Have we reached a point where we’ve become so obsessed with healing that we’ve blurred the boundaries on it? With a lot of the conversations right now around boundaries or dating or ‘protecting my peace’ I often find myself thinking is that actually healing? Or is it hiding?
I think this is why so many of us have spent time on what we think is ‘healing’ and yet currently feel quite stuck, lonely or disempowered. Before anyone gets too defensive here, I’m including myself in the people who have done this. In fact I think most of us have mistaken hiding for healing at some point.
For example, we’ve called something healing when really it was avoidance. Or we’ve used words like ‘protecting my peace’ when really it was us not doing something because we were afraid. Or we’ve convinced ourselves we don’t want something when the truth is we want it very much but the vulnerability required to go after it feels unbearable.
Sometimes we’re not healing, we’re choosing fear
When we slip into this way of perceiving things, we are choosing fear. And shrinking who we really are. And staying inside our comfort zones. And to be honest there isn’t much healing to be found in your comfort zone.
The difference between healing and hiding might be one of the most important distinctions I’ve come across in resilience. Because both of them are going to take a lot of energy and I’ve found that when someone is doing one, the other isn’t possible. So it is really important to make sure you’re putting that focus and energy where you actually want it to go.
Healing and hiding can also feel very similar
Both seem to involve boundaries and saying no. Both involve paying attention to yourself. And involve listening to your nervous system. But the difference is the motivation behind it – as well as where you end up as a result of doing it. One is fear driven and one is courage. One expands your life. And the other slowly shrinks it.
The challenge is knowing which one you’re doing because we very rarely wake up in the morning and consciously choose to hide from life. Instead, we start out with good intentions – part of us actually believing we’re making a choice that is sensible, reasonable and self-aware. And because it’s really difficult to see that you’re doing this when you’re in it unless you’ve got someone like me holding a mirror up to you, let me give you a few examples of what hiding disguised as healing can sound like in reality:
“I’m waiting until I feel more confident.”
“I’m just not ready yet.”
“Now isn’t the right time.”
“I need to do more work on myself first.”
“I need more certainty.”
“I need to know exactly how it’s going to work.”
The key is to look at the motivation – do you need to prepare more because you know you haven’t prepared enough or is it simply that you don’t trust yourself enough to stop preparing and just do it. Do you really need to work more on yourself or do you just not believe in yourself? Are you waiting because it seems wise or because you’re too scared to begin?
Feeling safe can become an obsession that stops us living
One of the reasons we do this I think is because we’ve become so focused on feeling safe that we’ve stopped asking whether we’re actually living. It comes from the same place as this pursuit of nervous system regulation as some kind of perpetual calm. That’s not what regulation is just fyi. And it’s all part of the same narrative of a kind of perfectionism that means we’re trying to eliminate all bumps in the road. Safety matters, yes, but human beings need thriving, challenge and growth as much as we need safety.
Let’s talk about the idea of ‘protecting your peace’…
…because this is such a commonly repeated phrase and I think this is where a lot of healing language gets misunderstood. Because there absolutely are times when withdrawing is healing. There are situations where leaving is healing. Where saying no is healing. Where creating distance is healing. Where stopping is healing.
But it’s important to make sure you’re clear in situations like that on whether you’re protecting your peace or protecting your limitations.
Whether you’re creating safety because you genuinely need it. Or because you’ve become attached to avoiding discomfort. Those are not the same thing.
Healing should increase your ability to engage with life..
Not reduce it.
And this is where I think there is confusion about healing and phrases like ‘protecting my peace.’ A lot of people have been selling the idea that healing is getting to a place where nothing affects us anymore.
Where we’re calm all the time. Confident all the time. Unbothered. Nobody can trigger us. Nobody can upset us. Nothing feels scary or uncomfortable.
But unfortunately that’s not healing.
That’s armour. And one of the things I’ve noticed about armour is that it doesn’t just keep the difficult stuff out. It keeps everything out.
The opportunities.
The connection.
The joy.
The spontaneity.
The creativity.
The vulnerability.
The life.
You let all of it in or you let none of it in.
