If You Haven’t Screamed, Danced, Cried, or Sang, I Hope You Give Yourself That Gift Soon

An invitation to come apart

I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about the way healing is often framed — especially in the self-help space — and how often it’s reduced to a checklist: journal, meditate, drink water, “do the work.”

But what about the work of wailing? Of belly-laughing? Of throwing your arms up and dancing barefoot in the middle of your grief?

What about the kind of healing that invites you to feel it all?

We live in a world where our wellness is often measured by how well we return to productivity — how quickly we can get back to work, how fast we can “bounce back,” how much of our inner world can be made efficient, palatable, and useful to others.

But what if that’s not what healing is for?

Why would we expect our healing to mimic the value system of the very world that exhausted us?

If you’re feeling tired — not just physically, but soul-deep — I want to offer this reminder gently: it is incredibly difficult to heal in the same environment that made you sick. Not impossible. But hard. And healing often asks for space. For pause. For quiet that isn’t about silence, but about sanctuary.

Sometimes we have to step away — not to abandon, but to remember yourself. To hear your own voice again. To trust it.

Because healing, at its core, is not about “fixing” everything or everyone that’s been touched by your pain. It’s not about mending the family dynamic, restoring the friendship, smoothing over every ripple. Healing isn’t about becoming who you were before — it’s about creating who you are now, in the wake of what’s been lost and learned.

And that process takes imagination. Dreaming. A sense of possibility.

But how can we dream into the future when all we’ve been taught is to “be okay enough” to keep going?

The truth is, many of us have been carrying the quiet belief that healing is only valid if it’s useful — if it helps us become better workers, better daughters, better wives, better friends. If it makes us easier to love. Easier to be around. Easier to understand.

And if we trace that belief far enough back, we find something sharper hiding underneath it:

This world has a strange and persistent entitlement to the suffering of people, especially women and marginalized people. There is a social script that says we owe our pain to others — as proof of our resilience, as a cautionary tale, as a way to make others more comfortable.

We are often expected to narrate our wounds before we are even allowed to name them.

To explain ourselves before we’ve had time to feel what’s true.

We’re taught to package our healing into something legible and lovely — not for ourselves, but for the consumption of others.

But healing isn’t performance. It isn’t productivity. And it doesn’t need to be beautiful to be real.

You don’t need to make your grief legible in order for it to matter.

You don’t need to shrink your anger into something graceful.

You don’t need to be useful in your suffering.

You just need space. And softness. And moments of aliveness that remind your body what it means to be a living, breathing, dreaming thing.

And here’s another tender truth that’s hard to name:

Competency — the ability to solve problems, move through life with ease, show up and follow through — is a huge component of how others perceive us positively. When you’re dealing with things that aren’t easily resolved — a chronic illness, mental health challenges, persistent grief — it can feel like your very being starts to strain under the weight of others’ disappointment. Like you’re a burden.

When healing takes time, or when it doesn’t yield the kind of “results” people are used to seeing, you might start to believe the problem is you. That you’re not trying hard enough. That you’re somehow failing at getting better.

And sometimes the people who love you most, who are trying their best, may still struggle to meet you with patience or compassion.

That shame — both internal and social — can make healing feel even farther away.

But you’re not broken for being in process. You’re not a problem to be solved. You’re a person. Worthy of love, belonging, and tenderness, even in the slow and uncertain becoming.

You have the right to cry.

You have the right to scream.

You have the right to lay on the floor and feel sorry for yourself.

You have the right to feel joy so big, the surprise of it swallows you up.

You have the right to dance, even if you don’t know how.

You have the right to sing, even if your voice shakes.

You have the right to build a future that isn’t shaped around your wounds, but around your wants.

Healing is not about becoming more efficient. It’s about becoming more you.

So if you haven’t screamed or danced or cried or sang in a while, maybe this is your invitation.

Not because you have to. But because you can.

And that’s something sacred.

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If this piece spoke to something in you—if my writing has ever helped you feel seen, softened, or strengthened—I want to gently ask for your support.

I’ve just begun my writing sabbatical in Sicily, where I’m tending to my health, my creativity, and the slow work of writing my book. I’ll be sharing more pieces like this, more glimpses into the journey, and more ways I’m learning to keep the fire lit—even in uncertain times.

Direct support is something I’m still learning how to ask for, and I’m practicing saying thank you more often, more fully. Your support helps me create spaciousness to write, rest, and keep building this work with care.

If you feel moved to contribute, here are the ways to do that:

• Venmo: @Jamila-Bradley

• CashApp: $JBradley8

• GoFundMe: Jamila’s Writing Sabbatical and Health Journey

Thank you for being here. Thank you for holding space. Thank you for helping me keep going.

in kinship,

Jamila