The Rhythm of Healing

Each stone rests differently – some higher, some lower. Yet, together they create balance. Our healing journeys are much the same: no two are alike, and there is no need for comparison. At times we may also feel we’ve stepped back, but even those moments are part of the process. Healing is not a straight climb but a rhythm of movement, patience, and trust. Keep leaning into your own pace, your own balance; it’s yours alone, and that is enough. Trust yourself and trust the process.

Holding the Umbrella

In therapy, the role of the therapist is not to change the weather, but to make it bearable. The image of holding an umbrella captures something essential about the work. It is not intrusive and it does not block experience, but creates enough shelter for difficult material to be approached safely.

Containment is built through attunement. The therapist listens not only to what is said, but to posture, rhythm, tension, hesitation, and the protective layers shaping how individuals present themselves. At times, this means resonating with their emotional states so that what feels overwhelming or defended can be held without escalating.

When safety is established, the layers beneath the armour can begin to emerge. Not forced into exposure, but gradually sensed, named, and understood. What was previously carried alone becomes something that can be processed in relationship.

The umbrella does not stop the rain. It allows it to be endured without collapse. Over time, this shared experience strengthens the client’s own capacity to remain present in the storm.

The Mask and What Lies Beneath

Sometimes a person appears wrapped in shadow, guarded, distant, even intimidating. The outer presentation may suggest hardness, defiance, or indifference. Yet what we see is often only the protective layer.

Beneath that exterior, other parts are at work. The vigilant protector. The quiet observer. The wounded child who learned that staying unseen was safer than being exposed. What looks like menace can be a form of shelter. What reads as distance may be an attempt at self-preservation.

When we mistake the mask for the whole person, we overlook the complexity beneath it. Many people learn to wear layers in order to survive. A defensive posture can conceal fear, tenderness, and hope at the same time.

In therapeutic work, part of the process involves gently differentiating between the protective layer and the vulnerable core it is trying to guard. The deepest stories are rarely the loudest ones. Often, they are the ones that have learned not to announce themselves.

When Defensiveness Limits Growth

There is often a quiet moment in human interaction between hearing something and deciding what it means. In that instant, we move either toward curiosity or toward self-protection. This reaction is both psychological and physiological.

When words are filtered through an expectation of criticism, they rarely land as invitations to understand. They register as threat. The body tightens, the mind prepares its counterargument, and listening gives way to defence. In this unregulated state, the nervous system prioritises protection over learning, closing what dialogue seeks to open.

Defensiveness is protective, but it is also limiting. It keeps us loyal to the familiar narrative about who we are and why we are right. When we defend, we do not inquire. We rehearse what we already believe. Nothing new can enter, because growth requires enough internal regulation to tolerate discomfort, to pause, suspend assumptions, and say: “please, help me understand what you mean”.

When we repeatedly respond from the same defensive stance, we strengthen the very patterns that keep us stuck. Our own narrative echoes back to us and begins to feel like truth.

Defensiveness protects identity. Curiosity expands it. And expansion is where learning and healing begin.

In therapy, learning to notice defensiveness without immediately obeying it can become a turning point. With sufficient safety and regulation, curiosity becomes possible, and from there, change can unfold.

The Loneliness of Growth

The more we honour our needs, the more truth reshapes what remains.

Growth is often quiet. At times, it is lonely.

When we begin to take up space after years of making room for others, not everyone remains beside us. Some relationships were built around who we were when we stayed small, accommodating, available, self-sacrificing. As we learn to hold ourselves and honour our own needs, those dynamics can shift.

The silence that sometimes follows is not accidental. It can mark a turning point, when self-respect feels like loss and healing requires releasing what can no longer coexist with who we are becoming.

As we grow, our internal script changes. With it, the relational patterns that once felt familiar may no longer fit. Some connections can only exist in the older version of us.

Growth does not only reshape identity. It reshapes proximity and reveals who can stand beside us when we no longer shrink to be accepted.

The Quiet Strength of Becoming

At the beginning, growth can feel unsettling. In those eary stages, it is not always clear that anything positive is taking place. At times, the process can feel more like disruption than progress, as what once felt stable becomes less predictable. In other words, patterns that once organised us begin to loosen; roles we have inhabited for years no longer fit in quite the same way; relationships shift, possibly bringing a sense of loss.

Gradually, however, something else begins to consolidate. There is a growing steadiness, clearer boundaries, and more space for reflection. We may notice that we no longer abandon ourselves so quickly in order to preserve forms of connection that come at the expense of our own needs, or to avoid discomfort.

Over time, freedom feels less like escape and more like alignment. Courage becomes quieter and more consistent. Clarity shifts from needing certainty to trusting our own internal reference point.

Growth is not about becoming someone entirely new. It is about becoming more integrated, less divided within ourselves, and more able to remain present in the face of discomfort.

There is a particular strength in that kind of coherence. It reshapes the way we relate, not only to others but also to ourselves and our inner experience. With greater integration comes a steadier and more conscious way of inhabiting our lives.