When We Stop Looking for the Next Thing
For a long time, I thought I was looking for the thing that would heal me. Eventually, I began to wonder what might happen if I stopped looking.
In my last blog, I wrote about the fact that healing takes time.
There is something else I've been thinking about alongside this: the particular pull towards being finished that can exist within some complementary therapies and spiritual teachings — or perhaps more accurately, in some of the ways these teachings are interpreted and presented.
There can be a strong promise that we are on the verge of finding the thing.
The new system. The cutting-edge approach. The practice that is going to change everything.
And sometimes the promise is that it will be easy. We just need to learn the right technique, work with the right person, or commit to the right practice.
Other times the message is almost the opposite: it isn't going to be easy, but there is an initiation we must go through. A difficult process that will transform us. If we are ready, if we are committed, if we are chosen, perhaps we will finally reach that place.
There can be something incredibly seductive about both versions.
I spent years looking
I know this because I did it myself.
For years, I explored all kinds of different therapies, healing practices and spiritual systems. Some were one-off sessions. Some were short series of treatments. Some promised particular kinds of transformation or healing.
And I'm sure they all did something.
At the time, I often felt that they had. Or perhaps I simply believed that they had.
I'm not dismissing those experiences now. They were part of my journey, and I'm grateful for much of what I encountered.
But after years of exploring different systems, I started to notice something.
There was something I hadn't been getting from constantly moving from one thing to the next.
What was missing
What was often missing was relationship.
Not another technique.
Not another breakthrough.
Not another extraordinary experience.
Relationship.
The slow process of getting to know someone. Of building trust. Of discovering what safety feels like in the presence of another person. Of being seen over and over again, not just at the moment when something profound happens, but in the ordinary weeks in between.
There is something about sitting with someone week after week that is very different from a powerful one-off experience.
You begin to learn each other.
You learn that the relationship can survive difficult conversations.
You learn that you can show up when you're struggling.
You learn that you don't have to perform your healing.
And perhaps most importantly, you begin to experience safety not as an idea, but as something embodied.
Maybe we don't need the next fix
This isn't to say that tools aren't useful.
They are.
Different therapies, practices, bodywork, spiritual traditions and techniques can all have their place. Sometimes something really does shift through a particular experience.
But perhaps we don't always need another thing.
Perhaps sometimes what we need is to stop moving.
Because the constant searching itself can become a pattern.
The next therapy. The next retreat. The next practitioner. The next book. The next practice. The next person who promises that they've found the answer.
And for those of us whose nervous systems have learned to be constantly alert, constantly searching and constantly looking for what comes next, this endless movement might itself be telling us something.
Perhaps the inability to settle is part of what needs our attention.
What can happen when we stop searching
This was something I had to discover slowly.
I didn't have one big revelation that suddenly changed everything.
I simply started to get tired.
Tired of jumping from one thing to another.
Tired of the promises.
Tired of wondering whether this would finally be the thing that made the difference.
And gradually, I started looking for something else.
I started looking for quiet.
Not another answer.
Not another initiation.
Not another experience that would take me somewhere extraordinary.
Quiet.
The opportunity to slow down enough to notice what was already happening within me.
To stay somewhere long enough to develop trust.
To allow a relationship to become a relationship.
To discover that healing doesn't always have to feel like something is happening.
Sometimes, perhaps, healing is what happens when we finally stop searching for the thing that will make something happen.
And begin to discover what it feels like simply to be.
About Tarah
I'm a trauma-informed, somatic therapist supporting people to heal and integrate trauma, reconnect with their body and live with greater ease and authenticity
