The Recursive Nature of Healing

Sometimes my clients get discouraged when they’ve done a lot of work to resolve an old emotional wound and yet it still comes back in some way. They believe that if they work hard enough, they’ll arrive at a place of healing and growth.

I’ve learned that sometimes it helps to explain that healing isn’t about how hard we work. It’s a recursive process, where we can only work with the layer of the problem that we can access. When we do that, we gain access to deeper layers that need our attention.

So, we live our lives until we encounter a problem – an unresolved emotion, an unhelpful core belief, an addictive tendency, a reaction in a relationship – whatever it is, we find ourselves in the pain of a problem.

Here we’ve got some choices:

If we run, the problem goes underground until it gets worse, or our running creates problems, itself.

If we try to work on things but we just stay stuck, we just keep spinning until we’re willing to try something new or get help.

But if we work on it, we might also make some headway! In this place, things might start to feel good – like we’re getting somewhere. And the problem subsides.

Until it doesn’t. It returns.

And there we are, facing another painful emotion, out of the blue. Or perhaps even the same one. Or we’ve lashed out in our relationship in the same way, again!

If we don’t understand the recursive nature of healing, it’s easy to get frustrated.

When we get it, we can know that we need to return to the problem because there’s more there to figure out. We’re at a deeper layer of the problem where what worked before doesn’t’ work anymore because that deeper layer requires deeper awareness and responsiveness.

As we work to connect with that deeper layer, learn what it needs, and what we need to move through it, we heal. Still, knowing that it will probably return again, in its same form or different.

Yet, we’ll be different when it returns and better able to respond again.

Does it ever end? Yes!

Well, sometimes.

That’s because, for some people, healing is the process of uncovering layers and working through them.

The process is the destination.

Sure, we change and grow in big ways along the way. But still, problems keep coming.

Why on Earth would anyone ever sign up for that? Most people do because they’ve run out of options. Running doesn’t work, and the self-help programs that promise bliss have all lost their luster.

More than this, people embrace recursive healing because this process – when we can trust and engage with it – it makes us stronger inside.

Now, this isn’t the Clint Eastwood version of stronger our society pines after. It’s not about our ability to resist, fight, or overcome anything. It’s the strength to be really honest, vulnerable, and grounded through it all.

And feeling stronger feels good.

I hope you find this article useful. You can read more on my website: https://www.jakepiercewalsh.com/insights.

Thanks!
Jake