When people hear the word healing, they often think of a destination. They picture a place where everything is finally okay- where the pain and struggle are gone, relationships are restored, circumstances have changed, and life feels peaceful again.
While I certainly believe healing can include those things, over the years, both through my own healing journey and through walking alongside hundreds of coaching clients, I've come to believe something different.
Healing is a lifelong mindset: it's not simply something that happens to us. It's a way of thinking, responding, and choosing to move forward, even when life hasn't changed the way we hoped it would. Healing is less about arriving somewhere and more about becoming a new version of ourselves.
And yes, it's lifelong, not just something we do for a season. I say this because we will inevitably face experiences that are difficult, painful, and, at times, deeply hurtful, and unfortunately, this will probably occur more than once in our lives.
Healing isn't a one-time choice; it's a way of life. It's a continual decision to process what we've been through, grow from it, and keep moving forward. If we truly want to live in peace, healing must become part of how we live, not just something we pursue when life falls apart.
SELF-AWARENESS
The first step toward healing is self-awareness. You cannot heal what you haven't first identified. You can't change patterns you don't recognize or address wounds you refuse to acknowledge. Before healing can begin, there must be an honest willingness to look inward and ask yourself some difficult questions.
- What causes me to respond this way?
- What about this situation affects me so deeply?
- What beliefs about myself have I accepted as truth?
Awareness doesn't solve the problem, but it shines a light on it. Once something is brought into the light, healing can begin.
After awareness comes the challenging part- the inner work.
MANY LAYERS
Healing isn't glamorous. It can be uncomfortable, awkward, and, at times, painful because it often requires us to revisit places we'd rather forget, but in my experience, that's where real transformation begins.
One analogy I often use with clients is that healing is like untangling a ball of yarn. At first, all you see is a tangled mess. You pull on one strand and think you're making progress, only to discover another knot underneath. You patiently work through that knot, only to find another one beneath it.
Healing is often exactly like that.
We begin by addressing what seems to be the problem- anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, anger, insecurity, and/or fear- but as we continue doing the work, we often discover those are only symptoms. Beneath them are often deeper issues such as rejection, shame, abandonment, unresolved grief, trauma, or unmet emotional needs.
Every knot we untangle brings us one step closer to the root issue. Rather than becoming discouraged by that process, I've learned to expect and even anticipate it. Lasting healing doesn't happen by managing or ignoring symptoms; it happens by addressing the root cause, though it can take some time to get there.
PATIENCE
Healing also requires a lot of patience. We live in a culture that wants immediate gratification and results, but that's simply not how healing works.
Think about this: You didn't arrive where you are emotionally overnight, and you won't heal overnight either. Some days you'll feel like you're making tremendous progress, while other days it may seem like you're standing still. That doesn't mean you're failing- that's simply part of the process. Healing is rarely linear, so expect peaks and valleys.
RESPONSIBILITY
Another important part of healing is taking personal responsibility. Let me be clear- this doesn't mean blaming yourself for everything that's happened to you. Many people have experienced real trauma, betrayal, loss, abuse, or heartbreak that has been completely out of their control. Those things absolutely matter, but there also comes a point where we have to stop asking, "Why did this happen to me?" and begin asking, "What is within my control now? What can I learn from this?"
Personally, I fell into a victim mentality for about a year after two people tried to kill my husband and me, and to be honest, I felt completely justified in doing so. And while it's true that I was a victim in that situation, continuing to view myself through that lens did nothing beneficial for my healing or my peace. It simply kept me stuck.
I believe that even if you truly are a victim of something in life, there must come a point when you say, "I'm not going to let this define me for the rest of my life. I'm going to rise above this." That doesn't minimize what happened or erase the pain. It simply means you're choosing not to let your past have the final say in your future.
Blaming others or remaining in a victim mentality keeps us emotionally connected to our pain. Personal responsibility doesn't remove what happened, but it empowers us to choose what happens next, and that's where healing begins to take place.
FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL
I've also found that many people become discouraged because they believe healing means everything around them will eventually be fixed. There's often an expectation that if I heal, everyone else will too, and everything will be restored.
Sometimes this happens, but sometimes it doesn't. True healing requires accepting that the relationship may never be restored, the apology may never come, or the diagnosis may remain. Yet, despite those realities, you can still choose inner healing. Your healing doesn't have to depend on everything around you changing.
