We Didn’t Come Here Just to Heal
- deborahberrymanyog
- May 12
- 3 min read
Updated: May 18
Sometimes I joke that my full-time job is taking care of my physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing - and in my spare time, I teach and coach a little.
I’m joking… not joking.
Because let’s be honest - healing can feel like a relentless game of emotional whack-a-mole. One minute you're tending to the pain of an emotionally unavailable parent, then it's a breakup, a loss, a health scare, a messy boundary breach… and don’t even get me started on how all that shows up in our relationships, our coping patterns, or the mean girl in our head whispering “still not enough.”
It’s A LOT.
Now don’t get me wrong - I'm a BIG believer in doing the work. I’ve built my life and work around the principle of showing up fully for ourselves, turning toward what hurts - not simply to feel the pain, but so we can unravel it and reclaim what’s true and feels more freeing and real.
Discovering Internal Family Systems (IFS) when my life felt like a landslide was a game-changer too. Its powerful lens and language helped me to understand I’m not one fixed identity but made up of many parts - The taskmaster who keeps pushing. The tired one who just wants to rest, god damn it. The good girl. The rebel. The perfectionist with a clipboard and waggling finger. The little scared one and the one who still wants to believe in magic. IFS gave me a way to listen to these parts with compassion - not just a healing tool, but a map for becoming whole.
It was so powerful, I almost trained as an IFS therapist (a story for another time perhaps).
Healing is hard work, harder than we ever knew, plainer and more ordinarily steady than we expected.
But healing isn’t where we pitch the tent. At some point, we have to integrate what we’ve learned. Harvest the wisdom. Apply the insight. Then step forward with clearer eyes and a braver heart.
Please my love, remember this: healing is not the end game.
I didn’t get sober, bury my mum, break my own heart when walking away from my marriage or leave a business I loved - process it all through hours on the mat, a cushion, a therapy chair - just so I could sit in the rubble picking over it all forever.
And you didn't do all that work - the growing, the excavating, the difficult conversations, uncomfortable decisions, breakdowns and forgiveness - simply to stay stuck.
We do it to live.
To laugh so hard we snort. To make bold choices. To live fully out loud, and to love with the lights on. To feel the sun on our skin and mean it when we say "I’m in SUCH a good place in right now".
If you're in the weeds right now, keep going ! Remember, healing is the bridge between the old and the new - it's essential, but don't hang around on that bridge for one moment longer than necessary. Keep following the yellow-brick-road to the Emerald City, Dorothy, There's magic there for you!
Our hearts will always bear the marks of our losses, or the shame that was never ours to begin with. And learning to honestly own our whole story, the dark and the light, is a slow, gentle and potent process.
And then one day - sooner than you expect, but later than you hope - the stitches that bound up the wounds, the scars you'll carry forever, will be beautiful to you too and you'll feel ready to move on.
So ask yourself:– 💛 Are you living in the healing, or letting it move you forward?
💛 Are you orienting to the past, or the 'here and now' you’re here to create and live in to?
💛 Is your inner-work making you lighter, freer, more you?
It’s time, my love.
Time to forgive every past version of you - the one who froze, who stayed, who ran, who didn’t know how to say no, the one who was just trying to survive. She did her best. You don’t have to blame her. And you don’t need to stay her, either.
You get to include her. And transcend her.
You get to become the woman your healing made space for. Whole. Alive. Joyful.
Because healing isn’t the destination. Becoming is.
I want that SO MUCH for you. Hoping this landed with you at just the right time. I'm with you my brave explorer, stay curious and gentle,
Deborah 💛
