Can I be truly healed?

When people ask, “Is it ever possible to be truly healed?” I think what they often mean is- Will I ever reach a point where nothing hurts anymore? No pain, no fear, no anger, no confusion. Everything is sorted. All my issues behind me.

Think for a moment before reading further. What would your answer be? 

If that’s the definition, then my answer is: Probably not. We don’t get to live life without friction. There will always be some discomfort, some uncertainty, some mess- no matter how small. Life doesn’t stop throwing things our way just because we’ve done inner work. So if we’re chasing a version of healing that promises a pain-free existence, we’ll always feel like we’re falling short.

But here’s another way to look at it. Healing might not mean erasing the pain. It might mean learning to relate to it differently. To be more whole, not by getting rid of our difficult parts but by accepting them. A kind of expansion that makes room for contradictions where I can say, yes, this trauma happened, yes, I felt deep hurt, AND I’ve also felt love, AND joy, AND growth. Both are true. I’m not just one OR the other. 

From a life skills perspective, there are things we can influence- our choices, our habits our emotional awareness- and things we can’t. Healing, then, becomes the practice of working with what’s within our control. And when the unpredictable parts of life show up- accidents, losses, disappointments- there’s a kind of strength and ease we start to access. Not because we’ve become unshakable but because we’ve become more whole and complete withing ourselves.

Healing is not either I’m 100% healed or my life is a disaster. It's the “and”. I make mistakes and I learn. I feel sad and I keep going. I struggle and I find moments of peace. I make mistakes and I learn. I feel sad and I keep going. I struggle and I find moments of peace. This movement toward wholeness is healing.

So if we look at healing as a quantifiable thing- zero or one. Healed or not healed. We are never "healed". But what if it's not black and white. What if healing is learning how to live somewhere in the middle of this spectrum? And not stay fixed at that point, but keep moving. What if "healed" is not a medal waiting for us at an imaginary finish line? What if it is just exploring more and more of our neighbourhood, as much as our capacity allows- but it doesn't come with a defined end, a limit. What if there is no upper limit?We can always hold on to that idea of a final version of life, where everything is smooth and resolved- perfect relationships, no inner friction, no more mess. But that version is like the horizon. We keep walking toward it, and it keeps moving further away. From a distance it looks like the sky and the earth meet, but they don’t. The truth is in the movement, the rotation, the way things keep unfolding, the becoming. Sometimes you come back to the same wound, the same pattern, but you’re seeing it from a slightly different angle. With a little more understanding, a little more capacity. So, did you heal or not? You could say you healed a part of yourself and now you are healing another aspect of yourself. You might never be fully healed and reach a final destination. But you are on the journey, you are healing and have made peace with some parts of you.

So yes, healing is possible. Not as a finish line, but as an ongoing act, as a way of being with yourself that is more open, more accepting and more you. More and more aspects of you integrating within you. Expansion and more expansion and them some more. There’s no upper limit to how much you can heal, how much awareness or compassion you can bring to yourself. And that’s why healing never really ends. But it does deepen. You do grow and learn. And in that way, it’s not something you have to chase. It’s not an end in itself, it is the means to an end.