What Healing Really Means – and Why I Resisted It for So Long

I’ve now covered yoga therapy and hypnosis in my blog posts, so I’m going to start writing about energy healing modalities. But before I get into energy healing, I want to write about the word, healing itself.

Healing brings up different things for different people – some welcome it, others meet it with resistance. I was someone who met it with resistance. Yet, here I am, with healing at the forefront of Ignite Wellness.

In this post I share lessons I’ve learned on my personal healing and wellness journey. While healing and wellness are not the same, they are closely related and support one another. On my journey, they’ve been deeply intertwined.

Healing can be described as the process of restoring health, and wellness as the state of being healthy and thriving.

What I’ve learned in a nutshell:

• Healing leads to wellness.
• Healing and wellness coexist, with healing as an on-going process, and wellness as an outward reflection of continued healing.
• Wellness also leads to healing.

When we think of wellness as something more expansive than the absence of illness or physical health, we see that so many other dimensions can support our well-being and our abilities to thrive. We have choice, more levers to pull, and more ways to experience joy.

And when we experience healing as something other than surface-level fixes, one-and-done methods, or a passive event, we remember our wholeness, access self-agency, and reconnect with an inner self that’s unshakeable.

A person who is that steady and powerful from within - one who is aligned and in flow with their own rhythm, one who sways with rather than breaks from the struggles or low points of life, one who feels the full spectrum of emotions, but comes back to a regulated state easily, one who has experienced pain, illness, or heartbreak but doesn’t lead a life from that place – this is a person who is living well on their terms, and a person who has embodied healing.

This is what I’m interested in, and this is what I most want to share with my clients. Not through pushing, forcing, or more doing, but by experiencing, allowing, releasing, and being. Through presence, not performance. Through self-connection and self-inquiry.

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Yet, just a mere six months ago, I was resisting the idea that I would have a wellness business that involved healing. At the time, I was still thinking that yoga therapy would be my only focus. The precursor to Ignite Wellness was actually Ignite Yoga Therapy.

I love yoga therapy. It has depth. It’s East meets West. Ancient wisdom plus modern knowledge. Philosophy, spirituality, and science rolled into one. It made logical sense to me, that yoga, which I had practiced for so long and then taught, combined with a modern framework that allowed me to support people with health issues – some of which are the same health issues I struggled with or live with – would be super meaningful. And it is. However, I realized that it was only part of the picture and part of my story.

The word healing kept coming to me time and time again as I was envisioning and planning Ignite Yoga Therapy. I tried to ignore it at first, but the further I continued down the yoga therapy path, the more narrow I felt that path becoming. I physically felt constricted. My jaw was tight, my neck was tense, my shoulders hurt. I was confused, but not really.

Deep down, I knew I was still only putting part of myself into my business, and the inner me knew that wouldn’t do. I was leaving out everything else I’ve learned and experienced, but not only that, I was leaving out parts of myself. These were the parts of myself that I had the most trouble accepting.

At some point, I started to yield. A bit at a time. A step at a time. I’m still yielding. I don’t mean this in a “giving up” kind of way, but in a “it’s okay to soften, and it’s okay to be vulnerable” kind of way. It’s okay to embrace parts of me that are sensitive, intuitive, spiritual, and interested in the esoteric and the unseen. It’s okay to lean into my own story – however messy, painful, and imperfect it is. I can allow myself to be fully seen.

On some level, I think I was waiting to be more ready or more perfect. I couldn’t tell you what that would even look like. But I’ve learned that perfection is an illusion, and readiness is a choice. Readiness is simply saying, “I’m willing. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but I’m going to stand up and take a step forward. I’m willing to go for it because it’s what I truly want.”  

So that’s how I ended up putting all of me into this work. I never thought I would be a person that would find meaning or purpose. I never thought I could be one of those people that find would find work fun and deeply rewarding. I used to roll my eyes when I heard people say stuff like that. And now I see no separation between who I am and what I do.

So healing isn’t just what’s experienced in a session, a retreat, a spa day, a self-care ritual. What it’s in the moment is wonderful, but if it only stays there, that feeling or state is fleeting and conditional. True, deep healing is what we can take away, what we allow to change us, bit by bit, so that we choose differently and step towards something new. This is how we go from healing, to growing, to thriving.

Sometimes we just need a mirror to reflect our wholeness back to us. One person who treats us with unconditional regard, a safe space, experiences that call our curiosity, or a practice that keeps us coming back – to help us see ourselves more fully – the shadows and the light – without shame or judgment, to remind us of who we truly are, and to open us to different possibilities.

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Some more thoughts on healing:

When we hear the word healing, sometimes we think it’s about fixing something - like an illness to cure, a wound to close, or a pain to get rid of. Healing is not the same as curing. It’s not the absence or erasure of an illness, wound, or pain that is indicative of healing. Healing is about integration of parts into the whole, where if pain, illness, or wounds were to persist – we can come to terms with them, accept them as part of us, and still experience well-being alongside them.

Healing is reflected in a different relationship or a shifted meaning with a past that has hurt us or kept us stuck. Illness becomes more manageable – a friend instead of a foe – communicating messages to be acknowledged; emotional wounds become scars and we find love again; pain transforms into purpose.

Healing is an acceptance that while we are changed by our past, we no longer have to be driven, defined, or limited by it.

Healing is learning to be with all emotions - including what hurts, what lingers, what feels raw - without rushing to make it neat. It doesn’t mean we’re broken. It doesn’t mean something is wrong with us. It doesn’t mean we haven’t done enough. More often than not, we have been doing the best we can. We have been making the best decisions based on the information we have. We are working with what we have. So healing is also the practice of giving ourselves grace and compassion, wherever we are.

True healing doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable. It doesn’t work on a schedule, and it isn’t a linear process. Tools and support help us sit with and move through the discomfort.

Healing is often quiet and subtle. It’s the moment you finally pause long enough to feel your breath. It’s when your body softens after years of holding. The silence when we think nothing is happening? That’s healing too.  

Sometimes healing looks like rest. Sometimes it looks like anger. Sometimes it’s choosing to feel what we’ve avoided or numbed for years. Sometimes it’s finally saying no and lovingly establishing boundaries.

Healing is remembering. It’s a return to the parts of ourselves we once abandoned because we were hurt and had to hide them.

Healing is a return. To wholeness. To truth. To presence. To the inner you that’s beneath the stories, expectations, and survival mechanisms.

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I’ve been told that I’m a healer, but I don’t see myself as one. And it’s not because I have a block around it, it’s just that I truly believe we heal when we choose to heal. We grow when we choose to grow. We thrive when we choose to thrive. We are our own best healers.

I create safe space and containment for healing to occur. I help you remember what’s been there all along. I help you move mind, body, breath, and energy to clear clutter, create space, and plant new seeds. Using tools and techniques, I call in and cultivate what would support you. But anything we uncover, whatever you release, whatever insights come up, whichever positive states and emotions that arise, whatever brave steps you take going forward - that’s all yours, not mine. You participate in your own healing – mind, body, and spirit.

Lastly, healing will meet you when you want to be met. Choose healing for yourself, because you’re worthy of the life you deeply desire. So if you're tired, if you're carrying symptoms that don't make sense, if you feel like you’re doing all the right things but still feel empty, uneasy, or have an ache you just can’t quite explain or shake - this is your invitation.