Healing Is Important, But Don’t Get Stuck There

These days, it feels like the world is in a constant loop of healing. Everywhere you turn, there’s another book, workshop, or guru offering the next method to fix your trauma. And while this kind of inner work is crucial, I can’t help but notice that some of us — maybe even many of us — are getting a little too stuck in the healing process. We dive so deep into our wounds that it becomes almost like the “Trauma Olympics,” where the bigger your trauma, the more spiritual credit you seem to earn.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Healing is absolutely essential. Our traumas shape how we see the world and ourselves, and they need to be addressed. But there’s a point where we must ask ourselves: Am I healing in order to move beyond this, or am I stuck in the process of healing? Are we healing to free ourselves, or are we getting further entangled in our wounds?

There’s a tricky paradox here: the more we focus on healing, the more we risk reinforcing the very thing we’re trying to transcend — the ego. The ego loves a good story, especially one filled with suffering. It says, “Look at all I’ve been through. Look at all the work I’ve done.” And before we know it, we’re identifying with our trauma, seeing it as a badge of honor, a key part of who we are.

As Carl Jung said, “What you resist, persists.” The more we focus on fixing ourselves, the more we’re caught in the loop of endlessly reinforcing that there’s something wrong with us. And the ego, sly as it is, will keep feeding on that story.

Healing is a vital servant on our journey, but it can’t be the master. If healing becomes the focus, we get stuck in a loop, constantly trying to fix something that, at the deepest level, was never truly broken.

The real question is, what is the purpose of healing? Is it to become some perfect, trauma-free version of ourselves? Or is it to remember that we are not our trauma in the first place?

Let’s be clear: trauma is stored in the body and mind, and healing those wounds is a necessary step. It’s not about ignoring our pain or pretending it doesn’t exist. As the poet Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” We have to acknowledge that wound, face it, and let the light in.

But here’s the key — healing isn’t the end goal. We confront our trauma in order to move beyond it, not to get further entangled in it. It’s like using a thorn to remove a thorn. You don’t keep the thorn after it’s done its job. You throw it away. You don’t keep poking at the wound to see if it’s still there. At some point, you have to let it go.

There’s a saying I love: “You can use a thorn to remove a thorn, and when it’s out, you throw both thorns away.” This is the essence of the healing process. We use the body and the mind to address our trauma, but once we’ve done the work, we must release them. We use the tools to free ourselves, not to remain stuck in them.

Let me share a simple story to illustrate this. Imagine you’re walking through the forest and step on a thorn. It hurts. Naturally, you want to remove it. You find another thorn and use it to pry out the one stuck in your foot. The pain subsides, and the thorn is gone.

But imagine if you kept both thorns. You carry them around, showing them to others, talking endlessly about how much they hurt, how difficult it was to get them out. It sounds absurd, right? But this is exactly what we do when we get stuck in the healing process. We identify so much with the trauma and the act of healing that we forget to actually move on. The thorns are no longer serving us, but we carry them anyway.

Instead, the wise thing to do is to use the thorn to remove the pain, and then let it go. You don’t need to hold onto the story of the wound. You use the healing process to free yourself from the past, not to carry it with you.

The ultimate goal of healing is not to perfect the body and mind, but to realize that we are beyond the body and mind. The Bhagavad Gita says, “The soul is neither born, nor does it die; it is not slain when the body is slain.” This is a reminder that we are not the temporary, fragile beings we often think we are. We are something far greater, far more expansive.

Healing helps us clear the blockages in the body and mind, but the deeper work is to realize that we are not defined by them. We are the awareness behind it all — the vast, spacious consciousness that holds our pain, our joy, and everything in between.

As Rumi so beautifully put it, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” Our trauma is just one part of the story, but it is not the whole story. We are vast, boundless, eternal.

So, what happens when we stop trying so hard to heal? When we stop focusing so much on fixing ourselves and start resting in the awareness of who we really are? Something magical begins to happen. The need to constantly fix ourselves fades away. The body and mind often find their own way of healing when we stop obsessing over them.

True healing happens when we realize we’re already whole. As Eckhart Tolle said, “Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.” We withhold our true selves when we get stuck in the story of our pain. But when we move beyond that, we remember our true nature, and in that space, we are free.

The scars may still be there, but they no longer define us. We’ve moved beyond the narrative of “me and my trauma.” We are living as the vast, boundless beings we truly are.

There’s no question that healing is part of the human journey. We all have scars, and we must face them in order to move forward. But once we’ve done the work, once we’ve used the thorn to remove the thorn, we must throw them both away. We don’t need to hold on to the story of our trauma. We confront it in order to move beyond it, not to remain stuck in it.

Healing is important. But it’s not the end goal. The real freedom comes when we stop identifying with the body and mind and rest in the awareness of who we truly are — eternal, whole, and beyond the beyond.

As the Tao Te Ching reminds us: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” The healing is just a way to clear the path. So, what thorn are you ready to throw away?