Healing on your own terms.

As I trained as a therapist, one concept stayed with me was the authentic self. Carl Rogers, the founder of person-centred therapy, spoke of it as the core of who we are — not shaped by expectation, performance, or fear. That idea resonated deeply with me, and over time, it’s become central to how I understand healing.

Healing isn’t about changing yourself to fit something. It’s not a makeover or a reinvention. It’s about unlearning everything that pulled you away from who you really are — the patterns, the pressure, the trauma, the noise of a world that taught you to disconnect.

A concept closely linked to the authentic self is something called the locus of evaluation — the internal or external compass we use to measure our worth. For many of us, that compass has been shaped by outside voices: society, culture, family, or past relationships. And while community and support are vital to healing, so much of the journey is about shifting away from external pressures that don’t align with who we are, and learning to seek value from within.

We unlearn what we were taught in survival: that we had to perform to belong, to stay quiet to be safe, or to carry shame that was never ours to begin with.

And then, little by little, we return to ourselves.

Coming home to your authentic self doesn’t mean having everything figured out. It’s a slow remembering. It’s choosing a life that aligns with your energy, your values, and your own quiet truth — not what the world told you to want.

There may not be a clear plan. You might still feel uncertain, messy, unfinished. But you’re walking your own path. And that is the healing.

Reflection:

I came across this quote that says “Rock bottom might be the firmest ground you stand on.”

What would it look like to meet yourself, at your rock bottom with compassion instead of judgement? What would you say to yourself? How would you show yourself empathy?