Healing Can Feel Worse Before It Feels Better

You’ll also learn why protective parts may block you from pursuing what you want, and how healing unfolds through cycles of expansion and contraction as the nervous system gathers evidence that the present is safe. By taking tolerable steps and bringing this work into everyday life, you can build your capacity to navigate triggers and experience more of who you are. Find out why healing can feel so elusive and how to recognize progress even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Episode Highlights:

• [00:00] Introduction
• [00:49] The counterintuitive nature of healing
• [03:24] The nervous system as the foundation for healing
• [10:01] Building your capacity to receive the good
• [12:49] How becoming more embodied changes what you tolerate
• [14:20] Processing deeper layers of trauma as your capacity grows
• [16:05] Resolving coupling dynamics
• [20:43] Reconnecting with your needs and deepest desires
• [22:20] How healing can change your perception of reality
• [23:39] Renegotiating relationships as your needs change
• [24:23] Why regulation doesn’t mean never getting triggered
• [24:59] The expand/contract experience of healing
• [27:12] Taking tolerable steps toward the life you want
• [29:10] Healing happens through living, not just therapy
• [30:43] Grieving what you lose as you heal
• [33:29] Question 1 - What is the connection between physical and mental health?
• [37:51] Question 2 - Can healing result in physical symptoms or weight gain?
• [43:23] Question 3 - How do I navigate family members who refuse to heal?

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Quotes:
“It can be really confusing when we hit certain points of the healing process, and what is forward might feel like backward to us.” — Sarah Baldwin [0:01:10]

“We have to show, not tell, our nervous systems that we are actually safe.” — Sarah Baldwin [0:10:28]

“The good things don't always feel good at first.” — Sarah Baldwin [0:10:39]

“The only way to live a fully embodied life is [by having] access to all of the human experience, to all of our feelings, and [by] living in our bodies today. We are not living in the body of a traumatized part of us from the past.” — Sarah Baldwin [0:20:24]

“[The goal is] not to orchestrate a life where you never get triggered; it's to know the route out of being triggered.” — Sarah Baldwin [0:24:53]

“We heal through our living, not just through being in therapeutic containers.” — Sarah Baldwin [0:29:17]