From Peacekeeping to Peacemaking: A Healing Manifesto



A Declaration of Truth, Health, and Alignment

I believe healing is not about becoming someone new.

It is about returning to who you were before you learned to stay quiet to survive.

I believe silence is not peace.

Avoiding conflict does not heal wounds—it buries them.

What is buried does not disappear; it lives in the body, the nervous system, and the patterns we repeat.

I believe there is a difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking.

Peacekeeping asks one person to carry the discomfort so others don’t have to change.

Peacemaking asks for truth, accountability, and courage—even when it disrupts familiarity.

I believe healing is layered.

Each layer brings clarity, grief, and choice.

And often, the hardest part of healing is realizing that not everyone will come with you.

I believe you cannot heal while pretending nothing happened.

You cannot grow while silencing yourself to keep relationships intact.

And you cannot move forward while returning to environments that require you to abandon yourself.

I believe healthy people are not perfect people.

They take responsibility.

They repair.

They learn.

They choose growth over ego and truth over comfort.

I believe unhealthy patterns survive on minimization:

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“That’s just how they are.”

“Everyone makes mistakes.”

Healing begins when those statements stop working.

I believe the body keeps the score.

What is not spoken becomes anxiety, depression, chronic pain, panic, and collapse.

Healing is not just emotional—it is physical, relational, and spiritual.

I believe faith and healing can coexist with anger, doubt, and questioning.

Healing does not require blind obedience.

It requires honesty.

I believe boundaries are not punishment.

They are protection.

And choosing distance is sometimes the most loving decision—for everyone involved.

I believe speaking the truth does not make you difficult.

It makes you awake.

This space exists for those who are tired of surviving.

For those who feel the pull toward health but fear what it may cost.

For those learning to listen to their body, their heart, and their soul.

I am not here to convince.

I am here to tell the truth as I live it.

Healing is not linear.

But it is worth it.

— Kristi

Shared as lived experience, not professional advice.

Welcome Here: This Is a Healing Space

Welcome.

If you found your way here, I want you to know this space was created with intention, honesty, and care.

This blog isn’t about having it all figured out. It isn’t about quick fixes, advice, or pretending healing is linear. It exists because healing—real healing—comes in layers, and sometimes you don’t recognize those layers until you’re already standing in the middle of them.

I’ve learned that healing doesn’t begin when life becomes calm. It begins when you finally stop running from the things that hurt and allow yourself to face them—gently, honestly, and at your own pace. For me, that meant stepping away from noise, expectations, and environments that no longer aligned with who I am becoming.

You may notice that many of my reflections speak about silence, solitude, and needing time. That’s intentional. Healing isn’t always loud or visible. Sometimes it looks like pausing. Sometimes it looks like choosing not to explain yourself anymore. And sometimes it looks like finally listening to your own voice after years of tuning it out.

This space is not about blaming others or reliving pain endlessly. It’s about understanding how past experiences shaped us—and how awareness allows us to choose differently now. It’s about learning that anxiety and depression often come from living disconnected from our true selves, and that peace begins when we realign with what our heart and soul already know.

If faith is part of your journey, you’ll see that reflected here as well. For me, healing has meant reconnecting not only with myself, but with God—learning to hear His guidance in the quiet, not the chaos.

I’m sharing my journey as lived experience, not instruction. Take what resonates. Leave what doesn’t. There is no pressure to heal faster, better, or louder here.

If you’re in a season of questioning, slowing down, or needing space—

you are not behind.

You are not broken.

You are becoming.

Thank you for being here. 🤍

Healing from trauma is much more complex than I ever imagined.

It’s like connecting dots to memories and moments you tucked away so long ago, you forgot they were even there.

At first, healing feels slow and steady—just enough to notice that something is changing, but not enough to see where it’s leading. And then, almost all at once, things begin to unravel. Moments that once sent me into deep depression no longer do. Instead, they bring me into silence—where I can sit with the memory, understand how it affected me long-term, and finally let it go because it no longer belongs to my life now.

Solitude during healing isn’t wrong. It isn’t bad. For me, it was healthy—and necessary.

In the beginning, my overthinking tried to convince me otherwise. But over time, that noise faded. I stopped running from the memories when they surfaced and started sitting with them. And for the first time, I truly understood them.

The more I healed, the more I naturally stepped away—from crowds, events, gatherings, even relationships that no longer felt safe or aligned. Healing for me was never about cutting people off out of anger. It was about finally understanding why my anxiety spiked around certain people, why depression followed certain interactions, and why my body always knew what my mind tried to ignore.

My whole life, I tried to explain my pain—how something hurt, how something didn’t feel right—but no one really listened. I was told to “suck it up,” “be the bigger person,” or “do what’s right.” So I adapted. I survived. I built walls instead of authentic connections. I became someone I no longer recognize now that I’m healing.

So many people see healing as something negative.

“Why would you do that if it isolates you?”

“You don’t do that to family.”

But if they could see the years, the pain, the weight of constantly forcing myself into environments that were never meant for me, they might understand. Instead, many choose not to look inward. And that’s why healing can feel so lonely.

