Why you need a safe place to heal
Insights from my own healing journey
There was a strange pattern whenever I went on a backpacking trip. Somehow, I felt more alive and connected to the world the farther away I was from home.
I met many lovely people. Although they were strangers, they felt more like family than my actual relatives ever did.
For a long time, I had no idea why it was that way. I only wondered why it wasn’t the other way around. Shouldn’t family feel safe...?
Back then, I had already done a lot of healing work. I took Reiki classes, tried Yoga, and all sorts of energy healing. I hoped this would help to fill the emptiness I felt inside.
All these techniques did something for me. However, the effects never really lasted that long.
At one point, I was so frustrated with my life that I decided on the only option that seemed to work. I quit my job, sold almost everything I had, and decided to travel for a year.
Life was great during that year. The real surprise was how much energy distance from home and everything connected to it brought back into my life — an effect that lasted for years.
The journey wasn’t a final cure, but it confirmed what I already knew deep inside:
I needed distance from what drained me to heal.
Chronic Stress Makes Healing Impossible
We all have a blind spot and often cannot see the obvious. Our modern lifestyle doesn’t make it any easier. We are constantly stressed and under tension. Somehow, we adapt to it — and in the process lose our sense of what is actually draining us.
The belief that you only have to work harder and more efficiently to finally get space doesn’t help much either.
The thing is that you cannot heal under stress and tension. For physical wounds, we know this very well. When you break your leg, you don’t try to run a marathon and allow more space to heal when there’s a better time for it...
Interestingly, mental health issues often become visible once the tension decreases. Like when we take a few days off to relax and wonder why we are so exhausted.
Working hard can almost feel like a drug, including the withdrawal symptoms. It’s quite incredible how much stress can push away things and how long you can function this way.
But it only works for so long. There is probably a reason why people burn out and why it’s not a stigma any longer (at least in some countries).
You Can’t Heal in a Toxic Environment
Stress is one factor that inhibits or slows down healing from trauma. Another big one is the environment you are in. With this, I mainly mean the people you spend time with.
When you’ve never really been loved and accepted for who you are, you never develop a sense of toxicity. For me, this showed up as emptiness and a deep feeling of not belonging anywhere.
Even before my long journey, I met people who were extremely kind and lovely to me. First, I thought there was something suspicious about them. There wasn’t... so I figured they must have been some of these very rare angel-like persons...
They weren’t... because I met more and more of them the farther away from home I was.
That’s basically how my sense for toxicity started to develop.
You need to keep physical wounds clean for them to properly heal. The same goes for wounds from a traumatic childhood.
Which brings me to the next point...
Healing Childhood Trauma Takes Time
Many of us only find out about the true nature of our childhoods in our 40s, 50s, 60s, or even later.
Such wounds go deep, which already tells you that they cannot heal within six weeks like a broken bone.
Nobody can really tell you how long your healing journey will take. However, it’s not a complete walk into the unknown. In my scapegoat healing journey series, for example, I describe which typical steps you’ll walk through.
The more you reduce negative stress and avoid toxicity, the better you will heal. I know this all sounds a bit abstract since you may not be fully aware of what stress and toxicity actually are for you.
In the end, it comes to understanding what you need to feel safe.
For this, ask yourself the following questions:
What are your physical needs?
What are your emotional needs?
What are your biggest worries?
What help do you need or would like to have to feel better?
What would you need to have no worries for the next 2 years?