One of my favourite ideas about resilience is that soft is not the opposite of strong. Soft is what strength looks like when it’s secure.
And I think healing works in exactly the same way. Healing isn’t about becoming immune to life so that you are never affected by it. The purpose of healing is to become capable of living life. And those two are not the same.
I remember someone in my family asking me with disbelief a few years ago “but you’ve done so much work on yourself AND you’re a coach now, why aren’t you healed yet?”
I mean let’s not even delve into how much this was just them wanting me to ‘heal’ to make their life easier. But also this perception of healing is so wrong.
A healed person isn’t someone who never feels fear
It’s someone who feels fear and still makes decisions. Who feels uncertainty and still moves forward. Who feels vulnerable and remains open anyway.
It’s not some perfect, unfeeling human being who is consistent for everyone and never has a difficult moment. It’s someone who has the capacity to hold all of that without splitting apart – and is still capable of thriving
That’s what resilience actually looks like too. Not the absence of discomfort. The capacity to hold it.
And capacity is really what this whole conversation comes back to.
Because time and time again I see people trying to build lives that their nervous systems don’t yet have the capacity to hold. And then blaming themselves when they self-sabotage. Because self-sabotage is what your nervous system does when the capacity isn’t there, whether that is you shutting down, not showing up or focusing obsessively on things like what other people think.
When there is a lack of capacity, the reality is that so many things feel unsafe – success, visibility, being seen, change – all of them feel unsafe. So the nervous system does what nervous systems do when they detect a lack of safety. It pulls us back towards what’s familiar.
And because we often don’t realise that’s what’s happening, instead of acknowledging how the nervous system is applying the brakes, we believe it when we come up with very convincing stories about why we’re staying where we are.
Maybe we don’t really want it.
Maybe it’s not the right time.
Maybe we’ll do it next year.
Maybe we’re just focusing on healing first.
But if you’re doing that then you’re not healing, you’re hiding from what’s really happening.
Signs that you’re hiding, not healing:
- You’re waiting to feel ready before you take action.
- You’re consuming endless content, books and podcasts but rarely doing anything with what you learn.
- You’re postponing decisions because you’re waiting for certainty.
- You’ve convinced yourself you don’t want something you secretly think about all the time.
- Your life has become increasingly controlled and predictable.
- You’re using healing language to justify staying where you are.
If any of them resonate then it’s often a sign that your nervous system doesn’t yet have the capacity to hold what you want from your life. You can build capacity in your nervous system at any time. But you have to do it intentionally because this isn’t something that will just fix itself. The nervous system needs a gentle, firm hand.
The point I want to emphasise here is that healing should make your life bigger.
Healing should create more honesty, more self-expression. More connection. More creativity. More possibility.
More of you.
Not less.
I sometimes think one of the easiest ways to tell the difference between healing and hiding is to look at the direction your life is moving.
Is your world expanding? Or is it contracting?
Are you becoming more yourself? Or less visible?
More connected? Or more isolated?
More honest? Or more careful?
Because I’ve worked with people who became so good at protecting themselves that they accidentally protected themselves from everything they actually wanted.
And that’s heartbreaking. Because it looks like self-care. It sounds like self-awareness and I love those things when they are real. But that’s not what is really in play.
Fear is often what’s underneath
Fear of rejection. Fear of failure. Fear of being seen. Fear of wanting something and not getting it.
And those fears make complete sense. But if we’re not careful they become the architects of our lives.
I don’t think the goal of healing is to create a life where nothing triggers you.
I think the goal is to create a nervous system that can hold more of life.
More uncertainty.
More visibility.
More intimacy.
More disappointment.
More joy.
More risk.
More possibility.
Because all of those things exist together. You don’t get one without the others. And if your version of healing is making your life smaller, quieter and increasingly restricted, then I think it’s worth asking yourself the question:
Am I healing?
Or am I hiding?
Because one will eventually make your world bigger. And the other will keep convincing you that smaller is safer.
Come and chat to me about your challenges and let’s get you on that healing path to expansion and thriving – book an intro call today. Or start with my 5 Resilience Coaching Questions to Change Your Life.
