Unglamorous healing
In a world obsessed with quick fixes, we’re often sold the idea that healing should be fast, dramatic and easy to measure. In reality, it’s messy, slow and goes beyond a highlight reel. What happens when we let go of those expectations and embrace a more authentic process?
You’re standing at the edge of change, waiting for something to happen. Maybe it’s the therapy session where everything will finally make sense. The retreat that promises transformation. The one conversation that will bring the closure you’ve been searching for. You’ve done the work, opened yourself up to the process, so where is the breakthrough?
The myth of the “breakthrough moment”
We’ve been taught to expect healing to arrive like a cinematic moment of clarity. A single, profound experience that rewires our thinking, soothes our wounds and sets us free. Social media is filled with stories of radical transformation: the day someone finally let go, the moment everything clicked into place, the single-best decision that changed the course of a life. These narratives position healing as a before-and-after story, measured in milestones and turning points.
Healing is rarely that tidy. Instead of a straight line from pain to transformation, it’s a winding path filled with setbacks, detours and unexpected roadblocks. The expectation and desire of a breakthrough moment can create frustration when the reality of healing feels slow, unclear or incomplete.
Neuroscience research on neuroplasticity shows that genuine transformation is gradual. The brain rewires itself through repetition, not sudden insight. A single realisation may provide clarity, but lasting change happens through the steady, daily eff ort of choosing new patterns and responses.
The frustrating “messy middle”
Many people embarking on a healing journey expect to feel progressively better over time. But the process is often non-linear with moments of progress followed by periods of stillness or difficulty.
This is the paradox of healing: the more we try to control it, the more resistance we create. This frustration is particularly evident in somatic healing practices like breathwork. People may come in expecting relaxation or a cathartic emotional release, but the reality can be very different. Some experience deep calm, while others feel tension, agitation or unexpected emotions surfacing.
Breathwork and other body-based modalities reveal the truth about healing: it’s not something you control. It’s something you allow. The nervous system releases stored patterns in its own time, and forcing a particular outcome often leads to resistance. Trusting the process means making space for whatever arises, even if it’s uncomfortable or slow. In short, you don’t always get what you want, but you always get what you need.
The body leads healing
For decades, healing has been framed as a mental process, understanding trauma, reframing thoughts and talking through emotions. But science increasingly shows that healing must also happen in the body.
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays a key role in your ability to process stress and trauma. Dr Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory highlights how nervous system regulation is essential for long-term healing. Somatic practices like breathwork, gentle movement and grounding techniques help shift the nervous system out of survival mode and into a state where true healing can occur.
Studies on trauma recovery confirm that small, consistent somatic practices, such as deep breathing exercises, can rewire the nervous system and reduce trauma responses over time. Slowing down, listening to the body and making space for “micro-moments” of healing are far more effective than searching for a single defining breakthrough or finish line.
Find what works
You light a candle, pour a cup of herbal tea and settle in with your journal because that’s what healing is supposed to look like, right? You’ve seen the posts: perfectly arranged self-care routines, sunrise meditations and captions about “doing the work”. Healing, according to social media, is supposed to be a beautiful, linear process. One where transformation is visible, where progress is measurable, where the before-and-after moments are obvious.
But what happens when your healing doesn’t look like that? What if, instead of journaling, you stare at the blank page, too emotionally exhausted to write? What if meditation makes you feel restless, not peaceful? What if the self-care rituals that seem to work for everyone else just leave you feeling … stuck?
Healing isn’t something that can be curated. Healing is deeply personal, often uncomfortable and rarely aesthetic. It doesn’t always fit neatly into an Instagrammable moment. Some days, healing looks like crying in the car after a hard conversation. Other days, it’s setting a boundary and feeling guilty about it afterward. Sometimes, it’s just getting out of bed and making yourself a meal when everything in you wants to shut down.
We live in a world that loves results — visible, tangible proof that progress is happening. But real healing isn’t a performance. It’s not something you need to prove to anyone, least of all yourself. It’s about finding what works for you and learning to trust your own process, even when it doesn’t look the way you thought it would.
Sustainable healing
If healing happens in the small, daily steps, how can we embrace this approach?
Here are some practical actions to consider:
- Set small, achievable goals: Instead of aiming for a complete transformation, focus on tiny shifts. For example, if self-compassion is a struggle, start by noticing negative self-talk and countering it with a single kind thought or moment of gratitude each day.
- Track the little wins: Progress isn’t always obvious. Keeping a journal or simply taking a moment to reflect on small improvements and moments of joy can help reinforce the sense that change is happening.
- Build rituals of care: Healing is supported by daily practices that promote regulation. This could be morning stretches, evening gratitude or a few minutes of conscious breathing during stressful moments.
- Accept plateaus as part of the process: Just because you don’t feel different doesn’t mean healing isn’t happening. The brain and body need time to integrate change, and sometimes progress looks like simply maintaining the gains you’ve already made or being ok with the stillness.
- Seek support but own your journey: While therapy, community and friendships are valuable, healing ultimately requires personal commitment. No one can do the small, daily work for you, but those who walk beside you as your allies can offer encouragement along the way.
Redefining what healing looks like
Perhaps the biggest shift you can make is redefining what success in healing looks like. Instead of waiting for a grand breakthrough, you can start celebrating the quiet victories — the moments when you choose self-care, when you break an old pattern, when you show yourself kindness.
Healing isn’t about reaching a final destination. The journey is probably longer than you can anticipate. It’s about becoming someone who consistently chooses growth, even when it’s slow, invisible and unglamorous.
And in that choice, real transformation happens not in a single moment but in the steady accumulation of small, meaningful steps.
