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A few years ago, after multiple failed relationships, I finally jumped on the therapy bandwagon.

I was never against therapy, but the idea of sitting down with a complete stranger and baring all my secrets and issues felt overwhelming.

And the belief that I was so broken that I needed someone else to “fix” me was embarrassing.

For years, I convinced myself that I was fine. That I could heal myself. That the pain and the anxiety and the stress and yes, even those failed relationships, were all just normal parts of life—parts that I would eventually work through on my own.

Then I found myself in a relationship I genuinely wanted to succeed.

But we struggled to communicate with each other. And I saw so many of my typical relationship behaviors popping up: my anxious attachment, my mistrust, my fear of conflict, my compulsion to walk away before they can leave first.

So I decided that if I didn’t want this relationship to end the way so many others had—or really to end at all—I had to change my behavior. I had to be better, for myself and my partner. I had to fix myself. I had to heal.

What shocked me about therapy is that it didn’t heal me. And four years later, it still hasn’t…at least not in the way I expected.

What is has done is open my eyes to the fact that I will never be “fixed” because I am not broken. What it has done is allow me to see all the ways I show up in relationships without attaching negative judgement to them. What it has done is given me tools to respond differently to experiences and conflicts and struggles with my partner (and in all my relationships).

What it has done is prove to me, daily, that I am worthy and capable of a successful relationship, even on my worst days. Even when I haven’t fully healed.

Because what does “healing” even look like?

I recently came across an Instagram Reel from trauma therapist Kobe Campbell that so accurately explains what healing is—and what we keep getting wrong about it:

 

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“Healing is not becoming the best version of yourself. Healing is letting the worst version of yourself be loved. 

So many of us have turned healing into becoming this super perfect version of ourselves. That is bondage, right? That is anxiety waiting to happen. 

Healing is saying every single version of me deserves love, deserves tenderness, deserves grace. When we get to a place where we see and can empathize with every version of ourselves, even the version of ourselves that we can sometimes be ashamed of, that’s when we know we’re walking in a path of healing.”

~