For a long time, I questioned myself. I wondered if something was wrong with me—why I couldn’t tolerate what others seemed to accept so easily. But the truth is, I think some people are barely holding themselves together. You see it in the anger, the outbursts, the harsh words. That’s what happens when you keep forcing yourself to stay in places that don’t align with who you are.

Healing begins when you step out of chaos and into silence—where you can finally hear your own thoughts again. Where you can align with your true self. And if faith is part of your journey, where you can hear God’s voice too.

Healing is aligning your heart and soul.

Listening to everyone else’s expectations creates anxiety and depression.

Listening to your own truth creates peace.

If you’re on this healing journey and questioning yourself—I did too. For over a year and a half. But when I began to say no… when I allowed myself to be still and stop explaining my pain to people who tried to fix or reshape it—that’s when peace finally arrived.

Healing means reclaiming your voice. Listening to your own needs. And trusting God’s guidance. It feels scary at first—but it isn’t wrong. It’s quiet. It’s hard. And it’s deeply peaceful.

If you’re on this journey, keep going.

You’re not lost.

You’re already on the way. 🤍

💛 Final Message

Healing is not easy.

But healing is possible.

And healing is your responsibility.

You don’t heal to hate people.

You heal to understand them.

And then you choose boundaries that protect your peace.

My journey is long.

My wounds were deep.

My triggers were loud.

My survival mode was strong.

But I’m still here.

I’m healing.

And if you’re reading this…

I’m here for you, too.

🕊️

💫 Why I’m Sharing My Story

Not to blame.

Not to shame.

Not to hurt anyone.

But to bring understanding:

• to people who don’t get trauma

• to people who think you can “just move on”

• to people who think childhood doesn’t matter

• to people who feel broken and can’t explain why

• to anyone healing and feeling alone in it

I share so you know:

• you’re not dramatic

• you’re not crazy

• you’re not weak

• your reactions make sense

• your symptoms are survival

• your triggers started somewhere

• your healing is not too late

And I share so you can see what healing actually looks like—not the pretty Pinterest version, but the raw, emotional, gut-level truth no one wants to talk about.

🧩 What Healing Actually Looks Like

People think healing is:

• journaling

• meditating

• therapy

• reading books

• “time will fix it”

Healing is actually:

• confronting your triggers

• understanding the roots

• breaking generational traits

• grieving the childhood you didn’t get

• outgrowing people you love

• walking away from cycles

• setting boundaries that disappoint others

• realizing your nervous system was wired for chaos

• unlearning who you became to survive

And the hardest realization?

I wasn’t healing just one thing.

I was healing everything:

• childhood neglect

• emotional abandonment

• parentification

• alcoholism in the home

• spiritual confusion

• relationship trauma

• narcissistic cycles

• patterns I didn’t recognize until adulthood

• the wounds that only show up when you’re safe

Healing is never one wound.

It’s layers.

Hundreds of them.

🦋 The Trigger I Couldn’t Ignore

Healing from abuse is one thing.

Healing from childhood trauma is another.

But healing from family systems that refuse to heal themselves

…that’s a whole different battle.

I thought I had healed everything I needed to.

Until this Thanksgiving.

I walked into that house and realized something:

I healed. They didn’t.

And suddenly nothing felt right anymore.

I couldn’t share what I’d survived.

I couldn’t speak about the hardest year of my life.

They laughed, minimized, avoided, deflected, and changed the subject.

I wasn’t unsafe.

I was unseen.

And that’s when it hit me:

You can’t heal in the same environment that broke you.

💖 And Then I Met My Husband

He was everything I prayed for:

• honest

• loyal

• soft-hearted

• caring

• protective

• steady

And I didn’t know what to do with it.

My nervous system only knew survival mode.

So kindness felt suspicious.

Safety felt foreign.

Love felt like a trap.

I questioned everything he did.

Not because of who he was—

but because of what had been done to me.

Healing in a healthy relationship is brutal.

But we did it.

We grew.

We stumbled.

We healed layer by layer.

And now, four years in—two years married—I finally understand what healthy love feels like.

But even then… something was still haunting me.

💔 My Marriages: Repeating Familiar Pain

I married the same person three times — because cycles feel like home until you break them.

Marriage #1

We drifted. We were disconnected. I wasn’t surprised when it ended.

Marriage #2

This one shattered me. I didn’t think I’d recover. I thought “this must be the trauma I’m meant to heal.”  This divorce never went through the courts.  He filed, but ended up pulling it back five months later.  We didn’t end up divorcing for real a few years later…This one blindsided me. And even after it ended, the cycle repeated itself one more time before I finally closed the door for good.

Marriage #3

2020 — the year the world stayed home —

was the year I felt trapped, suffocated, and spiritually broken…

but also the year that pushed me into the deepest healing of my life.

I’m the one who ended marriage #3…for good.

🌪️ Childhood: Where the Wounds Began

Growing up, I didn’t experience the “healthy divorce” people talk about.

There was no co-parenting, no communication, no shared emotional responsibility.

There was:

• emotional chaos

• inconsistency

• neglect

• criticism

• being forgotten and pushed aside

That childhood shaped my nervous system.

It taught me survival, not safety.

And for decades, I believed time would heal me.

But time doesn’t heal what you never felt safe enough to face.