The difference between knowing and *KNOWING*

On owning my healing journey after all this time

Recently, I’ve gotten the pleasure of catching up with faraway friends and other loved ones whom I don’t often see. When they inevitably ask how I’m doing and what I’ve been up to, I always pause, wondering how much to share… then usually describe my first half of 2025 as a “healing journey.”

The phrase still feels weird on my tongue, as if there is a certain threshold of physical and mental illness required to claim a need for healing—one that with my privilege and relative ablebodiedness, I don’t quite meet.

And yet, how else do I explain to people that after a half decade of working as a small business owner, of caretaking for a partner in health crisis during a dysfunctional relationship, of ending that relationship to prioritize and preserve another more joyful and fulfilling relationship, of expanding my business and learning to trust a team, of holding space for my family as they navigate their own aging and healing journeys, that I did indeed have a lot of healing to do?

How else can I describe the need for 2-3 massages per month, plus regular chiropractor visits to move my bones back in place, in order to avoid chronic neck and back pain? The doctors visits, the MRI that thankfully revealed an “unremarkable brain” in light of a few scarier symptoms? The weekly somatic coaching that is helping me slowly bring my body back to itself after years of staying in fight or flight mode? The Lexapro for anxiety, the Vyvanse for focus, the Zepbound for physician-assisted weight loss to relieve inflammation, joint pain, and mobility issues from lipedema?

When I list it out like that, the word “healing journey” makes a lot more sense, and I give myself permission to own and celebrate the hard work I’ve done this year to nurture my brain and body.

***

There are a few key phrases that I often parrot to friends and clients:

• If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll be forced to

• You are worthy of rest and ease for your sake alone, and not just for the future productivity it will bring you

• Your mental health matters, and you deserve to feel at home with your thoughts

• It’s okay do to nothing at all for a little bit if that’s what you need

To be clear: I believe these statements with all my heart and have no doubt in my mind that they are true and right. Unfortunately, there’s a big difference between giving someone else this reminder, and truly internalizing it for myself. Healing is necessary for thee, but not for me.

***

Yesterday, I did a big scary thing: I met a spiritual healer friend of mine at her home up on a mountain near Asheville for a daylong private session. While I love a good retreat, a private experience like this isn’t something I’d normally prioritize for myself. Thankfully, she needed support with some bookkeeping catch up for her business, so we decided to trade: one year of QuickBooks cleanup for daylong solo retreat. (I think we both thought we got the better deal, which is how you know you’ve got a really good trade going on.)

At any rate, I drove up the winding roads to her place in silence, soaking in the views of lush mountain greenery that threatened to swallow the pavement and reclaim it. Trees, shrubs, wild tangles of vines, weeds, flowers, all manner of plant life exploding from recent rains. As I pulled into her gravel driveway, the unkempt mass of greenery parted to reveal a Victorian-style home and carriage house surrounded by perennial gardens, planter beds, garden furniture, rocks, crystals, and other signs of life. Almost against my wishes, I immediately felt my body soaking in the aura of peace and relaxing into the day to come.

Did I want some fresh local spring water with a spritz lime? Could she please sage me to start? Did I want to open my small mountain of gifts now or later? Did we want to talk by the altar, or the waterfall? Did I want to eat charcuterie in the garden, or in the healing room? Could I stay a few extra minutes for a sound bath before we parted ways for the day? “I just can’t wait to love on you today,” my friend had said. “You pour into others, and now it’s time for someone to pour into you.”

I felt my heart expanding. Of course I needed healing; everyone does. We all get to claim it. We all deserve to feel good and be supported. My growth was worthy for me alone, but would benefit my whole family and community, she promised me. I’m starting to believe her.

***

I’m learning that there’s a difference between knowing and KNOWING. To understand something logically, to repeat a truth from memory, to uncover a cause and effect—that is only half the battle.

KNOWING requires a deeper level of understanding. It’s taking a message and integrating it into your very being, as if the knowledge housed within the brain has percolated down through the body and settled into the flesh and bones.

There’s a lot of things I’m finally starting to internalize after these years of lecturing others, a dose of my own medicine that tastes bitter on my tongue but ends with a burst of juicy sweetness.

I AM on a healing journey, and it’s bringing a relief and expansiveness I’ve truly needed. After all this time, I’m coming home to myself—what an incredible place to be.