The Awakening: Healing Doesn’t Mean You’ll Never Hurt Again
by Angelia L. Stone
Sometimes the greatest transformation begins when we finally recognize what we’ve been carrying all along
There is something about healing that no one can fully prepare you for.
It’s not always beautiful. It’s not always peaceful. And it certainly isn’t a straight line.
Sometimes healing looks like joy, freedom, and gratitude. Other times, it looks like waking up with a familiar feeling in your body, one you cannot immediately name, but somehow recognize.
And sometimes, healing begins with one powerful word: awakening.
Recently, I watched an incredible conversation between Dr. Lynnjo and Cheryl on HOPE Chat Live about trauma responses. Their discussion reminded me of something I’ve come to understand through my own journey: You can be grateful for your healing, confident in your progress, and still experience moments that awaken memories of a painful past.
All of those things can exist together.
My Awakening Began in My Fifties
Three years ago, I began a journey that would forever change the way I understood myself.
I was in my early fifties when I started therapy, including EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), a therapeutic approach used to help people process traumatic experiences.
But before I could fully understand what was happening emotionally, I felt something happening physically.
In October, three years ago, I experienced a familiar feeling, one that reminded me of how I felt when I was violated as a child. At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t label it. I only knew that something inside me had shifted.
Looking back, I believe something shut down in my body.
I began gaining weight, even though I had worked so hard to lose it. At first, I felt confused and frustrated. I wondered why my body seemed to be moving in the opposite direction from the life I was trying to create.
But as I continued therapy and began listening more closely to my body, I started to understand that the weight was not simply about food, discipline, or appearance.
My nervous system had been carrying the memory of abuse.
Somewhere deep within me, perhaps subconsciously, my body had learned to protect itself. It was as if a part of me believed that being less attractive might make me less vulnerable. Maybe, without realizing it, I had begun to associate beauty, attention, and desirability with danger.
My body may have been trying to make me feel safer.
That realization was difficult to accept, but it also gave me compassion for myself.
The weight was not a moral failure. It was not proof that I lacked willpower. It may have been one of the ways my body attempted to protect me from being hurt again.
Trauma can affect the body in ways we do not immediately understand. When the nervous system senses danger — whether that danger is present or connected to something from the past — it can respond through fight, flight, freeze, or even shutdown. Stress can influence sleep, appetite, hormones, movement, digestion, and the way we see ourselves.
The body remembers what the mind may not yet be ready to name.
What I didn’t realize was how much of my life I was about to begin seeing differently.
It was as though someone had turned on a light in a room I’d been living in for decades.
Suddenly, I began recognizing patterns, relationships, decisions, and beliefs that I had never fully questioned.
I started understanding how certain experiences had shaped my emotional responses, my relationships, my self-worth, and even my understanding of love.
And it wasn’t limited to one area of my life.
My awakening touched everything: my emotional well-being, my spiritual beliefs, my finances, my relationships, my body, and my understanding of the world around me.
I began questioning things I had accepted for years, including how I had experienced discrimination, how I understood faith, and how I had sometimes allowed other people’s behavior to influence my sense of worth.
Imagine reaching your fifties and realizing that so much of what you believed about yourself and the world had been influenced by experiences you had never fully processed.
That was my awakening.
And while it was painful, it was also necessary.
Sometimes We Grieve the People We Thought We Knew
One of the most difficult realizations during my healing journey involved someone I had loved deeply as a young girl.
At 14, I experienced a love that stayed with me for decades. Even as life moved forward, a part of me held on to the memory of that person and the feelings I associated with him.
Years later, when our paths crossed again, I discovered that the reality of who he was did not match the person I had carried in my heart.
What followed was a painful experience that forced me to confront things about love, emotional abuse, attachment, and my own vulnerability.
Looking back, I understand something today that I couldn’t fully understand then.
Sometimes we aren’t grieving the relationship itself. We’re grieving the memory, the innocence, the hope, and the version of the story we believed in.
I had to learn that the young girl who once loved someone deeply could be honored without allowing the woman I had become to continue accepting mistreatment.
That realization changed me.
Love should never require us to abandon ourselves.
And the love we once felt for someone does not obligate us to tolerate harmful behavior today.
When the Past Shows Up Unexpectedly
After watching the recent HOPE Chat Live conversation, I went to bed with so many thoughts running through my mind.
That night, I dreamed about people and experiences from different chapters of my life.
Some of those memories were painful. Some involved relationships I had worked hard to move beyond.
When I woke up, I recognized something immediately.
I had been triggered.
