The Story
There's a moment in every healing journey that no one warns you about. It's not the moment you decide to heal—that part feels empowering, like you're finally taking control. It's not even the moment you realize how deep the wounds go—that's just sobering reality.
It's the moment you understand that healing is supposed to hurt.
I learned this the hard way, lying in a hospital bed with a Grade 4 Glioblastoma trying to kill me from the inside out. The doctors could cut out the tumor, blast it with radiation, poison it with chemo. But the real healing? The kind that transforms you from victim to victor? That work was mine alone.
And it hurt like hell.
Not just physically—though brain surgery and treatment will humble you quickly. The deepest pain came from confronting every story I'd told myself about who I was, what I deserved, and what was possible. Each layer of healing revealed another layer of pain I'd been carrying. Every breakthrough demanded I break down first.
I remember thinking, "This can't be right. Healing should feel good. It should be relief, not more suffering."
But here's what I discovered in those dark moments when the pain felt unbearable: I had fundamentally misunderstood what healing actually is.
The Shift
We've been sold a lie about healing. We think it's about feeling better, about finding peace, about reaching some mystical state where nothing hurts anymore. We approach healing like it's a destination—a place where pain doesn't exist.
But healing isn't the absence of pain. Healing is the courage to feel everything you've been avoiding.
Think about it. A broken bone doesn't heal by pretending it's not broken. It heals by being reset—often requiring the bone to be re-broken to align properly. The body creates inflammation, sends resources to the site of injury, and rebuilds stronger than before. The process is uncomfortable, sometimes excruciating, but it's also miraculous.
Your emotional and spiritual healing follows the same pattern.
Every unprocessed trauma, every suppressed emotion, every dream you abandoned to stay safe—they're all still there, waiting. Healing doesn't make them disappear. Healing makes you strong enough to face them.
The path to what you want isn't easy because easy paths don't create the person capable of receiving what you want. The weight and pain you carry aren't punishments—they're preparation. They're building the emotional and spiritual muscle you'll need to hold the life you're creating.
You're not being broken down. You're being broken open.
Here's the truth that changes everything: You are not stronger than you think you are. You are exactly as strong as you need to be, and you always have been. You just forgot.
The pain isn't proof that something is wrong with you. The pain is proof that something is awakening in you. Every ache, every difficult emotion, every moment when you want to quit—these aren't signs you're failing. They're signs you're finally doing the work.
The Uplift
When you stop trying to avoid the sacred ache of healing, something profound happens. You stop being afraid of your own transformation.
You become HYPER-AWARE of what needs attention instead of what needs avoiding. You start seeing pain as information, not punishment.
You become OPEN-HEARTED to your own experience instead of closed off from it. You realize that feeling everything doesn't break you—it completes you.
You become PERSISTENT in ways that honor your process instead of rushing past it. You understand that healing happens on its own timeline, not yours.
You become EMPOWERING to others who are walking the same difficult path. Your willingness to hurt in service of healing gives others permission to do the same.
The most beautiful part? Once you stop running from the pain of healing, you discover something extraordinary: You're already healing. You always have been. The pain was never the problem—your resistance to it was.
Your body knows how to heal a cut without your conscious effort. Your heart knows how to heal from loss without a manual. Your spirit knows how to heal from trauma without a roadmap. The intelligence that beats your heart and grows your hair is the same intelligence orchestrating your healing.
You don't have to figure out how to heal. You just have to stop interfering with the process.
The path to what you want carries weight and pain because what you want requires a version of you that can carry that weight and transform that pain into wisdom. Every difficult step is building that person.
You're not too weak for this journey. You're not too broken for this healing. You're not too far gone for this transformation.
You're exactly strong enough. You always have been. You just forgot.
But here's the thing about forgetting—it means you knew once. And what was known once can be remembered again.
The sacred ache you feel? That's not your breaking point. That's your breaking open point. That's the sound of impossible becoming optional.
Hope isn't a passive wish—it's a strategy. And sometimes, that strategy requires you to hurt in service of healing.
You're allowed to hurt. You're allowed to heal. You're allowed to remember how strong you've always been.
Your starting line is here. Your strength is here. Your healing is here.
Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
Ready to transform your relationship with healing? Discover more insights and tools for your journey at beyondhopeproject.com
