15. What Is Emotional Healing? How Does Healing Actually Happen?
Short Answer
For many years, I imagined healing as becoming a better version of myself—less afraid, less reactive, less insecure. And I notice that this way of understanding healing created a lot of suffering in me. I often felt disappointed in myself and saw myself as broken, as a failure, or somehow not good enough.
Through Nonviolent Communication (NVC), my understanding gradually changed. Today, I experience healing as a very special movement that happens within the body when something deeply true is being touched. It is a natural movement that can arise when I meet reality as it is.
Life itself carries the movement of healing, and it often does so in ways that my mind neither understands nor is aware of. Just as when I cut my finger, it is my body that does the healing—a process that is incredibly complex, intelligent, and delicate.
In emotional healing, I experience healing as the return of movement in places that became frozen through pain, fear, trauma, or disconnection. When what is alive in me is met with awareness, empathy, and compassion, something often begins to move naturally—and sometimes in unexpected directions. Softness returns. Energy flows again. New possibilities open up.
For me, healing is not about becoming perfect or eliminating all pain. It is about reconnecting with reality, authenticity, compassion, and the natural flow of life within me. The more I can meet myself and others as we are, the more healing becomes possible.
More Personal Answer
The Movement That Happens When We Meet Reality as It Is
“Healing” is one of those mysterious words that many people long for.
I certainly did. For many years, I wanted: to heal myself, to become freer, more loving, more powerful, less afraid, less insecure, more whole.
And honestly, I often imagined healing almost like: finally becoming a “better version” of myself.
But over time, my understanding of healing changed profoundly.
The Illusion of Healing
Years ago, my girlfriend had a healing session with Marshall Rosenberg. I was incredibly excited. I thought: “Great! Now she will finally be healed!”
And, at first it even looked like she was.
But after a couple of days, many of the old patterns returned.
Out of disappointment, we even jokingly began calling empathy: “a biological painkiller” — something that brought temporary relief, only for the pain to return shortly afterward.
Later, a Swedish trainer, Marianne Gothlin, helped me realize something important: I had been using the word “healing” in a jackal (judgmental) way: As if something was wrong with me,
and healing meant fixing myself.
Today, I call this the illusion of healing.
Honestly, I have never seen someone become “healed” in this way.
I now see this view as a recipe for disappointment and self-judgment: “I am still…” or “I am stuck.” “I am still anxious.” “I am still jealous.” “I am still afraid.” “I am still getting triggered.”
As if healing means reaching a place where these experiences no longer arise.
Because hidden underneath was the painful belief: “I am not okay as I am.”
From Fixing Myself to Meeting Myself
One of the biggest shifts in my life was moving away from trying to become better, and toward learning how to compassionately meet what is already here.
This changed everything.
Today, my focus is much less on self-improvement, fixing myself, or eliminating patterns and feelings, and much more on the power of compassion, presence, awareness, and the capacity to welcome and meet reality as it is.
And strangely, I repeatedly notice: when what is alive in me is truly welcomed, something naturally begins to move.
Healing as Movement
Today, I experience healing primarily as movement in the body. A movement in a place where there has been no movement for a long time.
For example, imagine I was in a relationship where my partner was not very attentive to me. We separate, and later I meet someone who listens to me and is genuinely attentive.
This can feel like a healing movement.
More generally, I see the experience of falling in love as exactly this kind of movement in a place where there has been little or no movement for a while: someone truly sees me, I experience shared values, honesty becomes possible, passion awakens, or connection suddenly flows again.
Or, for those of you who practice NVC, you may know the experience of someone offering you empathy and suddenly guessing a need that feels deeply true.
And then, suddenly, something moves inside the body. Tears come. Breathing changes. Warmth appears. Softness returns. Energy flows again.
That movement, I call: healing.
Trauma as Frozen Movement
I increasingly understand trauma as: a block in the natural flow of life in the body.
For example: if someone was bitten by a dog as a child, their nervous system may freeze whenever a dog appears.
But imagine this person slowly approaches a calm dog with enough safety and support. Step by step: fear appears, the freeze is felt, the body trembles, and yet enough safety remains present.
Then eventually: the dog gently licks their hand.
Suddenly: warmth appears. Softness returns. Movement happens again.
And in that moment: the world becomes safer, richer, and more alive.
That movement is what I call healing.
Healing Is Returning to Natural Flow
One thing I repeatedly notice: whenever I betray my authenticity, something freezes inside me.
For example: if I smile while there is actually no smile in my body, part of me disconnects.
Of course, by smiling I may be trying to care for beautiful needs: helping people feel safe and welcome with me, creating connection, avoiding misunderstanding, or maintaining harmony.
But another part suffers: my truth.
Over time, these small betrayals accumulate in the body as tension, numbness, or disconnection.
