Healing with a To-Do List Mentality
I’m the type of person who likes to get things done. Projects, work tasks, household duties… Once something lands on my to-do list, I can hardly rest until it’s finished. So naturally, when I began my healing journey, I brought the same mindset with me.
I need to work on my trauma? Learn to better regulate my emotions? Do some inner child work? Sure, no problem. Let me take my notebook, put it on my list and start doing what needs to be done.
But soon enough, I found myself stuck.
How do you work on trauma? Do you think about it, talk about it, write about it? And when all those big feelings spill out, then what? How do you “make” your inner child cooperate? What does that even mean? My mind kept screaming for practical steps. Tangible, logical, predictable steps. The “floaty” things my therapist suggested, such as sit with it, feel it, focus on being instead of doing, all felt impossible, even a little absurd.
Why Logic Feels Safe But Doesn’t Heal
The truth I slowly had to learn is that running to the safety of the logical mind is a coping mechanism, not my personality or just the way I am.
And it makes sense; logic feels predictable, and predictability feels safe. When two plus two is always four, we can exhale. This certainty gives us a sense of comfort and control – the yummy stuff our mind loves.
The problem? Healing doesn’t live there.
Control Keeps You Safe, But Also Stuck
And at some point, you need to pause and begin to wonder about your role in your own suffering. You can stay in your mind for a long time (I know, I did). But eventually, if you care even a little about living a life that feels full and alive, you’ll notice it: control keeps you safe, but it also keeps you stuck. And no amount of to-do lists can change this.
The key is in letting go, being ok with being messy, making peace with uncertainty, not knowing how things will unfold but allowing them to unfold anyway, and knowing that once you climb one mountain, you’ll reveal another one waiting for you to tackle it. Scary, I know. But you know what’s even more frightening? A life that never changes. A self that never grows.
Healing Doesn’t End. And That’s Not a Bad Thing.
So if you’re in the middle of your healing, and if you’ve found yourself wondering when it will be over, when you’ll finally get to tick it off your list – this part is for you.
You will never be “done” with healing.
And that’s not a failure. It’s also not because you’re broken or doing it wrong. It’s simply because you’re an alive human being.
Healing isn’t a project. It’s a process. And you are not a problem to solve. You are a being in motion.
As long as you’re breathing, you’ll be evolving. You’ll keep meeting new versions of yourself. You’ll soften in some places and grow stronger in others.
You Are a Work in Progress, Always Becoming
That’s what makes us human – we are fluid, like water, always reshaping, always adapting. Resisting this is what creates suffering.
And if you’re wondering, this isn’t a new idea or trend. For centuries, philosophers, psychologists and poets alike have reflected on the truth that humans are unfinished beings. Always in process. Always in becoming.
So if you’re waiting until you’ve healed enough to “start living”, I want to gently tell you that waiting will only make you miserable.
Because this is it.
This messy, beautiful, ever-changing process is life.
And the point is not to finish the work. The point is to live it.
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