What I finally learned about healing

Because the antidote to self-doubt isn't perfection — it’s something else.

Good Morning, Beautiful human,

It's been a while. And, as I face my fears head-on and return to this place, I want to begin by saying this:

Oh, how I have missed you. I don’t presume to get how you are weathering the absolute heartbreak and atrocity that is this burning world right now, but I am so proud that both of us are still here today – fighting our way forward through it all.

Today, I have some exciting news about (relaunching!) The Healing Lab. But first, I need to make peace with the last few months and take ownership of a few mistakes I made, so let’s rewind.

A few months ago, I wrote you all this,

“I have decided to step back from writing here for a bit... It is my hope that in a month or so, I will be back, blathering on about all things nervous system, recovery, and finding magic in the messy middle.

That said, I make no promises about my timing. If there is one thing I have learned about life with serious trauma, it is that nothing goes according to plan, and our hope and beauty can only prevail when we allow them to walk hand in hand with our hardship and heartbreak. Often, much to my frustration, that work takes an unpredictable amount of time and is work we must do alone.
So, without further ado, that’s the plan. I’m off to do the deep, solitary work of holding hands with my heartbreak.”

Since then, I have realized oh-so many things.

The first thing – and undoubtedly the most important – is that I was wrong. I was so wrong.

Healing is not about being alone.

Healing is not about doing it alone.

Healing is not about isolating into oblivion and working tirelessly until I am “healed enough” or “good enough” to show up here in community.

That paradigm, where we are not allowed to be our whole truths in all our seasons – our entire, unabashed, colorful, imperfect, yet perfect selves – is entirely broken. It’s the lie of this capitalist, patriarchal, burning world, and when I remember who I really am, I know it’s the fallacy that I was put on earth to fight. Yes – When I remember who I am, I know that this is my purpose – to embody and teach the world that there is no wrong way to be human, as long as you are honest and kind. And that the bravery of showing up in those messy truths in community – well, that is the whole beautiful point.

Unfortunately, as shown in my last piece to you all, I lost sight of that truth in a vast sea of self-doubt. Originally, I thought my state of debilitating self-doubt started on that random Tuesday morning when the company, mission, and community I had built tirelessly for five years disappeared in a brief phone call. I mean – how could it not? The entirety of it left me with so many questions.

What just happened?
Was it my fault?
Was I entirely wrong to believe that we were in this together?
And how on earth could I ever trust myself or another again when being in this “together” brought me there to such heartbreak and destruction?

But the real truth of the matter is that although that Tuesday shattered me, my disappearance of self started years before that in the trauma of my life’s own making. It began in childhood when my classmates in grade school would invite me to their sleepovers, only to make fun of me at them and shut me out with the silent treatment the next day. It continued in high school – every time my teachers would send me to the principal's office for crying because my depression was “completely unacceptable behavior.” It ravaged my existence in college when I had Electroconvulsive therapy and lost two entire years of my memory. And then almost the entire rest of me was taken – piece by piece – gone. Just gone. With every hallucination and every fugue state, I was forced to survive.

Yes, unquestionably, my disappearance of self and the all-consuming self-doubt it left behind began long before that Tuesday.

But that particular Tuesday was the final straw. Because it was AFTER I had dared to get brave again. Yes, that particular Tuesday broke me because it was a rupture that happened after I faced all the traumatic things that I had lived through publicly and was courageous enough to give the world and people another chance.

So, that morning, when I woke up believing I was transitioning my team to work for a new nonprofit, “The Dogist Fund,” only to learn, in a matter of moments, that the entire team had already been let go and the future I had dared to work for was entirely gone, it shattered my sense of self and my ability to trust entirely.

And there, in the ripe soil where that future and community had been mercilessly bulldozed, my self-doubt grew with a vengeance, and my ability to believe in what I saw, heard, and lived disappeared completely. All I was left with were the voices of my past and the very trauma I thought I had faced.

“You are broken. You can’t even talk right or make sense. It will be a miracle if you even graduate from high school.”

“You honestly shouldn’t even be in college. You are too sick to be functional.”

“Kate, it is time to accept that you cannot and will not survive outside of a locked psychiatric ward. You just cannot and will not live independently. You must make peace with the fact that survival is all your life will ever amount to.”

These voices filled me to the brim, and to make matters worse, when I turned to my old team to try to find a shared truth to hold onto – some shared understanding with the people that I thought were my friends, I found silence. Silence and fugue states. Silence and lost days. Silence and the ever-gnawing reality that I was alone in this, like my younger self had always thought. Yes, I was alone just as I had been, all along.

Unsurprisingly, the entirety of it all wore me ragged and raw, and by the time I left you all here, I couldn’t help but believe in my failure fully.

This is how the last two years have felt.

More than that, I couldn’t help but believe the most punishing lie this world teaches us – that we are the problem, not it – that our lives are our fault and our fault alone, and that individual responsibility and doing the work independently is the only way through.

But let me tell you, my beloved friends – that is a crock of shit.

Aforementioned shit. lol.

The idea that we are the problem is the broken system embodied. It is capitalistic conditioning. It is ableism personified. And most notably, it couldn't be further from the truth.

We are not broken.

The world is.

And healing is not about optimizing ourselves into a version of commodified “perfection” in isolation until we are “worthy” of the world.

Healing is also not, and never has been, an individual pursuit. That’s a colonial framework built to divide us.

Healing – in its entirety – is a communal practice. It is about reclaiming our truth and growing towards each other in a shared one.

Healing is about reclaiming ourselves in community for the sake of community. It is the practice of honoring ourselves so we can show up, reclaim, and reimagine this oh-so-broken world in service of all of us.

These are the truths that I reconnected with in my time away – beautiful truths – and the truths of this space. These are also the truths that echoed in my mind as I watched – in real time – as this country fell into fascism and human compassion was stripped from every inch and ounce of our government. And most notably, these are the truths that beat within my chest as I watched people turn away from the heartbreak and atrocity and into themselves, just as I had done this spring, as they also fell prey to the lie that healing is about individual responsibility and work done in isolation.

But as much as I knew these were the truths – these ARE my truths, I kept landing here:

But how can I return to being in it together? How do I do that? How can I grow towards others and with others when that requires trust? A reality I do not even know anymore? Furthermore, that requires a team, and how can I find one when the last team I opened myself up to broke me into even more pieces than my trauma shattered me into in the first place?

Yes, how do I dare get brave again?

How do I dare get brave again?

The answer, of course, was simple – as the best ones always are.

Show up and get uncomfortable, so that you can find your people.

So, slowly, gently, absolutely terrified, that’s what I did, and next week, I will share how doing that brought me my people and the new team that will carry you, me, and The Healing Lab forward, in community, as we relaunch this project together.

But for now, I leave you with this, another short piece from my journal, and an answer to all the questions herein:

I think about it a lot.

How my words and shenanigans – truths and chaos – dork dances and dogs have made it to the far corners of the world.

Yes, I think about it a lot.

How I have people in all my darkest corners, even the ones I am not yet brave enough to explore.

Yes, I think about it a lot.

How I found my people even though I have never hugged them, high-fived them, or pet their incredible dogs.

I wonder – do they know they are my people?

Yes, I wonder.

Do they know they are the reason that I am still here?

So, in case you are full to the brim with self-doubt like I was a few months ago, let me say this loud, colorful, and clear:

You, beautiful human, are my people.

You are the reason I am still here.

And I already can’t wait to be here with you again next week.

Until then, wishing you a day.

Kindly,

Kate