What Self Healing Actually Is (And What It Definitely Isn’t)

Before we talk about what works (and what absolutely does not), we need to get clear on something most people misunderstand:
self healing isn’t the same as self-improvement.

Self-improvement says: “Who you are right now isn’t enough. Work harder.”

Self healing says: “You’re hurting. Come closer. Let’s understand why.”

For years, I confused the two. I thought if I changed my mindset, rewrote my limiting beliefs, repeated affirmations, or forced myself into positive thinking, that would heal the pain underneath. And sure—some of that can be helpful after your body feels safe again. But none of it actually touches the fear, shame, grief, or old wounds living in your nervous system.

Self healing isn’t a mindset shift or a personality upgrade. It’s not about becoming “better,” “stronger,” or “more positive.”

It’s a process of reconnecting with yourself—emotionally, physically, and internally—so your system can finally soften. It’s about returning to the parts of you that shut down or overworked to protect you. It’s about learning to stay with yourself instead of abandoning yourself. It’s about compassion, not correction.

And most importantly: it’s not a quick fix, a straight line, or a performance. It’s something you grow into, one gentle moment at a time.

What Doesn’t Work: Myths That Keep You Stuck

Before we talk about what does create real, lasting healing, it’s important to gently name the things that don’t. If you’ve tried to heal in the past and still felt stuck, you deserve to understand why your old strategies left you feeling disappointed, exhausted, or confused.

Most people don’t fail at self healing. Most people are just trying healing methods that can’t reach the parts of them that are hurting.

These are the most common myths I see—both in my work with clients and in my own healing journey.

Myth #1: “If I think more positively, I’ll heal.”

Positive thinking has its place, but it cannot override a dysregulated nervous system.

You can’t logic your way out of trauma. You can’t mindset-shift your way out of survival mode. And you definitely can’t heal by telling your body to “just calm down.”

The self-healing process doesn’t happen by forcing yourself to feel something you don’t. It happens when you feel safe enough to feel what’s already there.

Myth #2: “If I stay busy, I won’t feel the hard stuff.”

Busyness is one of the most socially accepted coping strategies on the planet. When you’re constantly doing, fixing, helping, planning, proving, or achieving, you don’t have to sit with the parts of you that feel scared, sad, or unworthy.

But here’s the thing: Avoidance gives temporary relief, not healing. Your body keeps the score… even when your schedule helps you pretend otherwise.

Myth #3: “If I suppress my emotions, they’ll eventually go away.”

This one is so common it almost feels normal. We learn early on which emotions are “acceptable” and which ones make people uncomfortable.

So we push them down. We numb them. We ignore them. We minimize them.

But emotions don’t disappear. They wait. And when they come back, they usually return louder and more intense than before.

You cannot heal what you refuse to feel—but you can learn to feel it safely, in small doses, without overwhelming yourself.

Myth #4: “If I do enough self care, I’ll finally feel better.”

Here’s where a lot of people get stuck. Self-care is helpful, but when it becomes another box to check—another thing you have to get “right”—it stops being supportive and becomes performative.

Self healing isn’t:

• drinking water because TikTok told you to
• forcing yourself into a rigid morning routine
• meditating because you “should”
• adding more to your plate in the name of “wellness”

Don’t get me wrong, I love meditation as much as anyone else. But, true self-care isn’t what you do. It’s how you’re relating to yourself while you do it.

Myth #5: “I should be able to heal by myself.”

Hyper-independence is one of the most misunderstood trauma responses. You learned that relying on others didn’t feel safe. So you became your own protector, your own anchor, your own everything.

There is nothing wrong with being capable. But healing doesn’t grow in isolation. Healing grows in connection—with yourself and with others who can hold space for you without judgment.

Every nervous system needs co-regulation.

Myth #6: “Someone out there has the one right way to heal—and I need to follow that path exactly.”

I have to name this one clearly: If someone positions themselves as the only path to healing… run.

There is no single “correct” modality, method, type of therapy, or teacher. There is no universal formula. There is no guru with magic answers.

