Healing Isn’t Always Peaceful: Learning to Receive Care While Still in Survival Mode

I was scrolling social media, not really looking for anything, when a video popped up.

The message was simple:

Life is going to work out perfectly for you.

The people who are meant for you will show up.

The ones who aren’t will fall away.

You’ll have a beautiful life.

I couldn’t finish it.

My chest tightened and I immediately scrolled away. Not because I didn’t believe it but because something about it made me deeply uncomfortable. And that discomfort stayed with me because healing isn’t always peaceful.

Healing Isn’t Always Peaceful

It’s strange how even hope can feel like a threat when you’ve lived most of your life waiting for the other shoe to drop. When you’ve had to stay alert, adjust quickly, and power through things that never actually felt good. In those moments, peace doesn’t always register as peace. It registers as unfamiliar.

And unfamiliar doesn’t always feel safe.

That tightening in my chest?

That was my nervous system saying, I don’t know how to live in softness yet. I haven’t fully learned what ease feels like in my body. And if I’m honest, I’m still learning. I’m still in the thick of it.

I’ve made choices that didn’t align with what I needed. Stayed in relationships, jobs, patterns, and environments that drained me not because they were fulfilling, but because I was conditioned to push through. To endure. To keep showing up even when it cost me everything I worked so hard for.

But surviving is not the same as living. And I’m no longer willing to sentence myself to a life that drains me because I didn’t get it right the first time.

If a relationship (romantic, platonic, familial), or a job, lifestyle, habit, or version of self requires me to lose pieces of who I am just to keep it going, it’s not love, it's not sustainable. It’s survival pretending to be connection. And I won’t keep trading myself for belonging.

That’s what Ryane Ashley represents for me. Not just skincare. Not a business I built for optics or momentum. But a daily, intentional reminder that I am creating a life that feels fulfilling, not just full. One built around peace, care, and clarity.

It reminds me that I don’t need constant motion or distractions. I value slow mornings. Meaningful conversations. Good food. A home that feels harmonious.

Peace matters to me. And everything I give my energy to needs to reflect that.

Every facial I create. Every blog I write. Every routine I help build. It’s all connected to a deeper truth:

I don’t want to just function. I want to feel. To heal. To exist in spaces where care isn’t something I have to ask for, it’s the baseline.

And if you’re in a season of untangling yourself from relationships or patterns that demand too much of you and give too little in return, I want to gently remind you; being considerate is not something you can teach. It’s instinct. It’s integrity. If someone’s love, whether a person, a job, or a version of your life demands that you silence your needs, that’s not love. That’s a pattern. And patterns that keep costing you, you, are never worth your sacrifices.

Receiving care doesn’t have to hurt

Let this be your reminder that discomfort doesn’t always mean danger. Sometimes it just means you’re expanding. Sometimes it means you’re finally getting closer to the version of your life that doesn’t ask you to shrink. You have to stop abandoning yourself in the name of loyalty or devotion. That’s what I’m practicing, too.

And slowly, I’m learning to breathe through the tightness. Receiving care doesn’t have to hurt. It’s not something you have to earn, prove yourself worthy of, or barter for by over giving. Real care is not transactional. Life is going to work out perfectly for me. I don’t need to perform. I don’t need to meet someone else’s needs just to feel like I matter. My value is not measured by my usefulness or how much of myself I give away. I will be supported without needing to first fall apart. I will receive without explaining or exhausting myself. The people who are meant for me will show up, just because. The people who aren’t will fall away. I will have a beautiful life and it will come together; one quiet, intentional moment at a time.

Because the kind of care that nourishes you doesn’t require sacrifice. It invites softness. It reminds you that rest is not a reward and peace is not a prize, it’s the baseline. This is my standard now. For my life. For my relationships. For how I love others, and how I allow myself be loved in return.

With care, unconditionally, Ryane Ashley