View this post on Instagram

I want to tell you about a moment that changed the way I think about healing.

Not the Instagram version with soft music and candlelight, but the real kind: slow, sometimes messy, often inconvenient, and deeply worth it.

It happened many years ago. I was around 26 and had not spoken to my mother for almost a year as I worked through some difficult lingering issues from childhood. I picked up the phone and dialed the number that had been ours since I was a child. No cell phone, just a cordless attached to the wall.

Our conversation felt…complicated. Shaky ground built over decades of misunderstandings, love that didn’t always know how to show itself, and more recently silence, like I mentioned.

This call wasn’t going well. I was angry—tired of pretending things were okay when I had never really understood how she’d let so much happen without stepping in. I didn’t want apologies anymore; I wanted acknowledgment. I wanted clarity.

And if I’m honest, I was bracing myself for another shutdown, the kind where one of us says “let’s not go there,” and the line goes dead.

But then, just as I was about to end the call, she said something that stopped me cold:

“Eddie, the best revenge is living well.”

She didn’t say it with drama. It came out like a breath, something she’d been holding in for years.

I didn’t respond right away. I just stood there with the phone pressed to my ear, letting her words sink in. The best revenge is living well. Not yelling. Not proving. Not dragging someone into therapy or confrontation. Living. Well.

Now, that might not sound radical, but for someone who grew up in a home plagued by control and complicit silence—where love came with conditions and fear was a regular visitor—it was. Up until then, I had been working hard to “get past it,” to be successful, to help others, to stay functional.

Sure, all that mattered, but living well? That felt different. It sounded like peace. Like choosing joy not in spite of the past, but instead of letting it win.

Here’s the thing about trauma: it teaches you to brace. Even in calm moments, your body waits for the shoe to drop. And when it doesn’t, it still flinches. Healing isn’t about erasing those instincts—it’s about recognizing them without letting them run the show.

I’d been doing the work—therapy, reflection, writing, service. I had built a beautiful life in many ways. But there was still a part of me, tucked away, that didn’t believe I was truly free of what happened. My mom’s words unlocked something, like she handed me a key I didn’t know I needed.

In that moment, I saw two paths: one where I kept replaying the pain like a loop I couldn’t shut off, and another where I chose to live so fully, so purposefully, that the pain couldn’t follow me there. Not because it was gone—but because I’d stopped inviting it in.

That’s when I realized: healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about living in such a way that your wholeness becomes undeniable. Not performative. Not polished. Just true.

If you’re reading this and you’ve been through something—loss, betrayal, trauma—you don’t need a dramatic turning point. You don’t have to wait for the perfect apology or the right therapist or the next version of yourself. You can start now.

Living well doesn’t mean pretending it didn’t hurt. It means making room for the parts of you that survived and letting them have a say in what comes next.

For me, it looked like this:

>> I stopped apologizing for needing boundaries.

>> I prioritized deep friendships and enduring where I could be fully seen.

>> I chose work that fed my purpose, not just my resume.

>> I learned to tell my story not as a victim, but as someone who’s still writing new chapters.

And yes, I forgave—not always others, but myself, for holding on so long.

So here’s my ask of you, whether you’re healing from something, walking beside someone who is, or just wondering if you’re allowed to slow down and exhale: don’t wait for closure to begin living well. Choose something small today that reflects the life you want, not the one you had to endure.

Maybe it’s calling someone who makes you feel safe. Maybe it’s saying no to something that drains you. Maybe it’s writing a letter you never send. Whatever it is, let it be real.

Because healing isn’t a destination. It’s a direction. And the best revenge—the truest one—is not about looking back.

It’s about walking forward, with love.

~