What if … ”healing journey” sounds confusing?

What if, we are confusing ourselves and others? Clarity is way underrated nowadays, isn’t it?
As we go through global and personal changes, while insecurities creep into all levels of life, our vocabulary must not feed the confusion. Words, and the personal, internalized beliefs we attach to them can vary in a thousand different ways, depending on our experiences.
Our language and beliefs shape our willingness to enter or deny a path toward wholeness. If the word “healing” feels unnecessary to someone, they may never open themselves to it. But if we invite them into growth, change, re-connection, or wholeness, it might feel less like a stigma and more like a homecoming.
When we say “life journey,” everyone knows we refer to a lifetime – the sum of our life from birth to death, seen as a path filled with experiences, challenges, growth, and changes, rather than just a destination or a list of goals.
Healing. Noun. The process of making or becoming sound or healthy again.
“Journey” suggests ease, exploration, and adventure – yet do we actually know the personal, internalized beliefs we attach to this word? Healing and journey can mean a thousand different things, depending on our experiences.
Healing – especially from illness, trauma, dysregulation, or deep patterns – is anything but pleasant. It often involves confrontation, discomfort, grief, and turmoil. It’s not a linear experience. It’s a process that takes time and commitment.
But we do need a vision of a healthier, more balanced life after the “work” we put in. Otherwise, it’s like missing the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels endless, exhausting, and draining. Why would anyone choose that, right?
Pairing these two words – healing and journey – can feel contradictory, and the confusion is real. It frames something intense, sometimes painful, as either a lifelong experience or just a casual stroll. In the thick of deep inner work, that language can feel dismissive: “Oh, you’re on a journey? That sounds nice. Hope you enjoy it!” – or overwhelming, as if the messy, challenging, slow, and often isolating self-work will never end.
One person’s nervous system might go on high alert at the word journey, because the only journey they ever had was fleeing a conflicted area at age five in the middle of the night. Another, who’s traveled the world from an early age, thinks of new, exciting places and amazing people they’ve met along the way. For someone who never left their hometown, journey might seem like something only novelists write about in books – they read it, but don’t believe it’s something they can experience.
Our core beliefs are tied to words, shaping the way we feel and react when we hear them. Some used to connect journey with exoticism and excitement, while the “healing” process they experience is more like navigating a stormy sea – invisible to anyone who hasn’t been there. And this dissonance shapes our willingness (or disbelief) to choose this path.
Growth isn’t soft or gentle. It’s confronting. It’s realizing the “you” you built to survive… wasn’t who you truly are. It’s waking up to the truth: your survival strategies shaped your personality. Your strength, your calm, your perfection – they’re all armor. Growth asks you to honor that self… and then let it go.
The word “healing” carries heavy cultural and medical associations, and people automatically link it to visible illness or injury. In that frame, saying it’s a “healing journey” can trigger subtle resistance or disbelief – especially if nothing seems “wrong” on the outside.
When I was diagnosed with a tumor on my hypophysis, I gathered all my willingness and desire to live into healing the physical body. As time passed and I followed all medical instructions, the regression was slow. I started to feel restless. A deep inner knowing surfaced out of nowhere, telling me healing is not just about taking the pills and waiting for a miracle to happen. It required me to get involved entirely – to start learning and listening to the message behind the physical condition.
There is a language barrier between the inner experience of transformation and the external world’s idea of “health.” The word healing suggests that something is broken or sick and must be fixed. But in reality, the experience is less about fixing and more about remembering, reclaiming, realigning, and returning to wholeness.
Metaphors like “heal so you don’t bleed on people who never cut you” are powerful and poetic – but they speak a symbolic language. They resonate with people who can intuitively leap from image to meaning, who feel the message. Yet for those who are more cognitively oriented, analytical, or disconnected from their emotional world, this kind of language can feel vague or even irrelevant. Their nervous system may be too numb or overstimulated to decode symbolic speech. Instead of landing as an invitation, it can bounce off as just another “pretty quote.”
A clear language can bridge the gap and help those who are “in their head” – because it gives their mind something understandable to hold onto, and then gradually makes space for the emotional layer beneath it.
Becoming bilingual is key: speaking both the language of symbols (for the heart) and clarity (for the mind), to reach people wherever they are on their path.
I speak several languages, yet I’m not always sure how “healthy” is understood in each. In Hungarian, my mother tongue, health has a clarity I love: egészség. Egész means whole, so egészség is wholeness. I am truly healthy when I am whole – body, mind, and spirit. Any other state of being is a kind of unwell, a lack of wholeness.
We should keep in mind: the purpose is not to be positive all the time. The world is drowning in toxic positivity – the “only feel good” bullshit.
Wholeness means I am authentically me and embrace my pleasant and unpleasant sides equally. I do not pretend to be only love and light, and I do not shy away when raw rage and desperate tears are surfacing. I give them space, own who I am in that moment, feel, and release.
The more you heal, the more you feel everything. Loud spaces, fake energy, meaningless talk – it all starts to feel unbearable. You don’t tolerate what drains you anymore. Your nervous system knows. Your intuition sharpens. Your peace becomes sacred.
This is not weakness – it’s wisdom.
Your body begins to sense what your mind hasn’t caught up to yet. You distance yourself, not out of fear or judgment, but from a deep inner knowing. You’re no longer available for what doesn’t align. And if you find yourself pulling away from the noise, the chaos, or the people who once felt familiar – trust that.
It’s not isolation.
It’s evolution.
It’s growth.
Conscious inner work changes your vibration. And when your vibration rises, anything not in harmony naturally falls away.
This is why sharing truths about emotional growth is so delicate: to those who are ready, it feels like permission to step into their power and walk their own path toward wholeness. While for those who for whatever reason aren’t ready, it can feel like accusation. It’s not that they can’t understand. Their nervous system isn’t yet safe enough to let the truth in. And so, they push it away, not because it’s false, but because it’s too raw, too intense.
A person with regulated nervous system, someone who’s vibration it feels like a gentle loving hug is priceless.
Ironically, people can only offer that kind of safety when they themselves have walked through their own fires, faced their shadows, tended their wounds, and learned how to be gentle with their own humanity. It’s the inner work that makes our presence feel like sanctuary.
So yes… maybe real success isn’t how high we climb, but how deeply others can rest, let their guards down when they’re with us.
What if we measured success by the amount of safety people felt in our presence?
I consider myself honored, and blessed when people can exhale in my presence. Every time someone feels safe in my presence is a reassurance that the path I have chosen to walk, the deep inner work I did and continue to do delivers a gentle beauty, a raw loving humanness I feel privileged to experience.
I sense myself healthy and authentically me when people feel seen, safe, and accepted near me. I believe this is the kind of impact that lasts far beyond achievements or titles. So, if it ever happened that you felt relaxed, surprisingly sleepy, or even fell asleep around me – I hope you know I am happy I could offer you that feeling of safety.
Because when people can exhale around us – when their shoulders drop, their nervous system softens, their masks loosen, and they remember who they are beneath all the roles… that moment of being deeply seen without needing to perform is rare and unforgettable.
It leaves a much more lasting imprint than titles or material wins ever could. This kind of success isn’t loud. It’s not measured in numbers or applause. It’s measured in relief, trust, and presence.
And when the inner well is full, we can give without resentment, without depletion, and without secretly hoping others will fill us back up.
You can reach me here: E-mail: annnna06@gmail.com
Anna Konya. Tirana. 09.18.2025
© 2025 Anna Konya. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or reproduced without permission


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