There’s something you should know about therapists, coaches, and spiritual leaders. We looooove to talk about healing. We love to remind you of all the pain and trauma you’re carrying around. We love to invent fancy new approaches and techniques for helping you heal everything from your broken heart to your ancestral wounds. And some of us especially love to believe that we are the powerful healers who will help to release you from the shackles of your pain, once and for all.

But there’s something else you should know. Healing doesn’t work the way we want you to believe it does. In fact, sometimes we use the world “healing” without really knowing what we mean when we say it. Trust me, most of us in this space really mean well. We know that pain and suffering are part of the human experience. We know that unresolved pain and trauma can keep you from becoming the best possible version of yourself. And we know that healing has a liberating quality that can transform your life in beautiful ways. What we don’t always know is how to reconcile our efforts to be helpful with the real nature of healing. 

 The truth is, healing is a process—and a very personal one, at that. What traumatizes one person may easily roll off another person’s back; what takes one person a minute to get over may take another person a lifetime to overcome. We all have different sensitivities, different triggers, different thresholds for emotional pain. And just as it’s true that we all experience things differently, we tend to process things completely differently, too. The meaning we create from the events of our lives is the emotional, psychological, and energetic weight we wind up carrying around with us. And healing is the work of lifting that weight. 

That work takes effort. It takes patience. It takes courage. It takes time. 

And the way I see it, that work is never over. 

For better or worse, healing is more of a journey than a destination. No one can walk the path for us, and no one can tell us how long it will take. No one can tell us what healing is supposed to look like. The process is unique to each one of us. And it will always continue to change and evolve, as we gain awareness and grow stronger. 

If you want to be happier, healthier, more connected, more abundant, more successful, there’s probably some healing for you to do. And you’ll probably find it helpful to start that work with someone who knows what they’re doing. Remember, true healers are the ones who help you access your own potential to heal yourself. They’re the ones who remind you that you may never arrive at a place of total healing; but being on the journey is a beautiful transformation all its own.