What the Elder Knew

A Lakota elder once said—
and I keep this where my spine remembers it—
You are not living
If you are not healing.

Which explains so much.

The rush.
The noise.
The endless choreography of distraction.
So many people are busy proving aliveness
while quietly avoiding repair.

Healing is inconvenient.
It asks for stillness.
It asks questions that don’t flatter the ego.

It ruins the performance.

But living?
Living has standards.

Living requires honesty.
Living insists you feel what you feel
before you monetize it, numb it, or spiritualize it
into something more “palatable.”

If you’re not healing,
You’re just surviving with better lighting.

I’ve seen people mistake endurance for purpose,
confuse motion with meaning,
call suffering “strength.”
because they’re afraid to lay the armor down.

Healing, though—
Healing is audacious.

It says:
I will not carry what was never mine.
I will not bleed for tradition.
I will not call familiarity love
just because it’s old.

Healing has a little sass.
It rolls its eyes at martyrdom.
It laughs gently at chaos.
It refuses to romanticize wounds.

It chooses repair over reputation.
Truth over politeness.
Freedom over being liked.

And when healing begins,
Life follows.

Color returns.
Time slows down.
The body exhales.
Joy stops feeling suspicious.

So yes—
The elder was right.

If you are not healing,
You may be breathing,
achieving, accumulating, performing—

But you are not living.

Living is the courage to mend.
The humility to release.
The elegance of choosing wholeness
Even when brokenness is familiar.

Anything else
is just noise
pretending to be a life.

Respectively yours,

Sherley Delia