And healing becomes a return to natural flow.
Healing Is Not Permanent
One thing I deeply appreciate understanding today: healing is not permanent.
A healing moment does not mean: I will never struggle again, old habits disappear forever, or I become permanently “healed.”
Instead, I increasingly experience healing as: small movements repeated many times. Again and again: touching pain, returning to reality, reconnecting to the body, meeting myself compassionately, and slowly creating new pathways within the nervous system, so that my choices can become more aligned with my values.
Slowly. Slowly.
Hurt Stories
A huge part of healing for me is becoming aware of what I call hurt stories or my unproductive conclusions.
When painful experiences happen (Trauma)—especially in childhood—the mind naturally tries to make sense of them.
For example, my father was often much more focused on his work than on me.
As a child, I interpreted this as: “I am not interesting” (especially to men).
This conclusion then quietly shaped countless interactions throughout my life.
Whenever I met men, somewhere deep inside I carried the belief: “What I have to say is probably not interesting.”
And ironically, this belief often made me feel insecure, disconnected, and less spontaneous—therefore appearing, in a way, “less interesting.”
Many of these patterns contain a self-fulfilling prophecy. They repeatedly create experiences that seem to confirm the original conclusion, leading me to believe again and again that it is reality—that men are not interested in me.
This is what makes these hurt stories so tragic and so static.
Coming Back to Reality
For me, healing increasingly means: coming back to reality.
Not the reality of my hurt story. But reality as it actually is.
Eventually, I saw something different about my father: it was not that I was uninteresting:
My father was deeply passionate about his work, as well as physics, mathematics, and chemistry.
My brothers shared many of those interests.
My interests, however, were focused from an early age on emotions, relationships, and the inner world of human beings.
So it was not that I was uninteresting. Rather, it was that we did not share the same interests.
This realization changed not only the way I saw my father, but also the way I saw men in general.
Slowly, through becoming aware of this story and through meeting more and more men with whom I could feel confident, relaxed, and spontaneous—and with whom I could build close and intimate relationships—the old story began to soften.
Gradually, my predictive mind became more open to seeing reality differently.
Not because the pain disappeared. But because reality became larger than the painful interpretation. And as the story loosened its grip.
Compassion Creates Movement
One thing I increasingly trust is: compassion itself has healing power.
Not because compassion or empathic presence fixes me, but because they bring a quality of presence and attention that creates the conditions for movement to happen naturally.
Just like with physical healing: I do not consciously heal a cut on my finger. Life heals it.
My role is mostly: not interfering, supporting conditions, and allowing the body’s intelligence to move.
I increasingly experience emotional healing similarly.
Healing in Dialogue: Regret Instead of Guilt
One important distinction in NVC healing work is that guilt is not the same as regret (or Mourning).
When I do something that stimulates pain or hurt to another person, my tendency is to feel guilty. Yet guilt actually prevents healing from happening.
Guilt says: “I am bad.” “I did something wrong.”
When I think I am bad or wrong, I see myself as defective. This creates pain. When there is pain in me—about what a bad person I am—I become less available to hear the other person’s pain and the feedback they are trying to give me. As a result, I leave them alone with their pain.
A classic example is when a child comes to their parent and says, “I carry pain about some of the things you did when I was young.”
In that moment, the parent may feel guilty, thinking, “I am a bad parent.” They then become filled with their own pain. Because of this, they are no longer able to listen to the pain of their child. Instead, the child ends up listening to the parent’s explanations, justifications, or excuses, while remaining alone with their own experience and pain.
Guilt is very different from regret and mourning.
While guilt says, “I am bad. I did something wrong,” mourning says, “Something precious was not cared for.”
This distinction changed my life.
Because guilt often freezes me. But mourning moves me. Mourning allows me to: feel impact, learn, learn to care, and stay connected to humanity.
Beating myself up about the past takes much of the energy that would otherwise be available for feeling the pain of the other person and learning how to navigate life better in the present and the future.
Healing Is About Timing
One thing I deeply learned through mediation and healing dialogues is: healing is all about timing.
If I move faster than the nervous system is ready for, trust breaks.
Sometimes healing asks: slowing down, silence, patience, returning to empathy, or simply waiting.
Going slowly often makes the process much faster in the long run.
What Healing Means to Me Today
Today, if I had to summarize healing in one sentence, I might say:
Healing is the return of movement and connection in places that became frozen through pain, fear, or disconnection.
Not about becoming perfect. Not about eliminating all pain. Not even necessarily about becoming a “better version of myself.”
But reconnecting with: reality, authenticity, compassion, humanity, and the natural flow of life inside the body.
And honestly, this movement — this aliveness — is maybe the most meaningful thing I search for in everything I do.