Sometimes Healing Looks Like Stepping Back
This blog post was written by Liluye COO, Monica Griffin, who is an accomplished business strategist, survivor advocate, and behavioral health coach dedicated to empowering individuals affected by human trafficking.
There is a version of strength many of us learn too early in life. The kind that teaches us to keep showing up no matter how exhausted we are. The kind that applauds endurance while quietly ignoring depletion. The kind that tells survivors, advocates, caregivers, leaders, and women especially that our value is measured by how much we can carry for everyone else.
For a long time, I believed that version of strength was the only one that existed.
And if I’m honest, advocacy work can sometimes reinforce that belief without us even realizing it. When your heart is connected to a mission deeply rooted in healing, justice, empowerment, and survival, it becomes easy to lose the line between serving others and sacrificing yourself entirely.
Over this past year with Liluye, I poured myself into this work with every part of who I was… the programs, the storytelling, the financial healing conversations, the vulnerability, the advocacy, the community. None of it was surface-level work for me. It came directly from lived experience, from survival, from rebuilding, from trying to create meaning out of pain. But, somewhere along the way, I forgot that healing is not meant to become another performance.
These last several months have been deeply transformative for me. Quietly transformative. The kind of transformation that happens internally long before anyone else sees it externally. A season of grief, regrowth, recalibration, and rebirth. A season where I had to confront how long I had been living in survival mode…
Survival mode emotionally.
Survival mode financially.
Survival mode mentally.
Survival mode spiritually.
Constantly producing.
Constantly pouring.
Constantly carrying.
Constantly proving.
And eventually, my body and spirit asked me a difficult question: What would happen if you stopped performing strength long enough to actually rest?
For the first time in a very long time, I am choosing to build a life rooted in sustainability instead of survival. A life where peace exists alongside purpose. A life where joy comes easier. A life where rest does not have to be earned through burnout.
This season has required solitude.
It has required boundaries.
It has required difficult decisions.
It has required stepping back from spaces and responsibilities I care about deeply in order to reconnect with myself, my daughter, my future, my education, and the foundation I am trying to build for the years ahead.
And while stepping back can sometimes feel like failure, I am learning that healing often requires space.
Space to breathe.
Space to listen to yourself again.
Space to rebuild without urgency.
Space to become someone new.
At Liluye, we often speak about healing as though it is linear, inspiring, and beautiful. But sometimes healing is quiet. Sometimes it looks like unanswered messages because someone is trying to survive the weight they cannot yet explain. Sometimes it looks like exhaustion. Sometimes it looks like solitude. Sometimes it looks like choosing yourself after years of abandoning yourself for everyone else. And that deserves compassion, too.
I think one of the most important things we can normalize within advocacy spaces, non-profit leadership, survivor communities, and healing-centered work is the understanding that rest is not betrayal.
Stepping back is not weakness.
Needing support is not failure.
Choosing stability is not selfishness.
And, rebuilding your own life does not mean you care any less about helping others rebuild theirs. If anything, it means you are finally learning to extend the same compassion inward that you so freely offer outward.
Liluye will always hold a sacred place in my heart because this community reminded me that voices rooted in truth have power. That healing deserves conversation. That survivors deserve spaces where they are seen beyond what happened to them.
While this season has asked me to become quieter, softer, and more inward than I have ever been before, I trust that there is purpose in that, too.
Maybe healing is not always about becoming stronger. Maybe sometimes healing is simply about finally allowing yourself to rest long enough to become whole again.
To learn more about Monica’s work and our leadership: https://liluye.org/team/
For more information about Liluye or to inquire about becoming a partner, please visit: www.liluye.org/contact. Or, if you are interested in donating to Liluye, please visit: www.liluye.org/donate.