She Stayed: Celebrating the Courage of Women Who Are Still Healing”A Women’s History Month Reflection

March is Women’s History Month

And every year around this time we hear the names of remarkable women who shaped the world, leaders, activists, pioneers, trailblazers.
Their stories deserve to be celebrated.
But this month, I’ve been thinking about another kind of woman.
The woman whose story never made the history books.
The woman who didn’t lead a march but still fought a battle every single day, the woman who survived.
The woman who stayed.

The History We Don’t Always Talk About

When people talk about women’s strength, they often imagine loud victories and visible accomplishments. But many women’s victories happen quietly. A woman leaving an abusive situation and rebuilding her life.
A survivor choosing therapy even when her community doesn’t understand.
A mother raising children while healing wounds no one can see.
A woman living with chronic illness who refuses to let pain define her purpose. These stories may not make headlines, but they are history.
Because every time a woman chooses healing over silence, truth over shame, or life over despair, she shifts the future for the generations coming behind her, and that shift? That’s the kind of history that changes families, communities, and generations to come.

To the Women Who Are Still Healing

This month, I want to speak directly to the women who are doing the sacred work of healing. The women who are learning how to trust again, the women who are rebuilding their identity after trauma.
The women who are still asking God difficult questions while trying to keep their faith, women who show up to therapy even when it’s hard and who set boundaries even when it costs them relationships.
The women who choose rest even when the world tells them to push harder, because we know Healing is not weakness, it's courage.
It takes courage to look at your pain honestly, It demands courage to break cycles that have existed for generations. It requires courage to admit you need help, and to stay when every part of you wants to run.
And it takes courage to say, “My story will not end where the trauma began.” If you are in the process of healing, imperfectly, messily, slowly, you are doing brave work.

The Women Who Walk Alongside

Please, year me healing doesn’t happen in isolation, it happens in community, with women who see you, hold space for you, and walk the journey with you. This month, I want to honor four women who have been walking alongside me, women who embody what it means to heal while helping others heal:

My Sister, Candeesia (Candy)
Candy is a survivor of childhood sexual assault at the hands of my abuser. She carries her own health challenges, has walked through the pain of divorce, and is raising her daughter as a single mother, and through it all, she continues to forge forward. She works hard. She’s fiercely independent, building a life and a future for her daughter with determination and grace. But, what moves me most is how she shows up for other women. Candy is a major supporter of women-owned businesses, especially in the Black community. She advocates for her coworkers when they can’t speak for themselves. She supports other businesses and lifts up other women at every opportunity, she speaks to women from her own experience and encourages them with such authenticity and grace. My sis is still healing, still in therapy and still working through her own trauma responses and patterns while healing, she’s helping others heal too. That’s what makes her story so powerful, she’s not waiting until she’s “fully healed” to show up for others. She’s doing both at the same time.

Miss Regina
At 70t something years old, Ms. Regina is still in therapy, still doing the work, and still choosing healing every single day.
She’s an incest survivor, a recently retired Director of Community Health and Well-Being at Trinity Health of New England at Saint Francis Hospital, and a woman whose impact on Journey 2 Free has been nothing short of remarkable.
The moment we met and she heard my story, she decided to join forces with me. She didn’t just offer words of encouragement and move on. She showed up, serves on our board and traveled to Jamaica multiple times for our retreats. She’s personally supported the girls, even adopting some financially long after the retreats ended, making sure they had what they needed to continue their education and healing.
Miss Regina is a Master of Social Work (MSW) who continues to do advocacy work in her community even in retirement. Her healing journey is still unfolding, and she’s making remarkable strides. What inspires me most about Miss Regina is this: She could have retired from the work. She could have said, “I’ve done my part.” But instead, she continues to invest in the next generation of survivors.
She’s proof that healing is a lifelong journey, and that you can do meaningful work at every stage of it.

Ms. Tamika Bowe Lacroix
Three years ago, Tamika and I met at a summit. Out of all the women there, we connected deeply, our stories resonated, our hearts aligned, our missions overlapped. But Tamika (Tammy) didn’t just become a friend. She became an accountability partner, a prayer warrior, and a business visionary who helped me map out what I wanted Journey 2 Free to look like. When I was stuck and couldn’t see the path forward, She helped me create a roadmap, at times when I was overwhelmed and didn’t know how to pray, Tamika prayed for me and with me.
When I felt isolated in this work, Tamika introduced me to prayer communities and healing spaces that have carried me through some of my hardest seasons.
Coach Tammy is the host of the SEX ED for Saints Podcast, a powerful resource for married folks and singles navigating faith, intimacy, and healing. Her work is changing conversations in the church about sexuality, trauma, and wholeness, but beyond her platform, Tammy shows up as a friend, she checks in, prays and holds me accountable, she reminds me that I’m not walking this alone. That kind of friendship, the kind that holds space for your healing while also challenging you to keep moving forward, is rare and precious.

