How Do You Speak to Yourself When You’re Hurting?

Remember The Journaling Muse? It’s a quiet little corner I created during April’s daily journaling challenge—and somehow never let go of. I said I wasn’t going to keep journalling every day. I meant it. I don’t even like journalling every day. But I do love what it opens up when the right question finds me. That’s what this is. I still post a new prompt every day, and when one of them speaks to me—like today’s did—I show up. I jump in. I see what spills out.

Today’s prompt is: How do you speak to yourself when you’re hurting?

If I’m being honest—and I try to be, always—it’s not kind. It’s never kind.

When I’m hurting, the voice inside me doesn’t speak with softness or compassion. It lashes. It criticizes. It turns the blade, always finding the tenderest spot. It’s a voice I’ve spent a lifetime trying to quiet, trying to outrun, trying to reason with. But it’s there. It’s still there. And sometimes, it’s louder than I want to admit.

It’s not my voice, not really. It’s an amalgamation of the voices I grew up with. The ones that belittled, dismissed, neglected. The ones that should have protected and nurtured me but didn’t. It’s the echo of every time I was made to feel small, unworthy, inconvenient, too much, or not enough. And though I wish I could say I’ve silenced it for good, I haven’t. I’ve just learned to live alongside it. To recognize it. To fight it when it starts to win.

There was a time I used to dream about the day that voice would disappear. About the peace I would feel when it finally stopped. But I’ve made peace with the fact that it won’t. This voice is stitched into me. It is part of my history. And maybe—just maybe—that doesn’t make me broken. Maybe that just makes me me.

Because for all its cruelty, that voice didn’t win. It didn’t stop me. I’m still here. I’ve built a beautiful life—a true life. I’ve surrounded myself with people who love me well, who speak to me in the way I once needed and never received. I’ve grown into someone I’m proud of. Someone who creates softness in a world that didn’t always offer it.

And the voice? I don’t let it pull me under anymore. I know what it is. I call it by name. I stay vigilant. And I keep going.

This is the work. And it will always be the work. That’s the truth I’ve come to accept. This voice will always make things harder. It will always mean I have to fight twice as hard to believe in myself, to rest, to feel joy without guilt. But I do feel joy. I do live. And I’m not letting that voice—those ghosts—be the reason I don’t live it all the way.

Not anymore.

Peace, Love, and Inspiration,
~Britt Wolfe💚