You Can’t Perform Your Way Into Healing

Why survival strategies can’t take you to where healing lives. Here's what to choose instead.

Let me ask you something tender.

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “I’m doing everything right—so why do I still feel so tired?”
You’ve ticked the boxes. Showed up for work. Showed up for family. Checked on your friends. Delivered. Accomplished. Smiled. Handled it. Again and again.

You’ve played the part of the strong one. The capable one. The one who just figures it out. And maybe people even admire you for that.

But under the weight of all that performance, you feel... hollow. Maybe even a little lost.

I want to tell you something today—not to shame you, but to free you.

You can’t perform your way into healing.

No amount of overachieving, overgiving, or over-controlling will ever get you the rest your soul is craving. Because those are survival tools. And survival tools are not the same as healing practices.

When Survival Becomes the Norm

I used to think that if I could just achieve enough, love hard enough, or show up flawlessly enough, I’d finally feel okay.

I’d finally silence that anxious knot in my chest. I’d finally feel like I was enough.
But that strategy never worked. It only kept me in a loop—overworking, overthinking, overextending—trying to outrun a pain I had never fully named.

And I’m not alone in that. I know you’ve likely been there too.

In last week’s Black Girl Burnout episode, I talked about how easy it is to confuse survival with healing and how we sometimes reach for things like relationships, productivity, and even material comfort, not out of desire, but out of avoidance.

Avoidance of silence. Of stillness. Of sitting with ourselves.

I shared a truth I’ve come to know deeply: What we often call “doing our best” is really just us performing old roles, roles we think keep us safe but really keep us stuck.

Roles like “the strong one,” “the good daughter,” “the reliable friend,” “the fix-it partner.”
Roles that reward us for giving everything… while asking nothing for ourselves.

But here’s the thing about performance—it never satisfies. It only exhausts.

The Performances That Leave Us Depleted

There are so many ways we perform. And most of them have been taught to us as a way to survive. Maybe these feel familiar to you:

• Overgiving: Always putting others before yourself, hoping it will make you lovable or worthy.

• Overachieving: Collecting titles, degrees, accomplishments—trying to outrun your own self-doubt.

• Overcontrolling: Needing everything to be “just right” because if you let go, it might all fall apart.

• Over-intimacy: Rushing emotional or physical closeness to feel connection—even if it’s not reciprocal.

And while these things may have protected us at some point, they can’t carry us toward peace. They don’t lead us to healing.
They just keep us running.

So What Does Healing Actually Look Like?

Healing isn’t glamorous. It’s not loud or performative. It’s often quiet. Small. Subtle.

It looks like:

• Saying “no” without explaining yourself

• Taking a nap instead of pushing through

• Crying without rushing to fix it

• Being with your thoughts without numbing or escaping

• Choosing yourself before the world even asks for you

It looks like letting go of the need to be “good” and choosing instead to be whole.

It looks like rest—not just physical, but emotional.
The kind of rest that comes from not needing to prove anything to anyone, anymore.

A Moment of Reflection

If you feel like you’ve been stuck in a performance loop, I want to invite you into a gentle pause.

Ask yourself:

• What am I avoiding with all this doing?

• What would it feel like to stop striving—even for just one day?

• Whose love am I still performing for?

• What would softness look like for me this week?

You don’t have to answer perfectly. You don’t have to solve it all today.
You just have to tell yourself the truth.

That’s where healing begins.

You Deserve Rest, Not Just Resilience

This is your reminder:

You don’t have to earn rest.
You don’t have to prove your worth.
You don’t have to perform to be loved.

You are enough—especially when you are just being.

Let this be the week you stop performing and start listening. Start tending to yourself like you’re worthy—because you are.

I’d love to hear from you—what survival strategy are you gently releasing this season? What might healing look like for you instead?
Share your reflections in the comments.
Let’s support each other in choosing softness over performance.