Sometimes healing simply means you've chosen to let go of what no longer serves you. You've released the bitterness, the resentment, the unforgiveness, the fear, or the need to keep reliving the offense. Focus on what you can control, and release the rest.
You can change even when nothing around you does.
FAITH
For me, healing also requires faith, mainly because at times inner wounds are too deep and too big for us to heal on our own; we need God.
We must realize there are burdens we were never meant to carry by ourselves. Some of the greatest healing in my own life began when I stopped trying to fix everything on my own and surrendered it to God. In doing so, I found a peace that striving could never give me because Jesus can redeem and restore what we never could. Often, one of the greatest acts of healing is recognizing where our personal responsibility ends and where God's begins.
CHANGE WHAT YOU DO
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting a different result. True healing means doing something different than what you have been doing. Healing requires self-reflection. It asks us to pause and honestly consider:
- What can I do differently?
- How can I see this situation differently?
- What habits or beliefs are no longer serving me?
- Where am I being called to grow?
Sometimes the smallest shifts in perspective produce the greatest changes in our lives.
FORGIVENESS
Healing typically requires some form of forgiveness, and I know this is where many people struggle because, simply put, it can be really difficult.
We tend to think forgiveness means saying what happened was okay or that we're letting someone off the hook, but forgiveness has very little to do with the other person. Forgiveness is an inward decision. It's a posture of the heart that says, "I refuse to allow this offense to imprison me."
Again, this doesn't erase what happened; it simply frees your heart from the bondage of bitterness. We've all heard it said that unforgiveness is like a cancer. Over time, it slowly eats away at you. I believe that is 100% true. When we choose to forgive, we are freeing ourselves and refusing to let what happened have control over us.
HABITS
Healing also requires taking inventory of your habits. Ask yourself which habits are consistently helping you and which ones are consistently hurting you- and be brutally honest with yourself here.
Healing isn't only emotional or spiritual; it's practical. It often looks like moving your body, getting enough sleep, setting healthy boundaries, spending time with God, speaking kindly to yourself, and replacing destructive habits with life-giving ones.
YOUR THOUGHTS
Finally, healing requires us to reframe our thinking. The way we think influences the way we speak; the way we speak influences the way we behave; and our behavior ultimately shapes the direction of our lives. If we want different results, we must first be willing to think differently.
This is no easy task because our brains are wired for the path of least resistance. In other words, they'd rather think the familiar, automatic thoughts than create new ones. That's why self-awareness is so important. We must first recognize our destructive thought patterns, catch them in the moment, and intentionally replace them- one by one, over and over again. The more we practice this, the more automatic the new, healthy thought patterns become, and the easier this mental work becomes.
Truthfully, this is healing work that I still do every single day. I'm certainly not perfect at it, but I've learned that what I consistently think shapes pretty much everything in my life. It's also one of the things I coach people on the most because I've seen how changing thought patterns can dramatically change the direction of a person's life.
In the neuroscience world, this is called neuroplasticity- the brain's ability to change its structure and function based on the experiences we give it. So, in short, if you want a healthier mind, give it a healthier experience by intentionally choosing thoughts that are healing, positive, and forward-moving.
IT'S A PROCESS
Healing is a process, and it's also hard work. It requires courage, humility, patience, forgiveness, discipline, self-reflection, and faith. But in my opinion, it is one of the most rewarding and freeing things we can do as human beings. The alternative is remaining stuck, repeating the same patterns, believing the same lies, and limiting the life God desires for us.
I've found that we generally lean toward one of two mindsets. We either have a growth mindset- one that leans toward growth, healing, lifelong learning, and hope- or a fixed mindset- one that leans toward victimhood, remaining stuck, living in the past, and creating excuses that justify why we can't move forward.
While we may shift between the two at times, I believe we all tend to lean predominantly in one direction or the other. The good news is that a fixed mindset isn't permanent. We have the ability to change the way we think, and when we change the way we think, we begin to change the way we live.
TAKE A STEP FORWARD
If you're still reading this, chances are there are areas of your own life that need healing. There may be open wounds within your spirit that have been waiting for your attention.
Take a step today.
Talk to someone you trust. Reach out to a mental health professional, coach, pastor, or counselor. Spend time with God. Journal. Pray. Reflect. Choose one thing you can do differently.
Healing doesn't begin when everything around you changes. It begins the moment you decide to think differently, take responsibility for what's yours, and take the next step toward freedom for your mind, heart, and soul.
