Healing Between the Lines: A Journey with Isabelle Miu Miu

Healing Between the Lines: A Journey with Isabelle Miu Miu

I recently closed the last page of The Words I Never Dared to Say by Isabelle Miu Miu, and it felt less like finishing a book and more like walking out of a long therapy session where someone finally told me, “Zvese zvichanaka.” Everything will be okay. This book isn’t your typical “self-help, take notes and drink green juice while you’re at it” kind of read. It’s a journey, half memoir, half workbook, inviting us to confront the things we bury so deeply we start calling them “just memories.”

What caught me was how Isabelle marries storytelling with therapeutic writing. You’re not just reading her reflections, you’re also asked to pause, breathe, and write your own. She creates these sacred blank spaces where the reader is encouraged to put down their silenced feelings. It’s like being handed a shovel and told, “Here, dig through your soul, it’s time to plant something new.” And isn’t that what many of us carry around? Hidden wounds that only show up when we’re sitting in silence, kana tiri toga (when we’re alone), or when we scroll past that one song on YouTube that unlocks tears we didn’t schedule.

For Africans especially, this hit home. We come from cultures where “kusimba” (being strong) is praised. Crying is sometimes seen as weakness, and admitting that you are not okay often comes with raised eyebrows or a dismissive, “Ahh, zvinopfuura.” But Miu Miu challenges that silence. She says, let’s write it down, let’s confess it to ourselves before we demand the world to understand us. She reminds us that vulnerability is not a betrayal of strength, but the very seed of resilience.

Reading this, I was reminded of my grandmother’s sayings. She used to say, “Mwoyo muti unomera paunoda” (the heart is a tree that grows where it wants). Sometimes that tree grows thorns. Sometimes it blooms. But if you don’t tend it, the thorns will choke the flowers. Isabelle’s writing tasks become like small acts of pruning, helping you cut away what strangles your joy, teaching you to write the things you’d never dare to say aloud.

The humour in it all is that as Africans, we’ve been doing therapeutic writing in disguise for years. Love letters folded in squared paper at school, the long WhatsApp essays we type and delete, even those “dear diary” moments when we were teens trying to survive acne and crushes. We’ve been talking to ourselves on paper for generations, it’s just that now someone has formalized it, and made us see that, yes, this is therapy.

What makes this book special is that it does not promise quick fixes. It doesn’t tell you, “Just write and tomorrow you’ll be healed.” Instead, it whispers, “One line at a time. One tear at a time. One laugh at a time.” Healing is messy. Sometimes you’ll write, “I forgive you,” and mean it. Sometimes you’ll write it and want to scratch the paper until it tears. Both are okay.

If you’ve ever carried words in your throat that feel too heavy to say, this book feels like that friend who sits with you and says, “Saka nyora hako. Write it down.” And in that moment, writing becomes an act of freedom.

So yes, The Words I Never Dared to Say is more than a book. It’s a mirror, a pen, and sometimes, a shoulder. And to my African readers—if you’ve ever been told to be strong, to keep quiet, or to just move on, Isabelle Miu Miu hands you permission to finally put your heart on paper. And maybe, just maybe, that’s where true strength begins.