6 Things I Learned While Healing in 2025.

Healing is wild and messy and…terrifying.

But it’s also beautiful and challenging and…defining.

As I have moved through the past few years especially 2025, I have became intimately acquainted with the pursuit of healing, to say I have sought out almost every form of healing I could is probably an understatement. You name it, I’ve probably heard of it or researched it. For me the choice to heal was simple: If I don’t heal then trauma cycles. I left him so my children would live and I was going to heal because my kids deserve that. They deserve to live in a healed and healthy home. Period.

Quitting would be easier.

In all of my desire to heal, I’ll wholly admit that the process of getting out and rebuilding has been hell. This July it will be 6 years ago that I left, since then I have been in over 6 court cases, filed over 70 different court documents, he has been convicted of multiple criminal charges, including 6 counts of contempt, has had multiple restraining orders against him, multiple police records, and has committed multiple violations of the current criminal No Contact Order. He has appealed and fought every, single, court order that did not go in his favor, which has been every single one. He appealed the custody case all the way to the Idaho Supreme Court….twice. And yet, that’s still not all of it… throw healing on top of that and well quitting would’ve been easier.

This is a season, this isn’t going to be my entire life and it’s not going to last forever.

But here’s the thing this is a season, this isn’t going to be my entire life and it’s not going to last forever. I can see the end, I know the promise and I know the God who will see it through. I know I’m strong and I know my God wins, every, single, time.

For so long all I could see was the pain of when everything fell apart, when he made the choices he did and when my life spun wildly out of control. It took me awhile to see beyond the unending court cases and the long road of legal battles I had fought. But as I moved forward down this messy road of healing what I found is that healing is rarely needed from JUST ONE incident, one thing or one person.

Because when I looked close enough I started to notice the people who were one dimension away.

I started to see the ones who watched closely, the ones I told everything to, and it hit me: not everyone who watched closely showed up. Some did, but many didn’t. Healing isn’t about naming others failures but it is about realizing that you deserve to have people not fail you. And sometimes you have to identify failures before you can realize that people actually failed you. It empowers you to acknowledge how certain people made the pain you were in worse so you can make decisions to move forward and feel better.

Healing is messy.

Somehow when I first started this journey of healing, I had a lot of ideals of who people would be in my process, but like I said “healing is messy”. Not just because of what you come about in your own heart, but because we are all so interconnected that your healing invokes other things in different people. Sometimes those things are beautiful and helpful, and we find others to heal with us. And other times we realize that not everyone who starts your healing journey beside you finishes it with you.

So as I navigate the road ahead here’s a few highlights from what I learned in 2025 as I relentlessly and unapologetically have began to pursue me.

6 Things I Learned about Healing:

If they can’t encourage you, don’t listen to them.

There was a point of my life where I took a hard look at what everyone said because I wanted to be open to all feedback but after awhile I realized that it’s actually not wisdom to listen to everyone nor is it beneficial to even hear the words some people speak. Some of what people say is just purely unkind and should never have left their lips. The bible says, “From the heart, the mouth speaks”. If there isn’t hope in their words, find someone else to confide in. Those who love you will easily be able to encourage you, they see what you’ve been through and they are so proud of you.

If they aren’t somewhere you want to be, don’t follow them.

You don’t have to love their life but you should desire the majority of how it looks to be replicated in your life. Their beliefs, words and actions created their world. Look at how generous they are, or how they handle conflict. Pay attention to if they choose love over convenience and how easily they are willing to sacrifice for those they love. If you don’t want their world, choose someone else to follow. Listen to your spirit if you feel like someone isn’t all they profess, you’re probably right. Trust your gut, your spirit knows things that your mind is still learning how to comprehend.

If they say they are praying for you but are still unkind to you or your kids, don’t accept their prayers.

…yes, I did really just say that. There are quite a few people who I have had to “un-pray” their prayers over my life in this season. They would handle themselves in ways that didn’t demonstrate any love or understanding and then later remind me that they were “praying for me”. If they cannot abundantly love me and my kids, they don’t deserve the honor of praying for me. The kingdom of heaven is not a democracy and the numbers of prayers people pray are not going to determine if God shows up. God will show up because you alone are enough.

Not everyone has to be your Best Friend.

The best indicator of true friendship is found in those who can help rewire your nervous system while you face the many obstacles of healing. The one who comes along and shows you safety as you become and isn’t threatened by your new found joy. The friend who tells you that you didn’t deserve any of the pain you ever experienced, and reminds you that you are worthy of all the goodness in the world. The soul who invites life into the simplest of moments, and somehow makes you feel like you again. Most people fail this litmus test so pay attention to the ones who feel safe, and make you feel whole again.

Distance and Letting Go are okay.

Sometimes not everyone who starts your journey with you is meant to stay beside you through the process. Some people just aren’t ready to be who you need them to be, and in that case it’s okay to create distance because you deserve to have your needs met. You didn’t fail them by letting them go. You aren’t failing them by creating distance. You are choosing you. And the truth is not everyone is meant to be close in this season of healing. You are becoming, and you deserve protection in that process. You get to say “only hope lives here now”. The right ones will come nestle themselves beside you with abounding hope and unending belief in the goodness of you.

Only those who believe that God is 100% good should be in your inner circle.

Most church goers say they believe God is good. But I quickly realized that there is a purity of belief to those who talk with no doubt. Even if it’s a little bit of doubt. Your testimony is being built, and your faith is the substance that calls that massive testimony into reality. I don’t have the time to battle someone else’s doubt nor is it my responsibility. But I DO owe it to my kids to protect my faith from that doubt that can come in from others lack of belief. The story I’m writing began as faith and continues into promise. I will see all of that promise, and those beside me, are those who understand without doubt God is entirely good, everything he does is 100% good and he is SO GOOD to me and my kids.

Healing is hard.

Pain becomes familiar and comfortable and sometimes its really hard to see that we are more at ease believing that we are not worthy than to choose to break the lies and reclaim our worth. Believing we have less worth is actually easier most of the time. Healing is about reclaiming all that the cross bought for you, mentally, physically and emotionally. Pain does not deserve to claim residence in your heart. Yes, the bible says that there would be suffering but he then brought healing. Pain is something we are meant to pass through not claim our home within.

As Robert Frost once said…”The only way out is through”. Healing is messy and wild but so beautiful. It’s okay to start, it’s okay if it’s messy. It will be but God has this way of divinely placing people beside you who don’t see you as messy, instead they see someone who is becoming, they see someone they are so incredibly proud of, they see YOU. Those people are waiting for you to start your journey and just like some perfectly redemptive story they somehow always manage to show up. Let them.