How Do We Heal?

"Healing is not forgetting — it is integration"

How Do We Heal? The Work of Recovery, Restoration, and Self-Transformation

This article is for those who have questions about “how to heal” and “the work” in the healing space.  It is for those who are coming to the knowledge or admission that something is missing or they want something more in their lives.  They know they are meant to do something more but are struggling to break the patterns that continue the loops, grooves and repeating voices of negativity and self-defeat. 

Disclaimer: Not all relationships can or should be reconciled — particularly in trauma involving abuse.  You are not obligated to serve anyone who has caused harm, abused you in any form (emotional, physical, mental, fiscally, sexually, etc.).  You are not obligated to overlook betrayal, to get over it or to totally ignore your own humanity.  Remember, that people without boundaries will not observe, encourage, honor or recognize yours. 

“You are not only what happened to you. You are what you choose to become.”

The Question of Healing

Healing is not forgetting. It is not erasure. It is not pretending the past didn’t happen or that it doesn’t still ache when we least expect it. Healing is integration — learning to live with what happened without allowing it to define, dominate, diminish you or cause you to self-destruct.

There are contradictions and paradoxes in us all.  There is a religious text that encapsulates this reality beautifully.  It states “That which I would do, I don’t. And that which I don’t want to do, I do.” In those words, we hear the paradox of our humanity — repeating old patterns long after they’ve stopped serving us, slipping into survival strategies when what we long for is freedom. Wanting a different outcome but defaulting to the same behaviors not recognizing other options or choices available to us.  Walking through life unaware, unconscious, wounded, or unhealed.

So the question becomes: How do we heal? And beyond that, What is the work required to heal? How do we get there?

We are often moving in warp speed.  Surviving.  Grinding. Churning.  Sometimes we’re stuck and don’t know it.  Sometimes we lean into false expectations and socializations and normalized unhealthy patterns.  Becoming aware of our pain points is a step in the right direction.  Stopping long enough to recognize that something is off.  We have good dreams and goals but no clear path to fulfillment.  We can see ourselves doing a thing but lacking the focus, discipline or consistency to apply ourselves.  A step in the right direction is Naming the Wounds We Carry.  For example:

• Family wounds — a mother who diminished, a father who abandoned, a childhood that felt unsafe.

• Betrayal wounds — the partner who promised forever and walked away, the friend who turned into a stranger.

• Generational and societal wounds — racism, sexism, inherited trauma, systemic silencing.

Each wound leaves an imprint. Each shapes how we regulate, how we trust (or don’t), how we see ourselves in the mirror or the voids and vacancies in our soul.  It’s not about blame or protecting the reputation of others.  It’s the opportunity to examine.  To excavate.  To identify.  To give voice to that which lies silent or dormant without recognition or name.

Defining Healing

Healing is not the absence of pain or the erasure of memory. Healing is the process of integrating what happened without letting it overtake, subjugate, or define you. It is reclaiming agency, dignity, humanity and wholeness. It is the continued expansion and expression of the soul and spirit.  Healing doesn’t mean you never feel the ache again — it means you can carry the ache without it overtaking you or allowing it to make you retreat or isolate or become despondent. 

Defining “The Work”

“The Work” is the intentional, often uncomfortable and complex practice of showing up for yourself daily. It is not passive. It’s choosing to:

• Tell the truth of your story.

• Feel and regulate your emotions rather than numb them.

• Reparent yourself and cultivate self-compassion.

• Build boundaries that protect your peace, agency and humanity.

• Release survival strategies that once helped you but now keep you stuck or imprisoned.

• Engage in disciplines, behaviors and practices that restore body, mind, soul and spirit.

The Work is not a single moment. It is a rhythm, a lifestyle, and a commitment to becoming.  It is having the courage to choose each day to begin again.  To feel again.  To hope again. To show up for yourself actively and intentionally with compassion.

Now that we’ve defined healing and what it means to engage in The Work, it’s important to distinguish between simply surviving and truly healing. Often, we confuse coping mechanisms with transformational change. But they are not the same.

“The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself.”

