Is Healing A Magical Place?
The word healing is everywhere in the ‘’self-help’’ community. Heal your pain, heal your attachment, heal your wounds… Do we even know what healing feels or looks like with these vague descriptions we’re often given? What are we aiming for?
Does healing mean we go to this magical place, where our life and everything becomes easy? Is it where all our problems are solved? Where there’s no pain? Where we’re always happy? Or where we handle our emotions without any difficulty?
The answer is, no.
Healing is about actually allowing ourselves to feel our emotions, whether they are comfortable, or uncomfortable. Healing means we have the capacity to allow ourselves to feel our feelings wherever they may be in our body, by giving ourselves permission. We can co-exist with our emotions instead of burying them, but also not being overburdened by them. It’s about living alongside our emotions and listening to the messages they are communicating to us. And of course, feeling some emotions may never be comfortable, especially if they’re painful, or we know that they may require a difficult change. But when we heal, we attend to those feelings, we hear the messages, and we don’t think our way out of them (e.g. ‘’Stop being upset’’). We allow our feelings to be present in our bodies. So, they can come… and go… almost a bit like clouds… We learn that emotions have a purpose, and by listening to the messages in our emotions, learning to sit in discomfort, and accepting this way of being, then life can become more manageable.
All of us have some form of emotional wounds of some kind. The path is not linear; and having been on the journey to find inner peace and healing, I have learnt to reframe my way of thinking and understand my emotions. Healing requires us to recognise what’s no longer working, and change by sitting in what we experience as discomfort and choose a different direction from what we’re used to (or what feels ‘’familiar’’). For instance, creating boundaries and saying ‘no’ can feel uneasy if we’re not used to this – but in order to support our healing, we have to recognise self-care is so crucial, we matter just as much as others. Healing doesn’t mean we’re always getting it right – we may go back to old habits in time of stress, but what we can do is choose to be kind to ourselves, and learn from this. We’re only human, and humans make mistakes. Our struggles show us what we need to internally work on.
“While the world around us is full of things beyond our control, the most important focus is what you can control—one of which is the relationship you have with yourself. It’s within this space that healing begins, and through self-compassion, you can find the strength to move forward through any storm that comes your way”
What Healing Means to Others
Different professionals define healing uniquely:
Lori Gottlieb (psychotherapist): Healing happens through reshaping the stories we tell ourselves.
Richard Schwartz (Internal Family Systems - IFS): Healing comes from harmonising the different parts of ourselves, including those we might consider negative.
Carl Rogers (person-centred): Healing occurs in a space of unconditional positive regard, empathy, and genuineness.
Petruska Clarkson (relational therapy): The therapeutic relationship itself is central to healing – healing happens in connection.
Sigmund Freud (psychodynamic): Healing is about bringing the unconscious (out of your current awareness) into conscious awareness.
Irvin Yalom (existential): Healing comes from confronting existential concerns and finding meaning in life’s experiences.
Emmy van Deurzen (existential): Healing is about embracing the totality of human experience, including suffering.
Aaron Beck / Albert Ellis (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - CBT): Healing occurs by identifying and changing distorted thoughts and behaviours.
Steven Hayes (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - ACT): Healing comes from accepting emotions and committing to value-driven actions despite discomfort.
Marsha Linehan (Dialectical Behavior Therapy - DBT): Healing is a balance between acceptance and change, improving emotional regulation and distress tolerance.
Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy): Healing comes from integrating the self by being present and taking responsibility for thoughts and actions.
Michael White / David Epston (Narrative Therapy): Healing happens by rewriting one’s personal narrative and separating identity from problems.
Abraham Maslow (Humanistic Therapy): Healing comes from achieving self-actualization and realising one’s potential.
Ken Wilber (Transpersonal Psychology): Healing involves integrating the spiritual dimension and understanding the interconnectedness of life.
Insoo Kim Berg / Steve de Shazer (Solution-Focused Brief Therapy - SFBT): Healing is about focusing on solutions and strengths rather than problems.
Leslie Greenberg (Emotion-Focused Therapy - EFT): Healing involves processing and transforming emotional experiences, especially in relationships.
Which do you resonate with? How would you define ‘healing’?
So what does this mean for us, and how can we support your healing journey?
Healing isn’t about a perfect, magical place—it's a continuous process of becoming. At Relational Counselling, we guide you through this process by providing a safe and supportive environment for you to explore and understand your emotions. Whether you’re dealing with trauma, attachment issues, or simply going through the ups and downs of life, we help you build emotional resilience.
As integrative psychotherapists, we integrate different theories and ideas (such as above), to meet you where you are. Together, we can help you;
Build a safe, supportive space in therapy
Work through your emotions, improving emotional awareness and regulation
Help you to sit with discomfort
Develop tools to manage emotions in a healthy way
Reframe your way of thinking
Reshaping the stories you tell yourself by changing your personal narrative
Encouraging your voice to be heard
Embrace your whole self by exploring different parts of yourself
Find meaning in your experiences
Focus on values-driven actions
Balance acceptance with change
Support self-compassion and self-care
With the right support, you’ll discover that healing is not about avoiding pain—it’s about understanding it, working through it, and learning how to co-exist with it. Let us be part of that process. We’re here for you every step of the way.
- Content by Melissa
- Edited by Patrick
If you need to talk to a psychotherapist