What No One Tells You About Healing While Raising a Family
Would you believe me if I told you that my healing started at the kitchen table?
Not in a retreat center. Not on a yoga mat.
But between school pickup and bedtime meltdowns, in a house that always felt one laundry cycle behind.
We don’t talk about this enough—how brutal and beautiful it is to try to heal while still being needed by everyone else. To hold space for your child’s emotions while yours are screaming behind your eyes. To feel the grief rise and fall between swim lessons and dinner prep.
This is the quiet reality for so many of us.
We are mothering while unraveling.
We are packing lunches with shaky hands.
We are putting Band-Aids on knees and on our own hearts.
The Myth of Peaceful Healing
There’s this idea that in order to heal, we need time. Quiet. Space. Money.
And yes—those things help. But they aren’t prerequisites for beginning.
Sometimes healing starts in the backseat of the minivan.
Sometimes it’s the five minutes between “I’m fine” and falling apart.
Sometimes it looks like scribbling something true into a journal while your kid watches Paw Patrol.
Healing doesn’t wait for perfect conditions.
It waits for permission.
And you get to give that to yourself.
This Is What It Really Looks Like
It looks like crying quietly into your Diet Coke.
It looks like texting a friend “I can’t do this” and doing it anyway.
It looks like snapping, apologizing, and trying again.
It looks like writing one sentence a night in your workbook before you fall asleep.
It’s not aesthetic.
It’s not linear.
It’s not Instagrammable.
It’s real. And it’s still sacred.
Start Small. Start Messy. Just Start.
If you’re in that in-between; the healing and the holding, the giving and the gasping; let me tell you this:
You are not doing it wrong.
You are not behind.
You are not broken.
You’re in the middle of something holy.
And if you want a soft place to land; I made something for you.
The Healer’s Art is the workbook I wrote when I didn’t know how to keep going but knew there had to be more in life than sadness.
It’s full of creative prompts, gentle space, and honest reflection.
No rules. No timeline. Just room to be where you are.
If you’ve been waiting for the “right” time to heal—this is it.
You can grab the workbook www.west650.com
And if it speaks to you, I’d be honored if you shared it with a friend who needs it too.
Still healing. Still here.
—Emily