The Costs of Healing

My last post explored grief in the midst of joy. More specifically, the ache of letting in goodness while still carrying pain. I ended that post with a statement I feel deserves a bit more exploration: nothing comes without costs. That includes healing. 

This may be surprising to hear from a therapist whose entire job is to help people heal, but it’s a universal truth. And I find speaking the truth to be freeing, for both myself and the people I work with. 

So I will say it again: healing costs something. Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because you’re doing it right. Growth always asks us to leave something behind. 

Let’s backtrack for a moment to help explain what I mean. What if I told you that you could be free? That the mental anguish that currently holds you back could lift? That a life of serenity doesn’t have to be just fantasy?

All you have to do is heal. 

Sounds amazing, right? 

In theory, sure! 

But here’s what no one tells you:

Healing isn’t just about feeling better. It does not mean that you will never sob for a broken heart again, or snap at a loved one when you didn’t mean to. It does mean that those kinds of experiences will transform - that you can move through difficult moments without being completely derailed by them. But transformation, true transformation that you can feel deep in your bones, also means letting go. Letting go of the self you had to be to survive. Of the strategies that once protected you. Of the illusion of control and the desire to know how everything will turn out. It means surrendering to all that life has to offer. 

And surrender, while ultimately liberating, can also feel like death. 

Not literal death, of course, but ego death. The ego is the part of you that is convinced it knows exactly what you have to to do to stay safe, even when those strategies haven’t helped you in years. This part of you craves predictability, and letting go feels wildly unpredictable. This part of you will not go quietly or easily. 

Ego death feels counterintuitive. It feels like you are going to disappear. Like a chaotic unravelling that you fear may swallow you whole. Your nervous system will sound the alarm bells and tell you to turn back to what you know - to the deflection, martyrdom, victimhood, rage, substance use. To whatever it is that once kept you safe. 

I am with you. I know that feeling intimately. 
And I also know this: 

The fear of surrender is raw and real. But, for me, the cost of holding onto what was predictable - of staying trapped in that fear for the rest of my life - was far greater.

I can’t tell you what’s right for you. You are the only one that can make that decision. All I can do is be here to lovingly hold this truth with you: there is a cost to every choice we make in life, including healing. We just have to decide which costs are worth bearing.