We’ve been sold the idea that healing is a destination—a place where anxiety, sadness, and triggers vanish, leaving only peace and clarity.

Except… that moment never comes.

Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because healing was never about arriving. It’s about staying—staying present, staying with yourself, staying with what is, even when it’s uncomfortable.

What If Healing Wasn’t About Feeling Better?

Most people think healing means feeling less—less fear, less grief, less overwhelm. But emotions aren’t problems to solve.

Healing isn’t about making them disappear—it’s about increasing your capacity to feel them without shutting down.

✔ Instead of pushing emotions away, healing allows them space.

✔ Instead of fixing what’s hard, healing helps us sit with it.

✔ Instead of fearing the return of old wounds, healing teaches us they don’t define us.

It’s not about never getting triggered. It’s about knowing you can handle it when you do.

Why “Being With” Creates Change—Even When We’re Not Forcing It

We’re wired to believe change happens through effort—fixing, analyzing, controlling.

But healing works differently.

The more we try to force movement, the more stuck we feel.

The more we fight our emotions, the more they persist.

Real transformation happens when we stop trying to change it. When we just stay.

The Hardest Part: Letting Go of the Idea That You’re Broken

The personal growth industry thrives on the idea that if we just do more—read another book, uncover another trauma, take one more self-improvement course—we’ll finally be whole.

But what if you were never broken?

What if all of this—the feelings, the mess, the longing—was just part of being human?

An Invitation, Not a Conclusion

There’s nothing to fix here.

Nothing to figure out.

Nothing to solve.

Just notice.

What happens when you stop searching for an answer?

What shifts when you let this be enough?

Maybe your mind is already fighting it, trying to make sense of it. Maybe you’re thinking, Sure, but what do I do with that?

And that’s the thing.

You don’t have to do anything.

We spend so much time trying to get somewhere—more healed, more whole—that we forget:

There was never anywhere else to be but here.

So for now, just stay.

That is enough.

Embracing Shadows, Illuminating Hope,
Chelsey Fjeldheim, LCSW
Empowering Souls on the Path of Healing

Copyright © 2025 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling