It's Time To Throw Away Your Self-Help Books

I can't hold it in any longer and just have to say it outright: It's time to let go of self-help books. 

The recipe-like approach to healing doesn't work because healing does not have a "one size fits all" approach. There is no singular definition or "recipe" for healing. 

It's more than the bubble bath, pedicure, or candle-based mood lighting a modern-day self-help guru may tout. Healing is an exhausting and turbulent emotional roller coaster where the on/off button is broken. 

This is what healing means to me: 

It's the all-encompassing word for self-reflection and forgiveness. Healing is the moment when sadness embraces you like a plush comforter on a cold day. Days that are equally draining as invigorating and as beautiful as they are awful. One day may bring self-soothing with the emotional eating Band-Aid where all you want is to emotionally bypass and hide, while the next may bring gratitude and celebration of self-love. 

Healing is accepting and feeling everything as it comes instead of resisting. Healing is allowing yourself to face it.