I have been thinking about healing lately.
Not the Instagram version of healing. Not candles, journaling, morning routines and “protecting your peace.”
I mean the uncomfortable kind.
The kind where you start looking at yourself and realise that some of the things you have normalised are actually hurting you.
Growing up in Nigeria, many of us were taught to endure.
Endure your family.
Endure your marriage.
Endure your boss.
Endure the disrespect because you need the job.
Endure the relative who constantly crosses your boundaries because, well, family is family.
Endure because things are hard.
Endure because people have it worse.
Endure because one day, somehow, things will change.
And there is something admirable about resilience. Nigerians have plenty of it.
But I sometimes wonder if we have praised endurance so much that we have forgotten to ask whether some things should simply be endured at all.
There are things we call patience that are actually fear.
There are things we call forgiveness that are actually avoidance.
There are things we call respect that are really just an inability to say no.
And there are relationships we keep because leaving would make us the bad person in somebody else’s story.
Healing can make you unpopular.
That is something nobody tells you.
Because once you start setting boundaries, people may not recognise you.
The person who was always available suddenly has limits.
The person who always gave money now says, “I can’t.”
The person who used to listen to everyone’s problems no longer wants to be everyone’s emergency contact.
The child who used to keep quiet now asks questions.
And people will say you’ve changed.
You have.
That is the point.
But changing a pattern can feel incredibly uncomfortable, especially when the pattern is older than you are.
Maybe your mother swallowed her anger.
Maybe your father never apologised.
Maybe everybody in your family knew how to provide but nobody knew how to talk about feelings.
Maybe love was expressed through sacrifice, but rarely through tenderness.
Maybe conflict was either shouting or silence. Nothing in between.
So you grow up and carry these things without realising it.
Then one day you hear yourself speaking to someone you love in exactly the way you promised yourself you never would.
Or you realise you are choosing the same kind of people who hurt you before.
Or you keep saying yes when every part of you wants to say no.
And you have to stop and ask yourself:
Where did I learn this?
Not to blame your parents.
Not to blame your childhood for everything.
But to understand yourself.
Because sometimes breaking a pattern starts with admitting that there is a pattern.
And this is where boundaries become difficult.
Because in our culture, boundaries can easily be mistaken for disrespect.
You don’t answer every call? You’re rude.
You don’t give money? You’ve changed.
You don’t attend every family event? You think you’re better than everyone.
You choose your own life instead of doing what everybody expects? What will people say?
Sometimes I think what will people say? has controlled more Nigerian lives than we realise.
People have stayed in unhappy marriages because of it.
People have chosen careers they hate because of it.
People have hidden abuse because of it.
People have spent money they didn’t have trying to look successful because of it.
People have lived entire lives performing for an audience that was never going to be satisfied anyway.
And perhaps part of healing is deciding that other people’s opinions cannot be the GPS for your life.
This doesn’t mean becoming selfish.
It doesn’t mean cutting everyone off.
It doesn’t mean every difficult relationship is toxic and everyone who disagrees with you is a narcissist.
Sometimes you need to apologise.
Sometimes you need to compromise.
Sometimes you need to stay and do the hard work.
But sometimes you need to leave.
Sometimes you need to say no.
Sometimes you need distance.
And sometimes the most loving thing you can do is stop participating in a pattern that is hurting everyone involved.
I think we talk a lot about healing ourselves.
But perhaps we should also talk about healing what we pass on.
Because the way we treat our children matters.
The way we speak to our partners matters.
The things we normalise in our homes matter.
If I grew up believing that anger gives me permission to humiliate people, and I pass that belief to my children, then my unresolved pain does not end with me.
It travels.
That is the part that frightens me.
Our wounds have a way of becoming family traditions if nobody stops to question them.
So maybe healing is not becoming completely okay.
Maybe it is becoming more aware.
Catching yourself before you repeat something.
Apologising when you get it wrong.
Learning to have difficult conversations.
Saying no without writing a three-page explanation.
Leaving when staying is destroying you.
Asking for help.
Resting without feeling guilty.
And accepting that you can love your family deeply and still need boundaries with them.
You can forgive someone and still not trust them.
You can understand why someone hurt you and still decide that they no longer get access to you.
You can love someone and choose yourself too.
Maybe that is the kind of healing we need to talk about more.
Not the neat kind.
The messy kind.
The kind that makes you question things you were taught.
The kind that sometimes makes you feel guilty.
The kind where you realise that being a good person does not mean being endlessly available to everyone.
And maybe, just maybe, healing is not about becoming stronger so we can tolerate more.
Maybe it is learning that we don’t have to tolerate everything in the first place.