Survival Strategies vs. Healing Practices

Much of what we do when we live unconsciously is survival mode, not healing. We numb. We overwork. We underperform. We people-please. We wear masks.  We avoid. We isolate.  We disappear into performance. 

But survival is not the same as healing. Survival keeps us alive -- indeed.  Healing helps us live optimally.

Healing is the courage to sit in discomfort rather than escape it. To feel emotions fully rather than bury them. To choose truth over silence, boundaries over betrayal, restoration over repetition, convenience and comfort.

The Anatomy of Self: Core to Healing

At the center of the work is the self. The anatomy of self becomes our foundation for restoration:

• Self-Awareness — noticing patterns, body responses, triggers.

• Self-Acceptance — radical permission to be where you are without shame.

• Self-Possession — reclaiming your agency, humanity and authority over your own life.

• Self-Caring — honoring your body, energy, and emotions with consistent practices.

• Self-Affirming — speaking life and truth over yourself, especially where others once spoke harm.

Without this anatomy of self, we keep abandoning ourselves for love, approval, or peace. With it, we begin to return home to who we really are. Fully alive.  Fully creative and expressive.  Fully present and functioning optimally.

Know Yourself: Armor and Liberation

Part of healing is knowing yourself so well that no one can weaponize your wounds against you.

• When someone tries to use your past, your insecurities, or your imperfections as a weapon, you won’t be blindsided — because you’ve already named them, embraced them, and stripped them of shame.

• To know yourself is to embrace your flaws and your strengths, your triumphs and your shortcomings, without apology.

• You are no less than anyone else, and no more. You have the right to take up space, to be seen, to be heard. No one is above you or beneath.  Everyone is having an imperfect human experience called life.

You don’t have to shrink because of what you’ve been through. There is no one without fault or flaw. Your scars do not disqualify you — they authenticate you.

The Work here is:

• Embracing your imperfections rather than hiding them.

• Losing the shame that keeps you small.

• Rejecting comparison — your story is not a deficit, but a vantage point.

• Standing unapologetically in your humanity — knowing that pain points become reference points, and wounds can become wisdom.

Your story may include sorrow and shortcomings, but it is not the sum of who you are. They are chapters, not the whole book. And no one else has the right to judge, diminish, or define you because of your lived experiences.

“Pain points become reference points. Wounds can become wisdom.”

Turning Sorrow Into Sound

You get to turn your sorrows into your soundtrack of life — a sonic sanctuary where your pain becomes rhythm, your grief becomes melody, your resilience becomes harmony.

And remember this: not everyone deserves access to your soundtrack.

• You are not obligated to share everything about yourself.

• Choosing what you share with acquaintances or strangers  or foe isn’t secrecy — it’s discernment.

• Discernment is part of parenting your inner child, safeguarding the tender space of your heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit.

Your story is sacred. Share it with those who have earned the right to hear it, not those who would mishandle it. Those you have reciprocity with.  Those who are proven to have your best interest at heart.

To further explore how these wounds manifest in real life, let’s look at a common — and deeply complicated — dynamic: a daughter navigating a lifelong wound from a mother unable to nurture or affirm her. This vignette illustrates how healing is not just internal work, but also about redefining how we relate to others; how and what we get to choose.  It also allows us to explore boundaries and even when to let go. 

The Mother Who Couldn’t Celebrate Her Child

She grew up with a mother who rarely had anything kind to say. Every accomplishment was met with dismissal. Every spark of joy was dimmed by words meant to control and diminish.

“You’ll never amount to anything.”“You think you’re better than me?”“No one will ever love you.”“Look at you.”

The words landed like blows, shaping her sense of self. And yet, despite them, she rose. She educated herself, built a career, created a life of her own. Outwardly successful, inwardly still carrying the grief of betrayal: the loss of ever having a mother who could truly celebrate her.

This is also the mother who had a work ethic, insisted on stability, social skills and education. Her mother owned her home.  Worked several jobs until she was able to work her way up to one good solid job.   There were never any missed meals, the home was clean and organized, utilities on and everyone clean and appropriately dressed. 

