"Healing doesn't have a finish line. It's not about arriving somewhere better. It's about getting better at arriving wherever you are."
Have you ever thought you were finally “over it,” only to get triggered again and feel like you are back at zero? You are not failing your healing. You are bumping into the lie that healing is a finish line instead of a way of living.
So much of healing culture quietly sells you a destination. One day you will be “healed.” One day you will never get triggered, never doubt yourself, never fall into old patterns. That fantasy sounds comforting, especially when you are in the thick of it. But it also sets you up to feel like a failure every time your humanity shows back up.
Healing is not about becoming someone who never gets shaken. It is about becoming someone who knows how to return to themselves when they do. It is less like crossing a finish line and more like learning how to arrive in each new season, each new wave of emotion, each new version of you, with a little more grace and a little less self-hate. You are not supposed to graduate from being human.
When you treat healing like a linear race, every setback feels like proof you are broken. “I should be past this by now.” “I already learned this lesson.” “Why am I still like this?” Those thoughts can hurt more than the trigger itself. But if you see healing as a spiral, where you revisit similar themes from a higher vantage point, the same moment that felt like failure starts to look like progress. You are responding with more awareness, more boundaries, more recovery skills than the last time. That counts.
There will always be new layers. A new relationship, loss, or opportunity will press on old places in unexpected ways. The point is not to reach a version of you that never hurts again. The point is to build a relationship with yourself that can hold your hurt without abandoning you. Over time, you bounce back faster, you speak to yourself more kindly, and you trust that a hard week does not erase years of work.
Letting go of the finish line idea is not giving up. It is dropping the fantasy that there is a version of you who will finally be “easy” or “fixed.” It is choosing to show up for the version of you who exists right now instead of constantly postponing your life until you become someone else.
Healing is not about arriving somewhere better. It is about getting better at arriving wherever you are. In this room. In this body. In this moment. Again and again.
