Why Healing Can Feel Like Nothing Really Works

How seeing healing as a journey can change everything

Over the last 15 years, maybe even longer, I tried everything I could imagine to fill the emptiness I felt inside.

I started with self-help books to find words for what I couldn't describe.

Back then, I thought I lacked purpose. You know, this magical thing you only have to find once, and suddenly life starts making sense. You do what you are supposed to do, everything falls into place, and the emptiness quietly leaves the room.

Of course, it wasn’t that simple.

Before finding my purpose, I first had to heal parts of my childhood. And that was when my healing journey actually began.

I tried yoga, which helped for a while. Then I took several Reiki courses. It was wild when I suddenly could feel my hands without using them. Nothing short of exciting.

But again, that effect didn't last for too long.

So I kept searching for the real thing, the method that would finally fill the unexplainable hole inside me. But the more I tried, the more frustrated I became. The effect got smaller and smaller. It felt like walking in a big circle for months, only to arrive where I had started.

There she was again, Miss Emptiness…

But this time, something else came with her.

When I started healing, I was full of hope. Now, even that hope began to leave me. I stood there with empty hands and the same emptiness inside me.

I felt more lost than ever as none of the things I had tried seemed to work.

The story doesn't end here. Actually, it's right where it begins.

Image by EMRE ALTITOK on Pexels

Relief vs. Healing

With physical wounds, we usually understand the difference between treating the wound and taking a painkiller.

Painkillers can feel like a solution first, as they give us relief. That's not necessarily bad because sometimes we need to ease the pain to allow healing to happen. As long as we don't confuse painkillers with real healing, there won't be any problems.

The story is not so easy when it's about healing your past. We often have no idea what only brings relief and what might actually contribute to our healing.

Take spirituality, for example.

Looking at our lives through a different lens can help us see the bigger picture. It can help us recognise patterns, find meaning, and understand that our pain is not just some random punishment from life.

But sometimes even beautiful practices can become a way to escape the pain for a while. When we use meditation just because of the calm it brings us. Or when we do forgiveness rituals, believing everything will be fine from now on.

Sometimes we do need to ease the pain. But real healing often asks us to turn toward the pain we were trying not to feel.

We Don't Know How Much There Is to Heal

When you cut your finger while preparing food, you know what to do. You clean the wound, maybe put some cream on it, and cover it with a Band-Aid.

You can watch the wound heal and know when the process is finished.

Healing from your past is way more complex.

You often have no idea about the damage done. You feel the wounds, but you don’t know exactly where they are and what it takes to heal them.

So it is easy to have the wrong expectations. And if somebody had told me that my little healing project would take 15 years, I probably wouldn't have believed it.

Maybe that's actually a good thing.

Fifteen years is a very long time. Back then, it was almost half of my life. An eternity I could hardly describe. Easy to lose all hope with such knowledge…

Healing Can Feel Stuck When We Never Rest

There is this German saying:

Walk slowly when you are in a hurry.

Healing your past can be very exhausting. The inner changes you go through often need way more energy than we might imagine.

When we try to rush things, we might end up like someone who tries to run a marathon like a sprint. After two kilometers, we run out of air and can barely take the next step. We are forced to stop for a while until we have recovered enough to keep moving slowly again.

When you run too fast, you usually know what happened. But with healing, it can feel as if you are stuck.

And in a way, you are.

Not because healing is not working, but because your system may have no space left to process what has already come up.

Every Layer Reveals the Next One

I climbed many mountains in my life. The more challenging ones had one thing in common. Usually, in the last third, I felt as if I was not moving at all.

When the mountain is steep, you just see the wall in front of you. Often, you don’t know what to expect behind the rock you are trying to walk around.

Maybe another rock, a glacier crack, or an overhang…

The more complex the terrain becomes, the more it seems like you are making no progress at all.

Healing can feel very similar. Once one layer softens, the next one may become visible. That can make it feel as if nothing has changed, even though you have actually moved deeper.

Sometimes What We Need Is a Map

Climbing a mountain becomes much less of a drama when you have a map.

It doesn’t need to be super precise. As long as it shows the important segments and what challenges to expect, you are good to go. You wouldn’t be surprised when the ascent suddenly becomes hard. Instead of losing hope, you’d adjust, take it a bit slower, and manage your energy levels a little better.

And once you make it out of one segment, you know you made progress and thus can keep your spirits high.

But there is more to that…

If you focus on the summit only and make reaching it your only goal, you lose orientation quickly when you cannot see it. You may keep on going, but see no progress. Climbing the mountain becomes torture. At times, you may even wonder what made you do such a stupid thing…

However, if you regard climbing the mountain as a journey instead, you might even enjoy walking it despite all the hardship that you may face. You would simply regard it as part of a journey. Much like a riddle. The fun is in solving it. The actual answer still matters, but it is no longer the only reason you keep going.

Now imagine that healing your past could be like that.

You don’t know exactly what to expect, but having a map can give you an idea of the terrain and the major healing phases.

When you feel lost, you still need to find your own way. But the map can help you navigate. You wouldn’t rush things as much. You would accept the challenge from one rock to the next, knowing that you are making progress, no matter how small it may look.

And while you walk on your healing path, you may actually begin to appreciate the journey itself. Because deep down, you know that this journey is a journey back to yourself.

Arriving there is a reward, like solving the riddle. Maybe the deeper reward is that you slowly learn to live again while you are still healing.

Before You Go…

Understanding healing as a journey helped me move through all the challenges, dark days, and setbacks.

I now know what my path looked like. And while it was my very own path, it also followed a larger pattern many of us seem to go through.

To make your journey a little easier to walk, I created the Finding Your Inner Light series. You can find it in the link below:

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