Healing is deeply individual. Your timing matters. Your history matters. Your body’s wisdom matters.

The moment someone tells you their way is the only way, they are disconnecting you from your own intuition—and that’s the opposite of healing.

When people tell me, “Nothing has worked for me,” I usually discover that they’ve typically tried some combination of the things above—strategies that look like healing but don’t create internal safety or emotional integration.

Once we remove the pressure to fix yourself, push harder, stay busy, or follow someone else’s exact formula, things finally start to shift.

And that’s where real healing can begin.

What Does Work for Improving Mental Health

Once you understand why the old strategies kept you stuck, it becomes a lot easier to recognize what actually creates real, lasting change.
And the truth is… healing isn’t complicated. It’s not easy, but it is simple.

What works is anything that helps your nervous system feel safer, your emotional world feel seen, and your inner parts feel supported instead of abandoned.

Below are the core foundations of self healing—the practices and perspectives that create real movement, especially after trauma.

1. Slowing Down Enough to Notice Yourself

This is the heart of healing. You cannot reconnect with yourself if you never pause long enough to feel what’s happening in your body, heart, and mind. Most people think they’re self-aware, but self-awareness isn’t the same as presence.

Awareness says, “I know I’m stressed.”

Presence says, “Let me feel where this lives in my body.”

Healing begins in the moment you stop running from yourself long enough to actually meet what’s here.

2. Returning to the Body

This is where trauma actually lives—and where healing happens.

Your body holds onto the memories, sensations, emotions, and survival patterns your mind has tried to rationalize away. When you reconnect to your body, even in small, gentle doses, you start creating safety where there used to be fear.

This doesn’t mean diving into overwhelming emotions. It means things like:

• softening your shoulders
  
  
• noticing your breath
  
  
• feeling your feet on the ground
  
  
• placing a hand on your heart or belly
  
  
• taking three slow exhales
  
  

Small shifts create big openings.

3. Making Space for Your Emotions (Instead of Avoiding Them)

Emotions aren’t the enemy—they’re messengers.
And when you learn to approach them with curiosity instead of fear, everything changes.

Healing looks like:

• noticing the sadness beneath the irritation
  
  
• feeling the fear beneath the anger
  
  
• acknowledging the hurt beneath the shutdown
  
  
• letting a wave of emotion move through you instead of holding it down
  
  

You don’t have to dive into the deep end. A teaspoon at a time is enough.

4. Treating Yourself With Compassion Instead of Criticism

If I could distill healing down to one skill, it would be this. Self-compassion is not self-pity, weakness, indulgence, or letting yourself off the hook. It’s nervous system regulation. It’s emotional safety. It’s the antidote to shame.

When you meet yourself with kindness, your body relaxes. Your fear softens. Your inner parts finally exhale.

Healing becomes possible because you’re no longer treating yourself like the enemy.

5. Creating Safety Through Connection

Healing doesn’t happen in isolation—not because you’re weak, but because we are biologically wired for co-regulation.

Your nervous system needs:

• people who feel warm, steady, and safe
  
  
• relationships where you can show up as you are
  
  
• environments where you don’t have to perform
  
  
• moments of “I’m here with you” instead of “you’re too much”
  
  

You don’t need dozens of safe people. Sometimes one is enough. And learning to be a safe person for yourself is part of this too.

6. Allow Healing to Be Slow, Gentle, and Nonlinear

Healing is not a straight line or a one-time breakthrough. Some days you’ll feel clear and grounded and empowered.
Other days, an old wound will resurface. And none of it means you’re going backward.

Healing isn’t about never getting triggered again. It’s about relating to yourself differently when you are.

Patience is powerful medicine.

And once you have these foundations in place, you’re ready for a process that brings all of this together in a simple, accessible, deeply compassionate way…

The RESET method.

The RESET Method: A 5-Step Roadmap to Self Healing

The RESET technique is the process I teach clients (and that I use in my own life) because it brings healing out of your head and into your body — where real change actually happens.  It is grounded in the principles of neuroscience, inner child healing, and evidence-based self-compassion practices to create lasting emotional safety. 

