As Black women, I sometimes wonder if we suppress our pain because it has become part of our cultural survival. Do we suppress it because we were taught, directly or indirectly, that we have to be strong? Do we suppress it because showing pain has historically not always been met with protection, understanding, or care? Do we suppress it for cultural acceptance? Or has suppressing our pain become such a habit that we don’t always realize we are doing it?
And then I wonder something else. What if sometimes we aren’t suppressing our pain because we don’t know it is there? What if we are suppressing it because we know exactly how painful it would be to stop and actually feel it?
What if we keep moving because movement keeps us from having to sit still with ourselves? What if we keep achieving because achievement gives us something else to focus on? What if we keep creating a new life because the old one hurts too much to process? What if we chase happiness because happiness feels easier than healing?
These are questions I think we need to be honest enough to ask without judgment.
have we simply become good at moving forward before we have actually healed?
Sometimes we can look like we are doing well while privately carrying things we have never allowed ourselves to feel.
We can be successful and still be grieving. We can have a beautiful family and still be carrying disappointment. We can look beautiful and still not feel comfortable with ourselves. We can have money and still feel empty. We can be loved and still struggle to receive it.
We can accomplish everything we said we wanted and still discover that there is a part of us that was left behind somewhere along the way.
And sometimes I wonder if we are trying so hard to become the woman we want to be that we never stop to acknowledge the woman who was hurt trying to get there.
There is a strength that many Black women carry that is beautiful. We have been mothers, daughters, sisters, leaders, caregivers, professionals, creators, protectors, and providers. We have learned how to keep going. We have learned how to show up. We have learned how to make something out of very little. We have learned how to survive things that could have broken us.
However, there is a difference between creating a better life and trying to outrun the life that hurt you. There is nothing wrong with wanting more for yourself. There is nothing wrong with wanting peace, success, love, joy, financial stability, a beautiful home, meaningful relationships, or a life that feels completely different from where you started. But I think we have to ask ourselves whether we are building something new from a healed place or whether we are trying to build something beautiful enough that we never have to look back.
Because sometimes you can change everything around you and still be carrying the same pain inside of you.
You can move to a new city and still bring your wounds with you. You can enter a new relationship and still bring your fear with you. You can become successful and still feel like you aren’t enough. You can create a beautiful life and still not know how to enjoy it.
You can finally receive everything you thought you wanted and still struggle to feel happy because happiness was never just about obtaining something. Sometimes there are internal places that have to be healed before we can genuinely sustain what we prayed for.
And I think this is where the conversation about strength becomes important.
Black women have often been celebrated for being strong. We hear it everywhere. Strong Black woman. Resilient. Independent. Able to handle anything. And while there is beauty in strength, I sometimes wonder what happens when strength becomes an expectation instead of a choice. What happens when people admire our ability to carry things but never ask why we have had to carry so much? What happens when being strong becomes so connected to our identity that we don’t know who we are when we finally put something down?
Can we be strong and still admit that something hurt? Can we be resilient and still need rest? Can we be successful and still need healing? Can we love our culture while questioning the habits we have learned within it?
I don’t think healing requires us to reject where we come from. But I do believe healing sometimes requires us to examine what we inherited. Not just what was passed down through our families, but the beliefs, expectations, survival patterns, and ways of coping that may have been passed down too.
Maybe we learned to keep going because stopping was never an option. Maybe we learned to laugh through pain because crying didn’t change what had to be done. Maybe we learned to take care of everyone else because no one taught us how to take care of ourselves. Maybe we learned that being vulnerable was dangerous. Maybe we learned that asking for help meant weakness. Maybe we learned how to look okay long before we actually felt okay.
And maybe some of those things helped previous generations survive circumstances they did not choose. But survival patterns can become cultural habits. And cultural habits can become so normal that we stop asking whether they are still serving us.
Maybe we don’t always suppress our pain for acceptance. Maybe sometimes we suppress it because we don’t know another way to live. Maybe we watched the women before us survive by continuing. Maybe we learned that you get up, go to work, take care of your family, handle your responsibilities, pray, and keep going. And sometimes that ability to keep going is necessary.
