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We Were Told to Heal in a House on Fire

They tell us to meditate, to stretch, to turn off the news, to light candles, to forgive our parents, to take deep breaths – as if that will keep the ash from filling our lungs. But healing — real healing — asks for more than self-discipline.

It asks for safety, stillness, and for some baseline assurance that when we close our eyes, the world won’t burn down around us. And yet here we are — told to repair ourselves inside a house already ablaze.

The floorboards of society groan beneath our feet. The climate crisis intensifies, with 2023 recorded as the hottest year in human history. War has become ambient noise. Over 37,000 civilians were killed in Gaza within just seven months, the majority of them women and children. In the U.S., more than half a million people experience homelessness on a given night, while corporate profits soar.

And somehow, in the thick of it all, we’re told to “do the work.”

There is a deep cruelty in the current rhetoric of personal responsibility. When the systems built to protect us are actively harming us — when governments sanction violence, when billionaires profit off collapse — telling the individual to “heal” feels like gaslighting.

Therapy cannot stop the ice caps from melting. No amount of yoga will demilitarize the police. You cannot gratitude-journal your way out of a housing crisis.

And yet, the pressure persists. In a neoliberal world, healing has been privatized and marketed. “Wellness” has become a trillion-dollar industry, selling productivity disguised as peace. Brands post pastel infographics about self-love while continuing to invest in exploitative labor and fossil fuel industries.

Meanwhile, those who can’t maintain this illusion of wholeness are pathologized.

Still, we try. Because what else can we do? We wake up and make coffee even as forests burn. We go on dates knowing the ocean is rising. We grieve in motion — scrolling, commuting, paying rent.

And within that absurdity, there is something achingly human. To keep hoping, loving, making art while surrounded by collapse — that is resistance, too.

Audre Lorde wrote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare” (A Burst of Light, 1988). And yet, even she knew that self-care was never meant to replace collective action. Her words were rooted in survival under racism, homophobia, and chronic illness — not in $80 jade rollers.

So what does real healing look like?

It looks like housing as a human right. Access to clean water, nutritious food, and mental healthcare. A climate policy that prioritizes people over profit.

It looks like demilitarization — not just abroad, but at home. The U.S. allocates over $800 billion annually to its military budget, while public schools, mental health services, and emergency housing go underfunded.

Healing looks like reparations, ceasefires, accountability, and redistributing resources — because it’s just.

This doesn’t mean we abandon our inner work. But we must hold two truths:

Yes, we need to care for our bodies and minds — and yes, our suffering is not only personal, but systemic.

Our anxiety is not a character flaw. It is a consequence of living in a collapsing empire. Our depression is not laziness, but a rational reaction to constant grief, overstimulation, and disconnection.

We must stop asking “what’s wrong with me?” and start asking “what happened to us?”

We are not broken—we are breaking under pressure. There’s a difference.

So no, I won’t tell you to smile more. Or to breathe deeper.

I will tell you this: if you feel tired, heavy, hopeless — you are not alone. If healing feels impossible some days, that’s because it is. Not because you’re defective, but because the fire is real.

But even in a burning house, people find each other, they pass buckets of water, they build exits, they open windows. They refuse to let each other burn.

That is healing, too.

Not the glossy kind sold in Instagram ads — but the raw, defiant, collective kind.

The kind that might just carry us through.

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