The Feeling is Real. The Story May Not Be.

This is a question that occasionally wanders into the quiet corridors of my thoughts:

Am I truly healed, or are my wounds just comfortably dormant?

There is a certain kind of peace that comes with being alone. When no one is disappointing you, misunderstanding you, asking anything of you, or touching the places that still feel tender, it can be easy to believe everything is healed.

Maybe it is.

Or maybe nothing has touched the bruise.

My daughter gave me a little reminder of this the other day.

She noticed a bruise on my arm. She pointed to it, touched it softly, and asked, “What happened to you there?”

Her touch was gentle. She wasn’t hurting me.

And still, I flinched and pulled away.

She didn’t cause the injury, but my body didn’t know that. It simply knew that something tender had been touched.

I think relationships can be like that.

They bring us into contact with parts of ourselves that are easy to forget about when we’re alone. The places where we still feel uncertain. The places where we still wonder if we’re enough. The places where disappointment can sound suspiciously like rejection.

And sometimes we make the mistake of assuming that because someone touched the wound, they must have caused the pain.

But that’s not always true.

And sometimes it is.

I think part of healing is learning to tell the difference.

Because not every painful feeling is an old wound. Sometimes someone really has crossed a line. Sometimes we’re disappointed because something disappointing actually happened. Sometimes uncertainty is telling us that something in the present deserves our attention.

Healing doesn’t mean talking ourselves out of every uncomfortable feeling.

It means becoming curious about it.

I’ve started thinking of feelings as little dashboard lights. They can tell me that something needs my attention. They can tell me I’m disappointed, afraid, uncertain, vulnerable, or hurt.

But a dashboard light doesn’t tell me the whole story. I still have to look under the hood.

The feeling is real.

The story I attach to it may not be.

I know this one well.

Someone doesn’t respond the way I hoped they would, and I can feel that familiar little shift inside me. Suddenly I’m wondering what I did wrong. Maybe I misread the situation. Maybe I asked for too much. Maybe I’m not wanted in quite the way I thought I was.

The mind is remarkably efficient at filling in empty spaces.

And it doesn’t always fill them with the truth.

I am getting better at noticing that.

I can notice the thought without immediately attaching myself to it. I can feel disappointment without deciding I’ve been rejected. I can experience uncertainty without rushing to fill the empty spaces with a story.

That pause is where something has changed for me.

Not that the old wounds are silent.

They aren’t.

I just don’t believe everything they say anymore.

It’s about becoming curious about ourselves rather than immediately convinced by ourselves.

And maybe that is one of the gifts of relationships. They show us where we are still tender.

Not so that we can blame the other person.

Not so that we can blame ourselves.

But so that we can see what is there.

Other people can love us, support us, reassure us, and treat our tender places with care. But they cannot do the inner work for us. No one else can make us feel wholly worthy in the places where we still doubt ourselves.

That part belongs to us.

So when you find yourself feeling whole in solitude, cherish that peace.

But don’t be afraid when a relationship reveals a tender place you thought you’d already healed.

Maybe that doesn’t mean you are back at the beginning.

Maybe it means you’ve simply discovered a place that still needs your attention.

Perhaps the goal isn’t to emerge completely untriggered.

Perhaps healing is simply this:

When something stirs within us, we pause long enough to listen.

We let the feeling inform us without letting it write the story.

We recognize the wound without becoming the wound.

And maybe that’s what healing really looks like.

Not never hurting.

Just becoming a little less afraid of what the hurt has to say.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ❤︎