Three common myths about healing and growth

Myth 1: One day I will be done. Healing complete, checkmark.

This I find to be the most inhibiting and limiting myth of all.

When I get to know a new client, quite often, they show frustration about not yet being further. They have done all sorts of work already, and, yet, a difficult topic has come up “AGAIN”. They notice that there is still pain about how their mother or father treated them, or still grief about the loss of a loved one, or still a pattern of panicking and withdrawing when things get too close in a relationship. Usually this frustration is accompanied by a sentence like “I thought I was done with this” and self-judgement along the lines of “I should be farther.”

I think what often underlies these frustrations is the faulty assumption that one day, healing and growing would be over. One day I will be fully healed, there will be no old wounds or vulnerabilities that can suddenly be triggered. One day I will have done all the personal growth I need to do and then life will be a piece of cake, continuously. While it sounds so appealing, it’s not how life works.

Instead, healing and growth happen in a spiralling movement. This means we will pass by the same topics repeatedly.

So if you have, lets say, an issue with your parents, like experiences of abandonment in your childhood, you will repeatedly pass by the issue of “abandonment”, but each time on a higher level. “Higher level” can manifest in different ways: it can mean that each time you pass by here, you get better at not getting overwhelmed by your emotions. So the intensity of the suffering decreases. Or, each time you pass by, you need less time to work through the issue. So the speed with which you process and transform old stuff increases. Or, each time you learn something new and valuable about yourself, you understand what happened on a deeper level. An aspect of healing is that your relationship with difficult experiences and the resulting pain changes.

So, next time you notice a frustration about seemingly being in the same spot again, rather than reproaching yourself for being in this place (e.g. of abandonment) “again”, I invite you to notice: Is anything different than last time?

Something similar applies to challenges and problems we face in our life: In my understanding, challenges are there for us to grow. And growth is a constant part of our life, it is life.

I invite you to try on this belief and see what effects it has on you: If I assume that the purpose of life is to constantly grow and develop, how do I feel about a new challenge arising? (You can compare this to the opposing belief: If I assume that one day, I will be done with growing, how do I react to the new challenges that arise?)

Myth 2: If I find the one thing*, it will solve all my problems

The “thing” in this sentence can take many different shapes. It can be a psychedelic trip, a specific tool or healing modality, travelling to a certain destination or doing a certain retreat, finding a certain teacher or path. But let me assure you: going to India or Bali is not gonna solve all your problems. Nor is taking a course in Shamanism. Or doing the Wim Hoff Breath daily for a year.

All these tools and experiences can help and I have experienced the transformative power of several ones myself. But I would like to caution against investing too much of your faith and hope into the one thing. Why? First of all, healing is highly individual. It is your path and yours alone.

Healing is highly individual. It is your path and yours alone.

And I think at the core of it, healing is exactly about that: getting in touch with yourself, finding your way. And as you do this — connecting and finding your way — healing happens. Second, healing is also about taking responsibility — for ourselves, our lives, our being. This is your responsibility and it cannot be delegated to a method, a teacher, a path. And third, as mentioned in regards to myth No. 1, healing does not end. So if you are looking for an absolution, you might get disappointed.

When I myself embarked on a Shamanic path, I didn’t know any of this, yet. I thought: “This is it! It is the answer to all my questions.” And then it turned out: it wasn’t. Things happened in my life that Shamanism didn’t have an answer to. I faced emotional challenges that Shamanism could not help me address or heal. And while that initially led to a crisis of faith or spirituality, however you want to call it, once I came out on the other side, I had a way more realistic view of what to expect from Shamanism and Shamans. And also a more realistic view about growth and healing, and life in general. And in my view, realism is good, it is helpful. The world is very magical as it is - we don’t need illusions or myths to make it any different.

I also at some point thought that therapeutic breathwork was the one tool for everyone’s healing - until I noticed it isn’t. It works for some people — for others it doesn’t. I have encountered clients for whom therapeutic breathwork is not the right way at the given moment in time. (It might work for them later in their life, who is to say.)

For me, going through my Clarity Breathwork Practitioner training was an incredible experience. So much healing and growth happened in these months, and after. And yet, at some point I noticed that Breathwork was not the modality that would carry me further in my own healing and growth. While regularly connecting with my breath is still important, it was other techniques and experiences that for me constituted the next steps.

The same applies for teachers: I have learned a lot from each of my teachers. And I am more than grateful for everything they gave me. But in each case, I could also clearly see their limitations. All people have their struggles and weaknesses and blindspots. So no one person can be your magic bullet.

If you, too, have been looking for the magic bullet, the cure-it-all, I invite you to ask yourself: What would it be like if I allowed myself to take on full responsibility for my healing and growth? If I allowed myself to find my own individual path — back to myself and to what matters to me? If that is the premise, what is the next step I want to take?

Myth 3: I have to do it alone

Many people suffer because they think that they have to solve their issue alone. I have seen this repeatedly: a person is struggling, suffering, has a lot of emotions, doesn’t know what to do with them, blames themselves for feeling the way they feel and for not knowing how to get out of the situation. Yet, rather than reaching out for help, they struggle on, alone, without a clear direction. Does this sound familiar?

My experience is: when it comes to healing, there is certain things we cannot do alone. Why?

First, our nervous system is primed for connection and co-regulates with other people. The safety that lies in the presence of a (safe!) other allows our nervous system to calm down. This state (which is called ventral vagal in Polyvagal Theory) is the one in which healing can best occur, and it is necessary for addressing certain issues.

Second, when another person holds space for us, we are able to go deeper and further in self-exploration and clearing. If another person (whom we trust) is in charge of the framework, we can offload certain executive functions of our brain and let go more easily.

Third, when another person is present, we can tap into their resources, their experience, their knowledge. It is almost as if we extend ourselves to include the capacity and wisdom of the other person. (If we accept Joan’s Social Baseline Theory of the brain and Dan Siegels research on interconnectedness, then it is not “as if” we extend ourselves. We factually extend ourselves.)

Fourth, when the injury happened in relationship, the healing happens in relationship, too. Many of our emotional problems have their origin in our earliest relationships (mostly to our caregivers) and they are tied in with how we have learned to relate. In a therapeutic or supportive relationship, we can ease into new patterns.

I have repeatedly drawn on the help of others in my own journey. I have attended 1:1 sessions with therapists, breathwork facilitators, CI and IFS practitioners, shamanic practitioners and traditional Mexican healers, curander@s. I have not once regretted it. Each time, seeing someone for a private session has supported me. Afterwards, I often thought: “Oh wow. I feel so much better now. Why did I wait for so long?”. And repeatedly, when I had been stuck with something — like feeling down or being upset about something for a long time — seeing someone to support me 1:1 brought immediate relief and made the solution seem almost easy.

If you believe that you have to do it alone when in reality you need support to solve your issue, going it alone will keep you stuck. It will also exhaust you. And in that case, you are really going around in circles, not rising in the aforementioned spiral of healing and development….

If you are currently struggling with something, I invite you to ask yourself: So far, have I been trying to solve it alone? How well has dealing with it alone worked? What would I risk if I reach out to someone for help? Would I be willing to give it a try, get support, and see if that can give me the momentum I need?

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DR. SINA BIRKHOLZ

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