But what happens when you never come back for yourself? What happens when years pass and you have built an entire life around functioning but have never actually asked yourself how you feel? What happens when you become so good at surviving that no one, including you, realizes that you are hurting?
I think sometimes we force a new life because we genuinely want something different. But sometimes, if we are honest, we also hope that the new life will make us forget the old pain. We think if we can just get the job, find the relationship, move into the house, make more money, become successful, lose the weight, look better, travel more, or finally become happy, then maybe the pain will disappear.
But healing doesn’t always happen because your circumstances change. Sometimes healing requires internal work. It requires sitting with the version of you that you have been trying to outrun. It requires asking what happened. It requires asking how it changed you. It requires asking what you started believing because of it. It requires grieving. It requires honesty. It requires allowing yourself to feel something without immediately trying to fix it.
And that can be difficult because sometimes pain feels like the opposite of the life we are trying to create. We want happiness, so we avoid sadness. We want peace, so we avoid conversations that might disrupt us. We want a new beginning, so we don’t want to revisit what happened before. But avoiding pain doesn’t always create peace. Sometimes it only creates distance between us and ourselves. The truth is, I don’t want to force happiness anymore.
I don’t want to create a life that looks happy while there are parts of me begging to be acknowledged. I don’t want to perform healing.I don’t want to post a new version of myself while ignoring the version of myself that still needs care. I want genuine happiness. And genuine happiness requires honesty. It requires me to ask myself whether I am actually happy or simply distracted.
Am I at peace, or am I just busy? Have I healed, or have I just moved on?Have I forgiven, or have I simply stopped talking about it? Do I genuinely feel safe, or have I created a life where I can control everything around me? Am I building a new life because I love what is ahead of me, or because I am terrified of looking behind me?
These are not easy questions. But I believe they are necessary.
Because you deserve more than a life that looks good from the outside. You deserve a life that feels safe and honest on the inside too. You deserve happiness that doesn’t have to be forced. Peace that doesn’t disappear the moment you are alone with your thoughts. Success that you can actually enjoy. Love that you can receive. Rest that doesn’t make you feel guilty.
You deserve to experience the life you are working so hard to build.
The Bible says in Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” I love this because God does not require us to pretend that we aren’t hurting. He doesn’t tell us to perform strength for Him. He doesn’t ask us to hide our broken hearts behind productivity, success, or a smile.
He comes close to us there. In the places we may have learned to hide. In the places we have been taught to suppress. In the places we keep trying to escape.
Maybe healing begins when we stop asking ourselves to be strong enough to carry everything and start asking God what we were never meant to carry alone.
Maybe we can honor the strength of the women who came before us while still choosing something different for ourselves.
Maybe we can say, I understand why we survived this way, but I also want to learn how to live.
Maybe we can stop seeing rest as weakness. Maybe we can stop seeing vulnerability as something to be ashamed of.
Maybe we can stop forcing happiness and begin creating the internal conditions that allow joy to genuinely grow.
Maybe we can build the new life while also doing the internal work necessary to receive it.
Because I don’t just want a beautiful life. I want to be well enough to enjoy it.I don’t just want peace around me. I want peace within me. I don’t just want to look happy. I want to experience genuine joy. I don’t just want to survive what happened to me.
I want to understand what it did to me, heal what I can, and become someone who no longer has to run from herself to feel free.
And maybe that is the question we all have to ask ourselves. Am I creating a new life, or am I trying to escape an old pain?
Because sometimes we can do both at the same time. We can want more.We can build something new. We can honor where we came from. We can acknowledge the strength it took to get here.
And we can still decide that survival is no longer the only thing we want to be good at.
Maybe the women before us had to survive. But maybe we get to heal.
And maybe healing doesn’t dishonor their strength.
Maybe healing is one of the ways we honor everything they carried by deciding that we don’t have to carry it all forward.
I don’t want to spend my life proving how strong I am. I want to become honest enough to admit when I need healing and brave enough to actually do the internal work.
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