Now her mother is older. More fragile in body, but not always softer in spirit or gentler in nature.    Even in her vulnerable state, frail, deteriorating condition her words are still full of venom and they still sting. She is not too nice now, either. Old patterns resurface, venomous and sharp. Now more from pain and decline than from the targeted intent she once wielded.

The daughter feels the pull of duty but also the weight of memory. Love is there—love rarely dies completely—but so is the wound. Such a dichotomy.  The dutiful daughter exists.  She was trained and socialized that way.  She was simultaneously the chosen one to caretake and the rebuffed scapegoated one to hold the pain and dysfunction of the family.  The words “honor your father and mother that your days may be long” are etched indelibly in her heart.  But her need to protect her heart and advocate for that little girl within is also present.

This is the dilemma: How do you love a parent you cannot trust? Who has wounded, gaslit and abused?  How do you remain compassionate without collapsing back into the old role of sacrificial lamb?

This was her work:

• Naming the wound for what it was — abuse, not discipline.

• Holding firm boundaries around what she will and will not tolerate.

• Redefining duty as logistical care, not open access to her heart.

• Stating the non-negotiable: “If you choose to continue in cruelty, I cannot be the one who provides your care. I will not sacrifice myself to be near you nor place your needs above my own protection.”

• Allowing both/and — grieving who her mother never was, even while attending to who she is now and honoring the vessel this woman is who served as life giver and heart breaker.

• Choosing to walk away – without shame or guilt if she determined the dynamic was not something she cared to endure any longer. 

Her mother’s fragility does not make her a martyr.  Her actions are not erased in her vulnerability or need.  Her need now does not erase the pain of then.The daughter can still love her mother — but she no longer has to betray herself to do it. The daughter can also rise as a full self-possessed woman interacting with another woman and not the small, obedient daughter role versus the omnipotent mother dynamic.  She gets to use her voice and set her limits.  She gets to make a fully informed choice from the space of what is best for her emotional and mental wellbeing. 

Healing doesn’t just happen in our minds or hearts — it requires tools. Daily, intentional, embodied tools that help us stay grounded, process pain, and create new patterns. Here’s what a healing toolkit can include.

The Work of Healing: Building a Toolkit

Healing is daily work, not a one-time breakthrough. It’s building a toolkit you carry with you:

• Somatic tools: breathwork, grounding, yoga, body scans.

• Cognitive tools: journaling, reframing, naming truths.

• Creative tools: art, music, collage, storytelling.

• Relational tools: boundaries, therapy, chosen family.

• Spiritual tools: prayer, meditation, daily practice, affirmations, inspirational study, sacred reading.

Your toolkit becomes your anchor — a reminder that you are not helpless, that you have resources to meet the moment. You have the ability to implement self-guided, strategic and transformational healing for your soul, mind and spirit.

The Cycles and Seasons of Healing

Healing is not linear. It’s not a one and done.  It spirals and moves.  It ebbs and flows.  It may move out and dissipate or return and bubble up at times least expected. But it’s there as information.   We circle back to old wounds at deeper levels. We revisit grief, but with new wisdom and understanding We return to pain, but with stronger boundaries. Like seasons, healing invites us to release, to rest, to grow again.

Reflection is an essential part of The Work. The following prompts are invitations to explore where you are in your healing journey and what you’re ready to release, reclaim, or realign.

Journal Prompts for the Work

• What survival strategies am I still clinging to that no longer serve me?

• Which part of my anatomy of self needs strengthening right now?

• How does self-care look for me beyond surface comfort or masking?

• Where in my body do I carry grief, rage, or longing?

• What am I ready to release, and what am I ready to reclaim?

Closing

Healing is not weakness — it is reclamation. You may always feel the ache whether dull or intense, but you can live whole alongside it as it incrementally and cumulatively fades from the foreground to the background. You may never hear the apology, but you can write your own truth.

You are not only the wounds you carry.You are the wholeness you cultivate.You are not only what happened to you.You are what you choose to become.

Have questions?  Want a consultation?  Contact us at www.LiveWellLiveWell.com .  If you want to begin your independent daily practice of restoration and transformation, our Live Well Live Whole ™ Affirmation and Meditation Cards are available to help you build your healing toolkit on our site as well.