For a moment, it felt as though parts of my past had come rushing back. But this time, I also noticed how the experience lived in my body.
The familiar feeling was there again, the feeling I had experienced when I was violated as a child. I still could not immediately explain it, but I knew enough to pause and pay attention.
That is one of the things healing has taught me: Sometimes the body speaks before the mind has the words.
But here’s what I want other women to understand.
Being triggered does not mean you have failed at healing.
It doesn’t mean the therapy didn’t work. It doesn’t mean you haven’t grown. And it doesn’t mean you secretly want to return to the people or circumstances that once hurt you.
Sometimes our minds and bodies revisit emotionally significant experiences, especially after something reminds us of them.
What matters is how we care for ourselves when those feelings surface.
Three years ago, I might not have understood why certain memories affected me so deeply. I might have criticized my body, blamed myself, or believed I was losing progress.
Today, I can recognize what I’m feeling, acknowledge where it may be coming from, and remind myself that my body was trying to protect me.
I can offer myself patience instead of punishment.
That, too, is healing.
Faith, Therapy, and Learning to Choose Myself
My relationship with God has always been an important part of my life.
But my awakening also challenged me to examine how I understood faith, forgiveness, love, and personal responsibility.
I had to learn that forgiveness does not require reconciliation.
That having compassion for someone does not mean giving them continued access to my life.
And that protecting my peace does not make me unkind or unfaithful.
I also had to learn that caring for my body is not about punishing it into submission. My body has carried me through pain, survival, motherhood, work, love, loss, and transformation.
Even when I did not understand its responses, it was still trying to protect me.
My faith and my therapeutic journey have both played meaningful roles in helping me understand who I am becoming.
I want to continue growing spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically.
I want to build relationships that are healthy, reciprocal, and rooted in genuine love.
I want to surround myself with people who bring peace, encouragement, honesty, and joy into my life.
Most importantly, I want to recognize unhealthy patterns before I allow them to become part of my story again.
Not because I believe I will never make another mistake, but because I now understand that I deserve to live differently.
Healing Is a Lifelong Journey
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that healing isn’t about reaching some magical destination where nothing ever hurts again.
It’s about developing the awareness, courage, and tools to respond differently when life brings those feelings to the surface.
It’s about understanding that we can love who we once were while choosing something different for who we are becoming.
It’s about learning that the body is not the enemy.
Sometimes the body is communicating what the heart and mind have not yet been able to say.
It’s about no longer confusing familiarity with safety, attention with affection, or emotional intensity with genuine love.
And sometimes it’s about extending compassion to the younger version of ourselves who simply didn’t know what we know today.
I think about that 14-year-old girl sometimes.
The girl who loved so deeply.
The girl who believed in people.
The girl who didn’t yet understand all the complexities of relationships, emotional wounds, trauma, and the ways our experiences can shape us.
I don’t want to criticize her anymore.
I want to honor her.
I also want to honor the woman whose body tried to protect her, even when she did not understand what was happening.
Because she was doing the best she could with what she understood at the time. And today, the woman I’ve become gets to make different choices.
To the Woman Who Is Just Beginning Her Awakening
Maybe you’re in your forties, fifties, sixties, or beyond, and you’re just beginning to recognize patterns you’ve carried for years.
Maybe you’re questioning relationships you once believed were healthy.
Maybe you’re grieving a person you thought you knew.
Maybe your body has changed in ways you don’t understand.
Or perhaps you’re finally beginning to understand why certain experiences have affected you so deeply.
I want you to know that it is not too late.
You are not too old to begin again.
You are not too old to seek support, establish boundaries, rediscover your voice, or create a different future.
And you don’t have to prove that you’ve healed by pretending nothing hurts anymore.
You also don’t have to shame your body for the ways it tried to keep you safe.
Sometimes the greatest evidence of growth is not what we no longer feel, but what we no longer allow.
At this stage of my life, I am no longer interested in repeating cycles that cost me my peace.
I want to live intentionally.
I want to love wisely.
I want to continue growing in my faith.
I want to listen to my body with compassion instead of judgment.
And I want the years ahead of me to reflect the wisdom I’ve gained from the years behind me.
My healing journey is not over.
But today, I am more aware, more intentional, and more committed to protecting the woman I have worked so hard to become.
And for that, I am grateful.
Because sometimes our greatest awakening happens when we finally realize that we are worthy of the very love, grace, and compassion we’ve spent a lifetime giving to everyone else.
Angelia L. Stone is the Founder and Publisher of HOPE Magazine, a platform dedicated to celebrating, inspiring, and empowering women through authentic stories, meaningful conversations, and the art of living well.
