The Mind's Mercy

October 6, 2025

Our minds are merciful.

They protect us when the pain is too big to hold.

In the earliest days of grief, heartbreak, or shock, survival takes priority.

The mind wraps us in numbness or steel, blurs the edges,

lets only fragments through—just enough to keep breathing.

I’ve lived that mercy.

After the landslide. After my father’s death. After betrayal.

Each time, my mind built a wall between what happened

and what I was capable of feeling.

It wasn’t denial—it was protection.

It was my psyche whispering, Not yet.

You’re not ready for the full weight of this.

And as time moved, the wall began to soften.

Tiny memories rose to the surface—

a smell, a song, a place that reopened a sealed-off room.

And with them came another layer of truth,

another piece of pain I hadn’t been strong enough to hold before.

Lately, more has been surfacing.

I’ve been remembering the love, the tenderness, the hope and excitement—

the life that meant so much to me.

Memories that had been buried deep inside,

waiting for the moment my heart could meet them without shattering.

Sometimes it feels like regression,

like being dragged backward into sorrow I already survived.

But I’ve learned it’s actually forward motion—

the body and mind finally trusting me

to hold what was once unbearable.

Healing isn’t a straight line.

It’s a layered process—

each layer revealing what I’m finally ready to feel,

and what I no longer need to carry.

Healing is not forgetting.

It’s remembering safely.

It’s the slow return of every part of me

that I had to send into hiding just to make it through the fire.

And when the memories come now,

they don’t destroy me.

They remind me how far I’ve come,

how much I’ve grown,

and how profoundly the mind and heart work together

to bring us back to wholeness.