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We love to rise—but we forget who walked us through the fire.
There’s a strange side effect to healing that no one warns us about:
We begin to look down on the people we used to be.
The frantic version of us who stayed too long in relationships that scraped us raw.
The version who believed every vintage-aesthetic Instagram mom had the secret to a meaningful life.
The version who kept buying courses and journals and yoga retreats, because sometimes that credit card swipe felt like we could control the dull ache of anxiety or the ever-present feeling that life was waiting around the corner to punish us.
We start rolling our eyes at the person who said yes when they meant no, or who stayed when they should’ve run.
We cringe at the dreams they had, the people they trusted, the humiliating lengths they went to for belonging.
We forget that those versions were trying. Trying desperately to become someone who could survive.
We forget that their lame, red flag, cringey efforts did eventually save them. We forget that we are living proof that they were on the right track.
I caught myself doing exactly that recently. I was working on a new, low-cost ecosystem for my coaching work. A way more accessible membership, a wider path, something supportive for people who just need a new doorway.
And then a judgmental thought flickered through: Who is this even for? The answer hit with a kind of shame:
It was for the person I once was.
The one who was lost but pretending to have a plan.
The one who believed fixing her relationship with men would fix everything.
The one who thought boundaries were a magic spell instead of a skill we learn through our body, breath, and presence.
The one who thought more about how her body looked after yoga than how her soul felt while doing it.
The one who had no idea what the words “somatic” or “embodiment” or “trigger state” really meant—but hoped the next link she clicked might finally help her feel better.
Back then, I would have done anything to feel okay.
And sometimes, my anything looked like red flags waving in every direction.
I was proud of those choices, then. Now, looking back they seem cringey.
The program to find a masculine boyfriend.
The kitchen appliances.
The organic, hand-dyed, free-trade skirts I couldn’t afford.
But if I am being honest, all those choices ultimately worked out. They worked out by letting me explore what was true and what was just part of the wellness marketing machine.
I figured out through an endless maze of trying to fix myself, how silly that concept really is.
There’s a kind of spiritual elitism that sneaks in the door once we begin “rising.” We burn our old life down like a phoenix. We choose the side door. We stack healing modalities and therapy breakthroughs and nervous system wisdom until we feel…better.
And then, quietly, we start believing the healed version is the only real one.
We forget that our roots are still the same.
That it was the unhealed version who did the climbing. That without that messy past self, nothing would have changed.
I never wanted to be someone who only serves the already-awakened. Someone who sits in the velvet lounge of “conscious community” while looking down at those who are still stuck in the damn trenches.
What good is healing if we keep it in the temple?
I want medicine that works in big city traffic.
Medicine that speaks to women and men choosing the wrong partner, again, because no one taught them what safety feels like in their body.
Medicine that meets people where they are, not where we think they should be.
So, this is my reminder. To myself. To the collective:
Let’s stop treating the earlier stages of our life like they were beneath us.
They were classrooms. They were initiations. They were literal lifelines.
The person we once were wasn’t weak.
They were the version who kept going.
They were the version who took the hits and still woke up believing in another chance (even if that chance was a new tube of beeswax lipstick).
They were the version who held just enough hope to reach the door we’re standing in now.
They weren’t a red flag.
They were the map.
Maybe healing isn’t about rising above our past.
Maybe it’s about reaching back with compassion and saying, “Thank you for surviving what I no longer have to.”
If we’re lucky, we get to keep evolving.
But let’s not forget who changed our life first.
And let’s especially not forget how to reach past versions ourselves, so that we can serve the medicine we’ve so generously been given.
If you’re somewhere in the middle—rising, falling, rising again—I hope you keep going. Not toward perfection (spoiler alert: it doesn’t exist), just toward the next version who, in time, you’ll look back at with awe instead of embarrassment.
We’re all walking through doors we don’t fully understand yet.
And every single one counts.
~
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