You Are Allowed to Be Both a Masterpiece and a Work in Progress

There is a crew neck hanging in the shop—soft, comforting, a quiet reminder draped across my shoulders. You Are Allowed to Be Both a Masterpiece, is across the chest, and a Work in Progress—written on the sleeve. The words feel like something I should believe, something I should embody. And yet, some days, I don’t.

Because I work in healing. And sometimes, that makes it easy to forget that I, too, am still unfolding.

So many of the people who step through the doors of The Salted Pixie come seeking solace—some for their lungs, for the weight of breathlessness, for the relief that salt therapy brings. Others come with heavier burdens, the kind that settle deep in the bones, unseen but felt in every step. They come looking for healing, for something that will fill the quiet ache they carry. And so often, that ache whispers: I should be better by now. I should be more whole. I should have figured this out already.

We live in a world that tells us healing is a finish line, a destination to reach if only we work hard enough. Meditate more. Read this book. Do this ritual. Attend this workshop. Be better. And if you’re tired? If you can’t quite keep up with the ever-growing list of ways to fix yourself? Then maybe you’re not trying hard enough. Maybe you’re failing.

But here’s the truth: Healing is not proof that something is wrong with you.

You are not a broken thing waiting to be repaired. You are not lesser because you still ache in places that were hurt long ago. You are not behind, not failing, not lost. You are human. And that means you are both—whole and still unfolding, strong and still learning, a masterpiece and a work in progress.

The moon does not apologize for its phases. The tides do not question their ebb and flow. And yet, we expect ourselves to be steady, linear, complete—never in flux, never in need, never in process.

But you are allowed to be both. You are allowed to have days where you shine and days where you retreat. You are allowed to be proud of how far you’ve come while still tending to the places that need softness. You are allowed to rest, to breathe, to exist exactly as you are without justifying it to anyone.

So if you’ve been waiting for permission to simply be, here it is. Let yourself exhale. Let yourself take up space. Let yourself be both—the masterpiece and the work in progress, the light and the shadow, the unfolding and the already radiant.

Because healing was never about becoming someone else. It was always about coming home to yourself.