The Trap Inside the Healing Journey

You've done the work. You've felt the feelings. You've named the wounds. Now comes the terrifying, beautiful invitation to actually live.

Being Secretly Stuck

There’s an insidious trap hidden on the healing path.

It doesn’t announce itself. No one will call you on it. It looks like diligence, depth, and devotion to the work. It masquerades as consciousness… sensitivity… spiritual seriousness.

The trap is mistaking healing for the destination.

For at least a generation, the world has been learning how to heal. We’ve recognized the importance of diving into grief. We’ve learned that nothing clears—nothing really changes—if we don’t allow ourselves to feel.

We’ve begun naming the destruction all around us: the greed… the hatred… the violence… the annihilation of our planet.

We’ve recognized our trauma. Personal trauma. Ancestral trauma. Intergenerational trauma.

That work is real… and it matters.

These last few decades have been about learning to heal—and more than that, learning to value healing.

That alone is no small thing.

Yet when you’ve spent half a lifetime—or your entire spiritual life—focused on healing, it can be hard to imagine what comes next. In a world constantly bombarded by new wounds, you may even wonder: is there a next?

That is the trap.

I know this from the inside.

My family was part of that generation—the ones who turned toward the wound instead of away from it. We learned to feel… to name our trauma… to excavate the pain and give it meaning. That was radical then. It still is. And I’m grateful for every bit of it.

But the world didn’t pause while we healed. The blows of life never stopped falling, and healing mode became our modus operandi.

What else do you do when the strikes are still coming?
You survive. You process. You prepare for the next blow.

Somewhere along the line, joy got deferred.

Ordinary days weren’t something it occurred to us to be joyful inside of. There was still and always something to heal.

There always is.

In spite of our Herculean efforts, we never quite got to where we were going. Our lives were filled with “someday… maybe…”. We never seemed to arrive at that imagined, blissful state that would give us permission to move on—totally, completely, fully healed.

It took me decades to face reality:

The horrors of the world are going to keep coming.

Throughout our lives, we’re going to continue to uncover and recover from wounds that date back centuries, to heal triggers that crop up in unlikely places. That temptation to perfect ourselves will always be there. But as long as we sit in our wounds—whether we’re running from them or stuck in a healing loop—we can’t build the future we’re dreaming.

Feeling, Healing & Finding the Joy

If you’re still running from the important work of your own healing—it’s time to let your heart crack open. Feel your grief and pain until it cleanses you, like a fire ripping through the landscape that makes the soil more fertile. Feel your wounds deeply and all the way through. Beyond that unbearable torrent is a calm unlike any you have ever known. Let it wash over you, rub you raw, until you can breathe deeply once more—until you can look at the world with clear eyes, neither ragged nor hardened against it.

Let yourself come alive again.

And then—start living.

Here’s what the healing path forgot to tell you—joy is not what you earn after the wound is closed.

Joy is what was stolen when you were wounded.

Reclaiming that joy isn’t a reward for finishing the work. It’s the other half of the work itself.

Once you’ve learned the tools of healing deeply, you will always have them. You can use them as needed. As fresh wounds arise… as ancient triggers resurface… you’ll know what to do.

There is always another wound. There is always a new hurt or another ancient trauma surfacing. That will never stop. It’s part of what it means to be alive.

If you’re looking for support in the healing journey or are hungry for tools that will move you from healing to living magically, I have a few spots open in my Energy Magic Coaching program.

In this work, you’ll learn to transform the invisible energies hidden beneath the surface of your life—clearing past lives, rewiring childhood patterns, and moving beyond the noise to hear your own sweet voice.

The great poet Mary Oliver said:

“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.”

Living in the habit of forever healing, we miss those pebbles of rain falling on our faces. We miss the small joys, the fits of pleasure possible when we go out and meet the world.

There is a place for healing—an important one. If you haven’t done that work, you may not yet be fully able to feel the caress of the gentle breeze or hear the whisper of the night sky to your soul. If you haven’t learned the tools of trauma, you won’t yet know how to breathe and relax through the next blow and the next.

But when you have cried that last tear tonight—do not dig for the next out of habit. Let them rise when they rise. And when you’ve learned the landscape of healing—don’t forget to come up for air.

Because meanwhile, the world goes on.

We must learn again to dig our hands into the soil instead of our wounds. We must allow ourselves to run through forests instead of fleeing from pain. We must stop staring only at our past and instead begin to build a wide and wild future.

Do the work… and then find the courage to play.

Give yourself over to grief, and then give yourself over to hope… to joy… to the life that is waiting for you on the other side of healing.

When you take this important final step, you’re not just moving beyond the wound—you’re reclaiming the joy that was stolen from you.

You’re beginning to step into and co-create a world beyond the damage… beyond the trauma… beyond the reach of dominator culture.

So, let your grief wash away the old ways of being. And then rise.

Swim. Breathe. Love. Step through the gateway to the far green country beyond—and begin to trust again.

Trust that there is a landscape beyond healing.

Where are you in your healing journey?

Have you ever developed an identity around being someone on a healing journey?

Do you trust that the healing tools you’ve learned will stay with you?

Can you allow yourself to move beyond healing into a joyful life?

Calling All Heretics

Moving through this world can be terrifying, but underneath there is all ways hope for those who know how to seek it.

Not the superficial kind that pretends everything is going to be okay.

The deeper, ancient reality that you are held. You are loved. You are supported.

That’s what we’re exploring together in community at Heretic Happy Hour tonight.

And you, my friend, are most welcome.

Heretic Happy Hour — Hope

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 —5pm Pacific · 8pm Eastern · 2am Europe · 10am AEST(+1 day)

Bring your magical brew for an hour of inspiration and exploration in a safe-to-be-yourself space of fellow Heretics from around the world.