The Myth of Being Fully Healed
There’s a quiet belief many of us carry, often without realizing it:
Once I’m healed, then I can live. Then I can do the things I really want to do and live the life I want. Then I will feel good and will be able to handle challenges with ease.
Once the anxiety is gone and old wounds stop showing up. Once I’m more regulated, more confident, more whole.
Only then do we imagine ourselves relaxed, expressive, free. But what if the idea of the fully healed person is a myth that keeps us waiting for a version of ourselves that doesn’t actually exist? What if it keeps us stuck in the continuous pursuit of an illusion?
Healing doesn’t have a finish line
Somewhere along the way, healing became framed as a destination rather than a process. As if with enough insight, therapy, mindfulness, or self-work, we’d eventually arrive at a stable, unshakeable state where nothing triggers us anymore and life flows smoothly from there.
That expectation quietly turns healing into another performance metric. Another way to measure ourselves. Another place where we’re not quite “there” yet.
But being human has never worked like that.
Growth doesn’t move in straight lines. Old patterns resurface in new seasons and new growth edges. Grief revisits us in unfamiliar forms. Fear shows up right alongside expansion. This doesn’t mean we’re not healed “enough”- it means we’re living a full life.
Pursuit of healing can become avoidance
The pursuit of being “fully healed” can sometimes delay life instead of supporting it. People put off relationships until they’re less anxious. They postpone creative work until they’re more confident. They wait to make changes until they’re sure they won’t struggle anymore.
Unintentionally, healing becomes a prerequisite for living rather than something that happens through living.
And the irony is that many of the qualities people hope to develop—self-trust, resilience, agency—aren’t built in isolation. They’re built through imperfect action, authentic living, and allowing ourselves to be seen as we are.
Wholeness is not about being unaffected
Wholeness doesn’t mean you stop feeling tender, reactive, uncertain, or overwhelmed at times. It means you stop using those experiences as evidence that something is wrong with you.
A healed person isn’t someone who never struggles. It’s someone who doesn’t abandon themselves when they do. It’s someone who shows up compassionately when they’re challenged.
Someone who can say, this is hard, but I’m still here. Someone who allows discomfort without interpreting it as regression. Someone who trusts their capacity to meet life, even when it’s messy.
We can’t “fix” our humanity
Much of what people try to heal out of themselves: sensitivity, restlessness, emotional depth, ambivalence, are not flaws. They’re human features.
When therapy or self-work subtly communicates that we should be calmer, clearer, more regulated at all times, it can unintentionally reinforce shame around normal nervous system responses.
Healing, at its best, doesn’t make you smaller or quieter. It makes you more honest about your inner life and less afraid of it.
Living before you feel ready
There’s a particular kind of freedom that comes when you stop waiting to be finished. When you allow yourself to love while still learning how to stay present. When you take risks while still feeling afraid. When you make changes without needing certainty that you’ll never struggle again.
This doesn’t mean ignoring pain or bypassing growth. It means recognizing that life isn’t something you earn after healing, it’s the terrain where healing unfolds.
A Better Question
Instead of asking, “Am I fully healed?” What if the question became:
Can I stay with myself here, exactly where I am?
Can I move forward without needing perfection?
Can I trust that I don’t need to be fixed to be worthy of a full life?
There may be no final version of you who is done healing. But there is a version of you, right now, who is capable of living honestly, imperfectly, and with self-respect. And that might be the point.