My Therapist
And then there’s the woman who sits with me week after week, helping me process the pain I couldn’t name on my own. My therapist has helped me reframe how I view myself. For years, I saw myself as broken, inconsistent, stuck. I blamed myself for not being further along in my healing. I carried shame about my trauma responses and thought they were character flaws. My therapist helped me see the truth: None of it was a character flaw. It was my nervous system trying to survive.
She’s given me context for experiences I thought were just “my fault.” She constantly reminds me that I’m not alone, that what I thought was unique brokenness is actually a common trauma response. She helped me understand that my self-blame, my “stuckness,” my inconsistency, all of it made sense given what I’d been through. And because of her guidance, I’m seeing shifts I never thought possible.
I’m learning to be gentle with myself. I’m learning to honor my body’s signals instead of pushing through them. I’m learning that healing isn’t linear, or a one-size-fits-all type of deal, and that’s okay.

Therapy isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of wisdom.

It’s saying, “I need help navigating this, and I’m brave enough to ask for it.”

These four women - Candy, Miss Regina, Tamika, and my therapist, represent the village it takes to heal. Family who gets it, mentors who’ve walked it, friends who pray through it, and professionals who guide through it. This Women’s History Month, I celebrate them. The women still healing. The women walking alongside. The women who hold space.

A Personal Reflection

As I reflect on my own journey, I realize that survival alone was never the end goal. For a long time, I was simply trying to make it through the day, trying to manage the pain of sickle cell and to navigating the memories of trauma. I tried to understand why God allowed certain chapters of my life to unfold the way they did, all while attempting to figure out how to keep my faith when my body was breaking and my mind was overwhelmed. But, over time, survival slowly turned into something else. Purpose.
And that purpose is what led me to launch the Awakened 2 Purpose Podcast last month, not because I have everything figured out or because I’m “fully healed” and have all the answers. But because I know there are women out there who need to hear someone say:

“You are not alone. You are not crazy. You are not too much.”

Women Who Speak Change the World

History shows us something powerful: When women speak, cultures shift. When women heal, families change, when women tell the truth about their experiences, silence loses its power, and when survivors reclaim their voices, shame no longer controls the narrative.
That’s why the work we are doing together through Journey 2 Free matters. Every conversation, every story shared, every healing circle we create, and retreat we facilitate.
Every woman who finds the courage to speak.
It all matters because every time one woman speaks her truth, she allows another woman who’s still silent to speak hers.
Every time one woman chooses healing, she breaks a cycle for the daughters watching, and every time one woman refuses to carry shame that was never hers to begin with, she rewrites the narrative for her entire lineage. This is how change happens, not in grand gestures, but in brave moments of truth-telling.

Awakened 2 Purpose Podcast: New Episodes Every Friday at 6pm EST

The podcast is officially live, and we’re releasing new episodes every Friday at 6pm EST on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

This month, I want to highlight two powerful conversations:
🗣 Episode: “Diddy and Epstein and Why Survivors Stay Silent” - Speak to Heal - Featuring Miss Regina, my sister Candy, and me discussing the current culture and climate around disclosure.
In this episode, we tackle the hard questions:
∙ Why do survivors stay silent for years, even decades?
∙ What does it take to finally speak?
∙ How does the cultural climate affect a survivor’s willingness to come forward?
∙ What happens when high-profile cases dominate the news, does it help or hurt everyday survivors?
This conversation is raw, necessary, and healing. We don’t shy away from the uncomfortable truths about why speaking up feels so dangerous, and why it’s still worth it.
🗣 This Friday’s Episode: “2 Survivors, 1 Family Secret: Healing Together” Featuring my aunt and me, two survivors, one family, navigating the complexity of healing when the trauma lives in your own bloodline.
This episode explores:
∙ What happens when abuse happens within the family?
∙ How do you heal when the people who should have protected you didn’t?
∙ Can family members who were both affected by the same trauma heal together?
∙ What does forgiveness look like when the wound is generational?
These aren’t easy conversations.
But they’re the ones that need to be had.
Because healing in isolation is hard. Healing in community, even when that community is complicated, is where real transformation happens.
👂🏾 Listen on [Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts] | [YouTube]

A Question for You This Month
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, I invite you to reflect on this:
What part of your story deserves to be honored, not hidden?
Your survival is not something to minimize; it is something to recognize and respect.
It is something to celebrate, and it may very well become the very thing that helps another woman realize she can survive, too. So many of us have been taught to downplay our pain, to minimize our trauma, to hide our scars, but what if your story, the one you’ve been ashamed of, is actually the one that needs to be told?
What if the part of your journey you’ve been hiding is the exact part that will set someone else free?

From My Heart to Yours
To every woman reading this:
If you are still here after everything you have been through, and you are still healing, still praying, still believing that your life has purpose…
If you are still showing up even when it’s hard, still choosing hope even when your circumstances haven’t changed. You are part of women’s history, too.
Woman, your courage matters, your voice matters.
And your story most certainly matters.
Please know that the work you’re doing, even if no one sees it, even if it’s happening quietly in therapy sessions, journal entries, and late-night prayers, matters. You, my dear, are breaking cycles.
You are rewriting narratives, you are creating a different future for the generations coming behind you. Let’s keep journeying 2 free together.

With strength and grace,

From my heart to yours,
Larissa Rhone.

Founder | Journey 2 Free Survivor| Warrior |Advocate