My Path to Healing

Healing isn't linear. It's not a destination you arrive at and unpack your bags. It's a spiral path where you revisit the same wounds at deeper levels, each time with more awareness, more compassion, more capacity to hold what once overwhelmed you.

The Beginning: Recognizing the Wound

My healing journey began when I could no longer ignore the pain. Years of pushing through, achieving, and pretending had left me empty. Success felt hollow. Relationships felt shallow. Life felt like a performance where I'd forgotten why I was on stage.

The wound wasn't dramatic. No single trauma to point to. Just a slow disconnection from myself that had started so early I didn't remember ever feeling different.

The Descent: Meeting the Shadow

Healing required going down before going up. I had to meet all the parts of myself I'd exiled:

• The angry child who wasn't allowed to rage
• The sad one who learned tears were weakness
• The scared one who built walls of competence
• The tender one who went into hiding
• The wild one who was tamed too early

Each exile held a gift. The angry one held my boundaries. The sad one held my compassion. The scared one held my vulnerability. The tender one held my capacity for intimacy. The wild one held my aliveness.

The Tools: What Actually Helped

Different tools served at different times:

• Therapy: For understanding the patterns
• Breathwork: For releasing what the body held
• Movement: For letting energy flow again
• Nature: For remembering what's real
• Community: For being held while falling apart
• Solitude: For hearing my own voice again
• Creative expression: For giving form to the formless

The Integration: Living the Healing

Real healing isn't in the peak experiences or breakthrough moments. It's in the daily choices:

• Choosing to feel rather than numb
• Choosing to speak rather than swallow
• Choosing to rest rather than push
• Choosing connection rather than isolation
• Choosing authenticity rather than approval

The Ongoing Journey

I'm not healed. I'm healing. Present tense. Continuous action.

Some days I forget everything I've learned and fall back into old patterns. Some days the wound feels fresh. Some days I wonder if I've made any progress at all.

But then I remember: This too is part of the path. The forgetting and remembering. The falling and rising. The closing and opening.