It’s simple, gentle, and designed to help you move through emotional pain without overwhelming your nervous system. RESET is not about “doing healing right.” It’s about creating safety, one small moment at a time.

Here’s how it works.

R – Recognize & Regulate

Healing begins the moment you notice what’s happening inside you.

Instead of ignoring your emotions, pushing through, or shaming yourself for having needs, you pause — even for a few seconds — and tune in.

This step is all about recognition:

• “What am I feeling right now?”
  
  
• “Where do I feel it in my body?”
  
  
• “Is there tension, tightness, pressure, heat, heaviness?”
  
  

Then once you identify the feelings and sensations that are coming up, focus on regulation:

• soften your shoulders
  
  
• unclench your jaw
  
  
• place a hand on your chest or belly
  
  
• take a slow exhale
  
  
• remind yourself, “I’m safe enough in this moment”
  
  

Before anything else, your nervous system needs to know:
you are here, and you’re not abandoning yourself. This one step alone creates pathways for healing that forcing, fixing, and positive thinking never could.

E – Explore & Engage

Once your system is a little more regulated, you can get curious about what’s really happening beneath the surface.

Every difficult emotion and every protective behavior is trying to tell you something — or protect you from something.

Questions you might ask:

• “How long has this part been carrying this?”
  
  
• “What is it afraid I might feel?”
  
  
• “What does it want me to understand?”
  
  

This isn’t analytical exploration. It’s relational exploration — between you and the part of you that’s hurting. Curiosity opens the door. Compassion helps you walk through it.

S – Self-Compassion & Self-Support

This is the heart of the entire RESET process. Once you’ve connected with what’s coming up, you offer yourself the thing you likely didn’t receive consistently growing up:
presence without judgment.

It can sound like:

• “Thank you for trying to protect me.”
  
  
• “It makes sense you feel this way.”
  
  
• “I’m here with you.”
  
  
• “You don’t have to carry this alone anymore.”
  
  

Then ask yourself: “What do I need from me right now?”

This is where healing actually shifts — when you move from fighting your emotions to supporting them.

E – Expand Your Capacity for Goodness

Every time you feel even one ounce of relief, warmth, softness, or spaciousness… stay with it for a moment longer than usual.

Trauma shrinks your capacity for goodness. Healing expands it again. This step is about holding the “good” without immediately bracing for the next threat.

You might ask yourself:

• “What feels 1% softer?”
  
  
• “Where do I feel a bit more settled?”
  
  
• “Can I breathe into this for a few seconds?”
  
  

This rewires your nervous system to expect safety instead of danger — and to trust that moments of relief can last.

T – Trust

Healing is built on trust. Trust in the process. Trust in your timing. Trust in yourself.

You don’t have to trust everything all at once. Trust grows in tiny increments — every time you show up for yourself with compassion instead of criticism.

Each moment you choose softness over self-punishment, you’re proving to your system: “I am someone I can trust with my own pain.”

That’s healing.

And here’s the thing about RESET: You don’t have to move through all five steps every time. You don’t have to do them perfectly. You don’t even have to finish them.

Even reflecting on what you feel — or softening your breath — is healing.

How to Maintain Self-Care Especially on Hard Weeks)

Psychological healing isn’t something you “graduate” from — it’s a relationship you continue to build with yourself over time. And like any relationship, it needs consistency, gentleness, and moments of reconnection to stay healthy.

The goal isn’t to never get triggered again or to always know exactly what you need.
The goal is to create enough internal safety that, when life gets messy (because it will), you can come back to yourself instead of abandoning yourself.

Here are the foundations that help you maintain your self-care — especially during the weeks that feel heavy, stressful, or chaotic.

Stay Connected to Yourself Instead of Falling Back Into Performance Mode

One of the easiest ways to lose your progress is slipping back into old survival patterns during challenging times: overworking, people-pleasing, perfectionism, or emotional numbing.

This doesn’t mean you’re “relapsing” or doing something wrong — it means your system is overwhelmed. But instead of judging yourself, you reconnect.

