Ashes don't burn twice

There are some feelings that feel like they’ll never leave.

Hopelessness. Despair. The kind of depression that makes you feel like you’re drowning in your own mind.

But healing...real, layered healing....changes things.

It doesn’t always look like a clean break or a dramatic shift.

Sometimes healing disguises itself.

Sometimes, what once burned intensely just looks like it still could… even though it can’t anymore.

This passage from a book i read on BPD stopped me in my tracks.

It didn’t just describe recovery it felt like recovery.

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"Have you ever seen a fire burn in a fire place ? Where the fire really gets going and burning so hot the logs are glowing red, at that point the logs still had the same shape from when they were first lit only now they glow in heat. So Hot. Almost daunting. Slowly Burning.

But it doesn’t last... the logs look like the same logs put in the fireplace but they aren’t. They aren’t solid like they used to be. They’re just a temporary illusion. Pretty soon the glowing embers fall to the fireplace floor. To Ash. The fire has changed them. The firey hot vision turns quickly to harmless ashes....

The feelings you used to have before you began therapy.... hopelessness. despair. Real depression. They were like the logs thrown into the fireplace. Drenched. But they’ve changed forever.

For a short time they look the same just as the glowing logs look the same. In a way they seem even more intense as they were before. Shimmering red hot as they are but there’s no real substance to them anymore and soon... they’ll break apart and fall to the floor as harmless ashes. It doesn’t feel that way right now perhaps but when you feel these momentary feelings of intensity. This temporary anxiety... you could know that they won’t last. The things that used to solidify and fuel them are not there anymore."

— Rachel Reiland, Get Me Out of Here

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That’s the thing about healing.

It tricks you sometimes.

It makes you second-guess your progress when old feelings rise up.

But the truth is...they don’t hold the same weight anymore.

They don’t define you, and they don’t have the power to burn you like they used to.

What once felt consuming has already been changed.

Already been transformed.

You are not who you were.

And the things that once fueled the fire?

They’re gone now.

Let the feelings flicker. Let the heat rise and pass.

It’s not a relapse. It’s not failure.

It’s just the last embers falling into ash.

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Kristen, Unfiltered Xo 💋

"When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."

— Isaiah 43:2