Silhouette of a man standing on a mountain top under a bright sun and blue sky.

Maybe Healing Is Not Becoming Someone New

Many people begin a healing journey with an image in their mind. They imagine becoming a different person. Often this person is:

  • More confident
  • More successful
  • More disciplined
  • More skilled in what matters
  • Less anxious
  • Less emotional
  • Someone who can see through lies and other people’s BS
  • Someone who can even see through our own BS

Somewhere along the way, many of us come to believe that healing means fixing ourselves so that we can become this new person. In some seasons of life or in some aspects of our life, this is a perfectly effective way to move forward. But today let’s consider another way.

Remembering a Precious Piece of Ourselves

What if healing is not becoming someone new? What if healing is remembering who you were before fear convinced you that you were not enough? Before disappointment taught you to lower your expectations. Before heartbreak taught you to guard your heart and silence your dreams and desires. Before criticism taught you to hide parts of yourself and make the very parts of you small that are actually eager to climb the highest mountaintop and sing. What is healing is about remembering a precious piece of ourselves?

Healing is often described as growth. We learn. We mature. We gain wisdom. This often implies adding more to ourselves, yet many people discover that healing feels less like adding something and more like uncovering something. Perhaps the person you are searching for has been there all along. Through this uncovering of the person that is already there, we might learn, mature, and gain wisdom more than we ever imagined. Carl Jung wrote,

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

Becoming who we truly are sounds incredibly profound. Adding more to who we are has its time and place. The tool in our toolbox that many of us often forget about as we move through life is that rather than add to ourselves, we can align ourselves. Align ourselves in such a way that the person we work to uncover may help us recover a meaningful and connected life.

Uncovering Ourselves to Recover Ourselves

Uncovering ourselves to recover ourselves. Not by adding, but aligning. That idea can feel both comforting and challenging. Comforting because it suggests you do not need to earn your worth. You do not need to become perfect before you deserve love, belonging, or peace. Look inside yourself and listen to what really matters to you. When you are in a quiet place or out in nature, away from distractions and electronics, what is your heart and mind saying to you? What would fill your heart? Ram Dass said…

“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.”

Listening to ourselves deeply can be extremely challenging. Challenging because becoming who you truly are often requires letting go of who you thought you were supposed to be. Many of us carry identities that were built for survival. At various times in your life, you may been…

  • The people-pleaser
  • The perfectionist
  • The caretaker
  • The one who never asks for help
  • The one who always appears strong

These identities may have served a purpose. They may have helped us navigate difficult situations. They may have served you and those around you well. Yet surviving and thriving are not always the same thing. At some point, we may be called to set down the armor we once needed. We may need to loosen our grip on the roles we’ve played, particularly the ones that make us comfortable, Or even the ones that are now somehow making us feel uncomfortably comfortable, not because it was wrong, but because it is no longer necessary.

No longer necessary? Those things that helped us survive and power through tough situations may no longer be necessary? Yes, it’s possible that those things are no longer necessary because those things are helping you survive what no longer is actually happening. Or, those things are no longer who you are, who the people around you are, or where you want to go, or who you want to be. You may have needed to be a certain person who does this and that and does it well, but maybe that’s not what your heart and what life is calling for now. Identifying and letting go of what is no longer necessary is heart work. Carl Jung said…

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

When you feel your vision, what’s important to you, what is a priority for you, then the plan can often seem simple. You know what you don’t need to do anymore and what you need to do. Then, you might try new things and see what feedback the world returns to you. But now, you’ll be more informed about who you are now and what is needed now (and if action is what your heart tells you to do, you might give that a try too, contemplation and action sometimes work together well, sometimes not!)

But often before action, healing happens quietly, calmly, in those moments we are alone with ourselves, listening carefully and being vulnerable with ourselves. It happens when we tell the truth about what we feel when we stop fighting every emotion, when we forgive ourselves for being human, and when we learn that vulnerability is not weakness. Xavier Chavez said…

“Vulnerability is the most honest truth teller.”

Perhaps healing is not about erasing your story or transforming ourselves into something that is not what we were. Researcher Brené Brown writes…

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.”

Healing could be about embracing the difficult chapters, mistakes, losses, and lessons. All of it just as it is.Your experiences have shaped you, but they do not define your worth. You are more than what happened to you. More than your failures, fears, or regrets. Therefore, healing might not be about becoming someone new, but rather it might somehow be about becoming more fully yourself.

You are Closer Than You Think

Maybe that person is already closer than you think. What parts of yourself have you been trying to fix that may simply need understanding, acceptance, and room to breathe? If you are truly vulnerable with yourself, what in your life makes you feel truly alive? What feels very meaningful to you today at this moment?

Further Reading

Want to learn more about overthinking, self-awareness, emotional regulation, and taking meaningful action? Explore these articles and discover new perspectives.

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