A simple check-in can be enough:

• “What’s happening in my body right now?”
  
  
• “Am I pushing myself past my capacity?”
  
  
• “Is there a part of me that feels afraid or alone?”
  
  

Presence always brings you back to yourself.

Let Your Nervous System Lead the Way

Healing only happens when your body feels safe enough for your mind and emotions to soften. So maintaining your healing isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what keeps your system regulated:

• slow, grounded breathing
  
  
• taking breaks before you’re exhausted
  
  
• softening your muscles when tension shows up
  
  
• choosing environments and people that feel safe
  
  
• honoring your limits
  
  

These small acts keep your body out of survival mode — which keeps healing accessible.

Expect Old Patterns to Reappear (And Meet Them With Compassion)

Healing isn’t linear. You can do everything “right” and still have days where you shut down, get triggered, get angry, or feel like you’re back at square one.

You’re not. This is part of the process.

The question is never “Why is this happening again?”

The question becomes: “How can I support myself through this?”

That’s growth.

Create Rituals That Support You Without Overwhelming You

You don’t need a perfect routine to stay connected to yourself — you just need simple touchpoints that remind your system you’re safe.

This can look like:

• a weekly emotional check-in
  
  
• a few minutes of grounding before bed
  
  
• one moment each morning where you place a hand on your heart
  
  
• a “pause” ritual before responding to stress
  
  
• quiet time, movement, or rest — whatever your body asks for
  
  

Small rituals hold you when life feels big.

And if you want guided practices to help you stay connected to yourself, my free training is a beautiful place to start. Get it here. 

Let Other People Support You

I know how hard this one is — especially if you’ve always been the strong one, the helper, the caregiver, the emotional anchor. But healing isn’t meant to be done alone.

Finding one safe person — a friend, a partner, a loved one, a therapist, a coach — can dramatically reduce emotional overwhelm and help your nervous system regulate faster.

Co-regulation is not weakness. It’s biology. It’s part of how we’re wired to heal.

Remember: Maintenance Isn’t About Perfection

You’re not maintaining your healing by being perfect.
You’re maintaining it by coming back to yourself again and again.

The more often you return, the easier it becomes.

Your Self Healing Journey Starts With You

If there’s one thing I want you to take from this guide, it’s this:

You were never the problem. Your shame wasn’t the problem. Your fear wasn’t the problem. Your sensitivity wasn’t the problem. Your reactions weren’t the problem.

The real problem was that you were trying to heal from a place of self-judgment, pressure, survival mode, and “fixing” — instead of from a place of safety, compassion, and connection.

Self healing is not about changing who you are. It’s about remembering who you’ve always been underneath the armor.

And the fact that you’re even here — reading this, questioning old patterns, getting curious about what you need — is proof that you’re already healing. You’re already becoming.

You’re doing better than you think.

And if you want support taking this work deeper — in a way that feels safe, doable, and actually aligns with how healing really happens — I’d love to walk with you through the next step.

Becoming the Love of Your Life is my signature program that helps you rebuild your relationship with yourself from the inside out.

It takes everything we talked about in this guide—self compassion, nervous system regulation, inner parts work, emotional safety, and the RESET method—and walks you through it step by step, with the structure, support, and wisdom you need to create real change.

Inside the program, you’ll learn how to:

• break old survival patterns like people-pleasing, perfectionism, overthinking, and self-sabotage
  
  
• calm your nervous system and stay grounded, even during conflict or stress
  
  
• understand and work with your inner child + protective parts
  
  
• stop abandoning yourself and start showing up for yourself with compassion
  
  
• build self-trust and emotional resilience
  
  
• create healthier relationships (because healing inside changes everything outside)
  
  
• feel good enough, worthy, and emotionally safe in your own skin
  
  

This isn’t about performing self-love. It’s about embodying it. This work is gentle, powerful, and deeply supportive — especially if you’ve tried other things that never really “stuck.”

If you’re ready to feel grounded, whole, and at home in yourself again, you can learn more here: Becoming the Love of Your Life