Demons Don’t Have to Run Faster Than Rainbows

One of the series I love is Landman, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Sam Elliott — that gravel‑warm voice, that quiet authority, that way he delivers a line like he’s lived every syllable. One of the scenes I loved is when he’s talking about his wife, about who she used to be before drinking began to take pieces of her away. He remembers her dancing in the sprinklers, spinning through the water as the sunlight caught the spray and made rainbows around her. You can feel the tenderness in the memory — the kind of love that sees someone in their fullness.

Then he says, almost under his breath, “But I guess demons run faster than rainbows.” And then the part that breaks you open: “I kept waiting… and I lost hope a long time ago.”

It’s a line about grief, yes — but it’s also a line about fear. About how quickly darkness can move. About how slowly light seems to arrive. About how easy it is to believe that the worst parts of life will always outrun the best.

But here’s the truth I’m learning in my own healing: Demons only run faster when we let them set the pace. And I’m done doing that.

The Fear That Comes After Healing

People assume the hardest part of healing is the wound itself. But the hardest part is often what comes after — the moment when you start to feel better and suddenly panic.

Because healing is unfamiliar. And unfamiliar can feel unsafe.

That’s when the mind whispers:

• “What if I get hurt again”

• “What if I can’t sustain this”

• “What if I fall back into old patterns”

• “What if I’m not built for this new life”

These fears don’t show up because we’re weak. They show up because we’re human.

And this is where demons sprint — not because they’re powerful, but because they’re practiced. They’re the reflexes we learned in childhood, the survival strategies we inherited, the patterns we didn’t choose but still carry.

Healing slows us down. Fear speeds us up. And the gap between the two is where we often lose ourselves.

Rainbows Aren’t Slow — We Just Don’t Trust Them Yet

Rainbows represent everything we say we want: fulfillment, alignment, clarity, possibility, joy that doesn’t require performance.

But rainbows require something demons never do: receiving.

Receiving love. Receiving rest. Receiving goodness without bracing for the fall.

Rainbows don’t chase us because they’re not built on fear. They appear when we stop running long enough for the light to catch us.

Healing isn’t slow — it’s just honest. It doesn’t sprint. It doesn’t demand. It doesn’t threaten. It waits for us to feel safe enough to let it in.

And that’s where the next truth emerges.

The Myth That Life Shouldn’t Hurt

Somewhere along the way, many of us developed the belief that nothing bad should happen — or that if something painful does happen, it must mean we did something wrong. We get caught up in the unfairness of it, as if suffering is a glitch in the system instead of part of the human condition.

But suffering is woven into life itself. It’s in nature. It’s in every species. It’s in every generation. It’s in every one of us.

The commonality is this: we all carry something that has caused us to suffer. Heartbreak. Betrayal. Death. Job loss. Illness. Abandonment. Disappointment. The list could go on.

We just don’t stop long enough to realize it’s the one thing every human being shares — the thing we all carry quietly, the thing that shapes us whether we acknowledge it or not.

And yet, suffering isn’t a punishment. It’s not a sign we’re broken. It’s not evidence that we’re unworthy of joy.

Suffering is often the very thing that teaches us gratitude, boundaries, discernment, and the courage to choose differently. It’s what helps us recognize joy when it finally arrives. It’s what prepares us for a partner who doesn’t betray us, a job that fulfills us, a life that aligns with who we’re becoming.

Pain isn’t the point — but it is often the turning point.

The Cost of Letting Demons Win

When we let fear set the pace, we lose more than time. We lose:

• opportunities for connection

• moments of joy

• the chance to be surprised by life

• the fulfillment we’ve been praying for

We waste years in “what if” purgatory. We waste our aliveness trying to pre-grieve pain that hasn’t even happened.

Demons don’t have to run faster — we just have to stop clearing the path for them.

And when we do, something else becomes possible. We learn that love doesn’t always have to hurt. We learn it’s okay to want again, dream again, plan again… to love again… to play again.

We realize we don’t have to close off to protect ourselves. We can step back into the light, we can dance in the sprinklers with the rainbow, and we can take every lesson we learned from betrayal, pain, loss, and heartbreak and use it to rewrite the most powerful version of who we are becoming.

The Reframe: Let the Rainbow Catch Up

Instead of asking: “Why do my demons run so fast?”

Ask: “What would happen if I didn’t move out of the way?”

What if you let the rainbow catch up? What if you let goodness arrive at its own pace? What if you trusted that suffering doesn’t disqualify you — it prepares you?

This is the quiet courage of a healed person: not running from the past, not sprinting toward the future, but standing still long enough to let the light find them.

This is how you rewrite legacy. Not by avoiding pain, but by refusing to pass it on.

Closing

I’m not pretending demons don’t exist. I’m not pretending life won’t hurt again. I’m saying the hurt doesn’t get to define me anymore.

I’m done letting demons run faster than rainbows. And I’m finally giving the rainbow a chance to arrive.