Let's Peel Back the Layers of Healing

There's a common misconception about healing work that I want to address. People often worry that exploring their past means dwelling on it, staying stuck in victimhood, or using their history as an excuse. But that's not what real healing looks like at all.

Healing is layered. It's a process that moves through distinct phases, each one necessary, each one building on the last. And it all begins with something that might seem simple but is actually quite profound: awareness.

Layer One: The Work of Awareness

Before we can change anything, we have to see it clearly. This is where the real work begins—not in fixing, not in forcing ourselves to be different, but in honestly acknowledging how our history has shaped who we are today.

This awareness might come through journaling, where patterns emerge on the page that we couldn't see in our minds. It might come through talk therapy, where a skilled professional helps us connect dots we didn't even know existed. Or it might come through simple, quiet introspection—those moments of stillness where your truth has room to surface.

Maybe you discover that you struggle with trust because you were betrayed by someone who should have protected you. Perhaps you realize you overfunction in relationships because you learned early that your worth was tied to your usefulness. You might recognize that you avoid vulnerability because being open once meant being hurt or betrayed.

This awareness isn't about assigning blame or making excuses. It's about understanding cause and effect. It's about recognizing that your responses made sense given what you experienced. Hypervigilant wasn't paranoid—it was surviving. Building walls around your heart wasn't cold—it was protecting yourself from further pain.

Without this layer of awareness, we're on autopilot through life and in this state change evades us because we don't understand why we are the way we are. We shame ourselves for patterns we don't even fully see. We set goals for growth without addressing the roots that keep pulling us back.

Layer Two: Growth and Change

Once we have awareness, we can begin the second layer: making different choices. This is where we take our power back. This is where we stop letting the past run our lives unconsciously. We start making deliberate decisions about who we want to be.

This doesn't mean the old patterns disappear overnight. It means we start to recognize them when they show up. We pause. We ask ourselves: "Is this response serving me now, or is this reaction really to something that happened years ago?"

You might notice yourself starting to test someone's loyalty and choose, instead, to trust the evidence in front of you. You might feel the urge to flee a good relationship and decide, this time, to stay and work through the discomfort. You might catch yourself making yourself small again and instead deliberately take up more space.

These moments of choice—they're how we grow. Each time we respond differently, we're building new neural pathways. We're teaching our nervous system that we're safe now, that we have options we didn't have before, that we can write a different story.

This layer takes courage. It requires us to do things that feel unnatural, even dangerous, because our old patterns were designed to keep us safe. Choosing differently means tolerating the anxiety that comes with stepping into the unknown. It means trusting that we can handle whatever comes, even if our history taught us otherwise.

Layer Three: Identifying Our Options

Healing isn't about dwelling on the past. It's about deciding the future.

Here's what's crucial to understand: looking at your past with clear eyes is not the same as dwelling on it. Recognizing how your history shaped you is not the same as using it as an excuse for staying stuck.

When we do this work consciously, we're not giving the past more power—we're taking power back from it. We're refusing to let wounds continue to dictate choices. We can make different choices now.

Think of it this way: if you're driving a car and it keeps pulling to the left, you have two options. You can white-knuckle the steering wheel and constantly correct course without ever investigating why it's pulling. Or you can take the time to look underneath, understand the problem, and fix the alignment so the car drives straight.

The first option keeps you constantly struggling. The second option requires you to stop, look at what's not working, and address the root cause. It might take longer initially, but ultimately, it sets you free to drive without that constant pull.

That's what awareness does. It lets us fix the alignment so we can move forward more smoothly.

Layer Four: Taking Responsibility for Your Growth

This is perhaps the most empowering part of healing work: recognizing that while you weren't responsible for what happened to you, you are responsible for what you do with it now.

You didn't choose to be abandoned, neglected, betrayed, or traumatized. That wasn't your fault, and you deserved better. But now, as an adult, you get to choose whether those experiences continue to run your life or whether you reclaim your power and function differently in the world.

This isn't about blame—not of yourself, not of others. It's about agency. It's about recognizing that you have the power to heal, to grow, to become someone who isn't controlled by what happened before.

Some people will criticize this work. They'll say you're living in the past, making excuses, playing the victim. Let them. They don't understand that you can't release what you haven't first acknowledged. You can't choose differently if you don't understand what you're choosing from.

The people who have done their own healing work will recognize what you're doing. They'll see the courage it takes to look honestly at your wounds. They'll respect the commitment it requires to change patterns that feel like second nature. They'll understand that this is the opposite of staying stuck—this is how you break free.

The Layers Work Together

Awareness without action keeps you stuck in analysis. You understand everything about why you are the way you are, but nothing changes. You've become an expert on your trauma without actually healing from it.

Action without awareness is just more of the same, dressed up differently. You might white-knuckle new behaviors for a while, but without understanding the roots, you'll eventually snap back to old patterns or simply create new dysfunctional ones.

But awareness plus intentional action? That's where transformation happens. That's where you honor your history by understanding it, and honor your future by refusing to let that history write the rest of your story.

Moving In and Out of the Layers

As discussed in a previous blog, the healing journey isn't linear. You'll move through these layers multiple times, with different issues, at different depths. Just when you think you've healed something, a deeper layer might emerge. That's not failure, that's the nature of growth.

Each time you cycle through awareness and change, you're building resilience. You're proving to yourself that you can face hard truths and still choose to grow. You're demonstrating that your past doesn't have to be your future.

So if you're in the awareness phase, trust that it's necessary. Don't rush past the understanding to get to the fixing. Give yourself time to really see what's true.

And if you're in the growth phase, be patient with yourself. Change is uncomfortable. The old patterns will call to you, especially when you're stressed or scared. That doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're human, and you're doing hard work.

All layers matter. All are essential. And all require courage, compassion, and a commitment to becoming the person you were meant to be before life taught you that you had to be something else to survive.