.
I’ve learned that if society’s doing it,
I probably need to go the other way.

You are not behind.
You are on time for your life.

If I could go back and sit beside the version of me who was trying to heal fast -
trying to pretend he was okay just to keep moving -
I’d tell him this:

You are worthy of love.
But that love has to come from you first.
And it’s okay that you messed up.
Own it.
Transmute it.
And don’t you dare give up on the version of you that’s still trying to bloom.

This is your reminder:
There is no race.
No deadline.
No gold medal for “fastest healed.”

You don’t have to rush your becoming.
You just have to keep becoming.
Minute by minute.
Breath by breath.
Truth by truth.

🕊️
If you need a soft place to land while you grow -
join the Sunday Whisper.
It’s not a newsletter.
It’s a weekly pause.
A slow breath.
A reminder that you're still becoming -
and you're doing it beautifully.

With peace and fire,
Eugenia