When we think about healing—whether from heartbreak, trauma, loss, or burnout—we often imagine it as a straight, predictable path.
Day by day, we picture ourselves getting better, feeling lighter, leaving the pain further behind. It’s a neat image: the deeper we go into time, the farther away we get from what hurt us. But real healing? It’s rarely that tidy.
It’s tempting to believe that progress will be smooth and incremental, that every day will be better than the one before. This is the kind of healing story we see in movies—montages where sad music fades, the sun starts shining, and everything clicks into place. In real life, the journey is far less cinematic. Some mornings you wake up feeling strong, clear-headed, even hopeful. Then a week later, one stray thought, a familiar place, or a song on the radio sends you spiralling back into grief or anxiety. It’s jarring. It can feel like failure. But here’s the truth:
That’s not failure—it’s how humans process pain.
Nonlinear healing is full of contradictions:
And none of this means you’re starting over. You’re not undoing progress. You’re moving through a cycle of integration. Think of it this way: pain doesn’t just vanish—it gets woven into your life in smaller and smaller ways until it no longer dominates your days. Sometimes, those old threads catch the light again, and you feel them more sharply. That’s not regression; it’s a reminder of the depth of what you’ve lived through.
One of the hardest parts of healing is the invisible timeline we impose on ourselves—or that others impose on us.
Sometimes these words come from friends who mean well but are uncomfortable with prolonged pain. Sometimes they come from your own inner voice, tired of feeling heavy and desperate to feel “normal” again. But emotions don’t work on deadlines. There’s no clock counting down to the day you’ll be “fixed.” Trying to rush your healing only pushes the pain deeper, where it lingers and grows heavier.
Because healing isn’t linear, you can’t measure it only by how often you feel good. Instead, look for smaller, quieter signs:
These small shifts are huge indicators of progress—even if you still have waves of sadness or pain.
One of the most accurate ways to understand healing is to picture it like the ocean. Some days, the water is calm. You can see the horizon clearly. You feel steady, even peaceful. Other days, the waves are high and unrelenting. You get pulled under by a memory, a feeling, or a trigger, and it’s exhausting to keep your head above water. But here’s the thing: even when the waves are rough, the tide is still moving. You’re still further from shore than when you started. Healing doesn’t mean there will never be storms again—it means learning that storms pass, and you’ve learned how to survive them.
One of the most demoralizing experiences in healing is the “setback”—that day when you feel like all your progress has disappeared. You tell yourself, “I was doing so well. Now I’m back at square one. ”But in reality, you’re not back at the beginning. You’re simply meeting an old feeling with a new version of yourself. And even if the pain feels just as intense as it once did, you’re likely handling it with more tools, more awareness, and more resilience than before. It’s like hiking a mountain where the path loops back near a familiar spot—you might recognize the view, but you’re standing at a higher elevation than the last time you were there.
True healing requires patience. And patience requires self-compassion.
Self-compassion means:
You can’t bully yourself into healing faster. In fact, shame and self-criticism slow the process.
Here are a few ways to navigate the inconsistency:
One day, you’ll notice something subtle: you went a whole week without thinking about the pain. Or you laughed without the weight in your chest. Or you remembered something difficult and felt a bittersweet acceptance instead of a sharp ache. This is what healing actually looks like—moments where the heaviness loosens, where the thing that once consumed you has become something you carry without it carrying you. The timeline will be different for everyone. Your healing won’t look like anyone else’s, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to erase the past—it’s to integrate it into a life that still feels worth living.
If your journey feels inconsistent, that’s okay. That’s normal. The dips don’t mean you’re broken; they mean you’re still processing. Healing doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be yours. And one day, without even realizing it, you’ll feel the difference: the weight will be lighter… and so will you.