Sometimes Healing Looks Like Stillness, Not Progress

by Juliana Fabio, LCSW

In our culture, we are taught to measure healing by momentum. Forward movement. Breakthroughs. “Doing better.”But anyone who has lived through profound grief or a major life transition knows that healing doesn’t always follow a linear trajectory. Sometimes, true healing looks nothing like progress—at least, not the kind we’re taught to recognize.

As a bereavement counselor and therapist who sits with individuals and families navigating loss, I’ve witnessed a different kind of healing—one that is quieter, slower, and deeply human. One that unfolds in the nervous system, not on the calendar. One that honors what the heart can hold, not what the world expects.

The Myth of Constant Progress

We live in a productivity-driven society where the expectation is always forward. Keep working. Keep moving. Keep improving.But grief, trauma, and major life transitions don’t respond to pressure. They respond to presence.

When someone has lost a loved one, or is moving through a major life shift—divorce, empty nesting, caregiving, aging, career change—the body often knows it needs stillness long before the mind does. This stillness isn’t avoidance. It’s recovery.

I often remind clients:Stillness is not stagnation. It is a form of healing.

Stillness Gives the Nervous System Space to Land

In my work supporting individuals and families through some of the most vulnerable chapters of life, I’ve come to see that stillness is often the moment the body finally feels safe enough to stop bracing. To stop performing.

Somatic practices teach us that healing happens when our system has enough room to settle. The real integration—the kind that actually shifts our internal landscape—happens not during the “big moments,” but in the quiet ones:

• A deep breath that doesn’t feel forced

• A night of sleep that feels just a little more restful

• A walk where the world feels less overwhelming

• A moment of softness when grief releases its grip

  
  

These moments are easy to dismiss, but they are signs of a nervous system remembering how to trust itself again.

You Don’t Have to Be Growing to Be Healing

Especially in grief work, I have seen that some of the most meaningful breakthroughs happen during periods of what looks like “nothing.”A client might say:

“I don’t think I’m improving—I’m just sitting with it.”Or: “I feel like I’m standing still.”Or: “I’m not doing much these days.”

And yet, beneath the surface, their system is reorganizing. Their heart is recalibrating. Their body is quietly weaving itself back together in ways they can’t yet see.

It’s similar to the stillness of winter: everything looks barren, but life is actually rooting deeper.

Stillness Is an Act of Courage

Allowing yourself to pause—to not have answers, solutions, or forward motion—is vulnerable. It goes against almost everything we are conditioned to believe about healing.

But stillness is where:

• Truth rises

• Feelings metabolize

• Boundaries clarify

• Energy replenishes

• The next step becomes clear organically

This type of healing requires gentleness, patience, and self-permission. And often, it’s the most transformative work someone will ever do.

What Stillness Can Look Like in Real Life

Stillness doesn’t always mean silence or retreat. Sometimes it’s simply:

• Doing less than you think you “should”

• Choosing rest over productivity

• Saying no to things that overwhelm your system

• Taking a few mindful breaths before reacting

• Sitting with grief instead of rushing past it

• Letting yourself be exactly where you already are

This is integration. This is repair. This is healing.

You Are Not Falling Behind—You Are Becoming

If you are in a season where your healing feels quiet, slow, or invisible, please know this:

You are not stuck. You are healing in ways that matter.You’re letting your system catch up to your life. You’re tending to the parts of you that can’t be rushed. You’re honoring the truth of what you’ve been through.

And sometimes, that is the bravest thing of all.