The Lessons That Keep On Knocking
When I was growing up, my dad would often say, “Time heals all”. He would say this while trying to reassure me as a child when I was crying or upset. I used to believe him and think time was enough. That in time, if I just kept going, kept busy, the pain would eventually fade. But here’s what I’ve learned the hard way on my unhealed wounds: time doesn’t heal what we aren’t willing or able to face.
The things we push down—the hurts, the disappointments, the things that, when we look back, feel very much traumatic—don’t just vanish because we’ve decided we’re over it, or that we should be over it. They resurface. Sometimes in new relationships, sometimes in patterns that feel all too familiar. It’s like life saying, “Hey, you skipped this part. Try again.” We think things will be different with a new partner or a new job, but I have often found, both personally and with my clients, that this is not the case.
Me with my dad
The lesson only seems to grow louder the longer we ignore it, and sometimes shame grows alongside it because we can't believe we “did it again”. The cruel irony is that so much of this happens unconsciously — we don’t even see how the cycle began, or how we’re helping keep it alive.
Healing isn’t neat. It isn’t convenient. And it definitely isn’t a straight line. It takes a willingness to stop running and ask: What is this here to teach me? What is my role in this? To work through your shame and ask yourself these questions and then work through the answers one piece at time, with a lot of self-compassion.
Because even when you have the answers, that’s just the beginning. There’s a big gap between knowing and doing. I can know what I need to do differently, but actually doing it — in the middle of a fight with a partner, or in a parenting moment when I want to react instead of pause, or in leadership when it feels easier to avoid than confront — that’s the work. The daily, unglamorous, frustrating, “ugh-I’m-back-here-again” kind of work. I don’t always get it right. In fact, most days I really don’t. But I try again the next day.
If you feel like you’re reliving the same story, you probably are. Not because you’re failing, but because your life is trying to get your attention. The good news? Once we stop dodging the lesson and lean into it, the pattern begins to loosen its grip.
The price of ignoring it is high. But the reward of facing it? Freedom, which you can’t put a price on.