Why You Don't Want to Heal
When I chat with potential clients I have an exploratory conversation with them to 1) get to know each other 2) better understand their goals and ensure I can help with what they need and 3) understand their will and commitment to their healing and learning process. This 3rd part is critical because sometimes we say we want to heal but we actually aren’t ready to heal.
Healing is not a linear process. It is not a checklist of rituals you can just tick off and declare it done. Healing is so messy and complex and simple and challenging and fun and requires patience and compassion.
Here’s the top 3 reasons I have seen people avoid healing (including myself):
Healing can be painful. It can call us to confront the very pain we may have been avoiding all along. Why would we opt into a process that requires us to re-confront that pain? It requires a level of courage and vulnerability that may not be familiar to us yet.
Healing might require us to become someone different—a better version of ourselves. At first, this could feel awkward, like we are still getting acquainted with a stranger. The length of this stage of the process is different for each person and I have seen people get impatient with themselves and throw in the towel by regressing back to their old selves. Old patterns are familiar patterns and familiar patterns offer us a sense of comfort and safety. When experiencing something new, if we are not intentional, we might grasp for that sense of comfort, even if it was destructive.
Healing makes us responsible for ourselves. Once we have healed from a previous hurt (the journey is never done, we are always healing from something), we can no longer blame someone else. The accountability is all on us. We have to release old excuses like “but that’s how I was raised” or “my parent made me that way.” Now, as a full grown adult, we have to make the conscious choice to be who we want to be. We decide.
What’s next on your healing journey?
Stay tuned for future blogs on how to heal from a broken heart, how to heal from overthinking and how to heal from perfectionism.
To learn more about Jessie and her services, check out the Healing is Justice® website.