OBSERVATIONS & OTHER ACCIDENTS

Thinking it was all figured out? (healing is a continuous process)

This is not — nor does it intend to be — a text in the infamous “self-help” category. Firstly, because I dislike the term; secondly, because no one, aside from ourselves, can truly help us. In fact, the concept is almost paradoxical: if it is self-help, why buy books by others to help oneself?

I do believe, however, that there are techniques, practices, and paths that can create space for each person to discover their own way of living — let’s say — a fuller life. Psychology, and all its branches, is a prime example, having spent over a century studying human behaviour and mental processes.

But the journey is not made of methods alone. Along the way, people often appear — unexpectedly — who prove crucial to our path. Lovers or friends, not as saviours, but as references that shed light on angles we would never have considered, that challenge our worldview and compel us to confront old patterns. Such presences are rare, leaving a deep, if silent, mark, and can be as transformative as any formal technique or learning.

Lovers or friends, not as saviours, but as references that shed light on angles we would never have considered, that challenge our worldview and compel us to confront old patterns.

There is also our relationship with God — or, more precisely, our conscious search for Him. The response rarely comes as a sudden beam of light full of promises or “perfectly beautiful things.” More often, it arrives as a collapse: a tearing down of the illusions we have built around ourselves, abrupt, uncomfortable, and far from gentle. A process that forces us to face what we have constructed and prevents us from continuing to live in complacency or fantasy.

No one teaches us that, despite therapy — and beyond it — the process of “healing” does not happen overnight. It can last a lifetime; for some, it may never happen. It is a path full of advances and insights crucial for anyone brave enough to look within and truly wish to become a little less flawed, a little more whole.

No one teaches us that, despite therapy — and beyond it — the process of ‘healing’ does not happen overnight. It can last a lifetime; for some, it may never happen.

I do not believe in full enlightenment. Being flawed is part of our nature. Perhaps this is indeed one of our missions: constant self-improvement. I will not venture into esotericism — that is another matter entirely. The world of the “enlightened” does not interest me; I have drawn my own conclusions.

The core of the matter lies in our certainties — when we think we are “healed.” Because we have done this and that, we believe we are now fully aligned with life, with God, with the universe. Because everything goes smoothly, and having emerged from a toxic place, we fill our chests with pride and begin spouting new age phrases and “healing” theories.

In reality, things do not work that way. True challenges often arise when we are in calm waters, especially after a tremendous storm. During chaos, body, mind, and soul are on constant alert and cannot perceive what is happening internally — until illness emerges, be it physical, mental, or emotional.

But trauma lingers, and it appears.

I consider trauma a complex term, often associated with visible, shocking external events. Here, I refer mostly to what occurs “within” and remains hidden until triggered: a word, a gesture, a detail that strikes us as if from another time. At that point we realise certain automatic responses, once assumed to be “ours”, were shaped by episodes never questioned. We react, we repeat, and we confuse habit with essence.

There is always an instant — brief, almost imperceptible — in which we can see the pattern before us. Then a choice arises: to continue on autopilot, walking a well-trodden path, or to break the cycle, with all the difficulty and liberation that entails.

At that point we realise certain automatic responses, once assumed to be ‘ours’, were shaped by episodes never questioned. We react, we repeat, and we confuse habit with essence.”

Certainties begin to crumble. No matter how much we have read, learned, or repeated mantras, life does not provide an instruction manual. There is no “reset” button to transform us into fully conscious or impeccable beings. At most, fleeting, imperfect moments arise in which we remember that we are flawed, human, and complicated.

It is in these moments that we can act differently. We engage with our patterns, observe them, test ourselves, and sometimes manage to break the cycle before it drags us along again. That awareness — imperfect, slow, and disconcerting — makes all the difference. It does not promise happy endings, but it gives us leeway: space to realise that stumbling is inevitable, but stumbling unconsciously does not have to be.

In the end, all that remains is the path, constant attention, and, from time to time, a quiet pinch of irony at our own predictability.