The Wounded Healer: My Journey Back to Wholeness

When the Land Healed Me

I want to speak to the part of you that feels tired of carrying the world.

What does it mean to be a Wounded Healer?

Not just someone who helps others while hiding their own pain—but a woman whose power was born from her pain. A woman who learned to hold others because, once, no one held her.

I want to speak to the part of you that feels tired of carrying the world.
The part that knows how to show up for everyone else, but secretly longs to be held yourself.

You—the therapist, the coach, the guide. The woman who senses everything.

You might be the one others turn to for comfort, yet inside you’re still waiting for someone to say: You’re allowed to fall apart, too.

This is a story of how I fell apart—more than once.
It’s the beginning of my path as a healer.

Not the part where I lit the candles and took the courses.
The part where I broke open on the bedroom floor in London,
with mascara-stained cheeks and a hole in my heart.

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 My Own Wound

London, 2001.

I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom, leaning against the side of the bed. The house was dim. The air stale with the echo of last night’s party. My body was exhausted—probably hungover.

My heart wasn’t shattered. It was sealed shut—walled in behind layers of protection. But inside, I could feel it: a deep, aching emptiness. A hole in my soul I didn’t know how to fill.

I only showed my real feelings in my journal. Out in the world, I performed. Inside, I was unraveling.

I was in yet another entanglement.
Different man, same pattern.

It was never really about love—it was about attention. And about escaping the emptiness I carried inside.

I fed off drama instead of stillness. I stayed busy, distracted, instead of pausing long enough to hear what I truly needed.

But deep down, something in me already knew: This isn’t who you are.
There is another way.

I didn’t know what healing meant. I just knew I couldn’t keep living like that.

And then—Life intervened. Or maybe it was the Goddess, disguised as circumstance.

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When the Land Heals You

Through my work at British Airways, I was gifted two return tickets to anywhere in the world. I took what money I had inherited from my grandfather, asked my friend Anja if she’d join, and booked the farthest place we could think of: Australia.

It was the beginning of something.
I didn’t know what.

But as I packed my backpack, my soul began to stir.
I longed for connection—not with anyone else, but with myself.
A part of me I had lost, or hadn’t felt since I was a little girl.

On the surface, it was about escape.
An adventure. A break from the ordinary.

Both Anja and I were craving something new, something wild, something to shake us out of our stuckness.

A new continent and a new perspective.
Perhaps the Land was calling me.
Or perhaps I was just desperate for change.

Either way, I said yes.
And that yes opened a door I didn’t yet know was sacred.

That first trip cracked something open.

But when I returned to London, the spiral returned too—partying, drama, late nights and soul-shrinking jobs.
The carousel of men who couldn’t see me—because I couldn’t see myself.

Still, I had tasted something real in the wide skies of Australia.
I wasn’t ready to let it go.

So I made a decision: I would go back. Alone. For a year.

While juggling jobs, friends, and late-night chaos, I managed to save enough.
I booked my flight and made a silent vow as I boarded that plane:

I will face my fears, one by one.
I will find out who I am—and why I’m here.

That year changed me.

I worked and traveled across the vast continent, from Sydney and all the way around.

The silence of the Outback.
The stars in the night sky.
The sacred land itself.

It began to strip me down—not violently, but with love.
Like a slow, steady walkabout across the red earth of my own becoming.

One night, I found myself alone on the beach in Broome.
The orange sunset had faded into darkness.

The only light came from the moon and the glint of the sea.
I sat cross-legged in the sand and felt it—my heart.

My real heart, finally free of its protective walls.
My strong, passionate heart. The one I’d been hiding.

And I finally cried.

I allowed myself to feel the grief, the pain, the longing—
Flowing through me like waves. Pouring out with my tears.

The heartbreak had always been there.

I had just layered noise, men, and alcohol on top of it.
I had locked myself in to keep others out.

Don’t come close. Don’t touch my soul.

I had become my own fortress.

But the land held me.
Like the Earth Mother—fierce, wild, and loving.
Under the moon, by the vast ocean, I finally felt safe to fall apart.

And in that moment, I took my first real step toward healing.

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The Spiral Out

After that night on the beach, I began to say no.

No to the men who only wanted my attention, not my truth.
No to the wine-soaked nights that blurred my vision and numbed my soul.
No to the chaos I had confused with freedom.

Instead, I walked.

Through the red earth of the Northern Territory.
Through the natural beauty of Kakadu National Park.
Through the wild, unfiltered landscapes of my own inner world.

While other backpackers went drinking in Darwin, I went camping.
I chose stillness. I chose the sacred. I chose myself—even when I didn’t fully know who that was yet.

I was still lost. But at least I was walking in the right direction.

That year, Australia didn’t just give me space.
It gave me the mirror of nature.

No one asked me to perform.
No one needed me to sparkle or seduce.
In the vast silence of the land, I began to hear my own heartbeat again.

And I began to face my fears—one by one.

I went snorkeling in deep, open water, terrified and excited, just for the chance to swim beside the majestic Whale Sharks.
I jumped out of a plane over Noosa, skydiving through the open sky, thinking,

If I die today, it’s okay. I’ve had an amazing year!

I worked in vineyards, tomato fields, and dusty packing sheds.

Up before dawn.
Hands in the earth.
Muscles aching.
Sweat and dust and sun.

And I discovered something I didn’t know I’d lost: my strength.
Not the performative kind—the real kind. The kind that rises with the sun and returns home tired, proud, and whole.

I remembered how to love the outdoors.

How to walk barefoot.
How to be in rhythm with the land.
To live in No-Time.
To let the day unfold like a breath.

For the first time in years, I slowed down.
And in that stillness, I found something I had been chasing in every party, every man, every distraction.

This—being here, being with myself—
This was freedom.

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 The Gift of the Wound

There wasn’t a single moment where I suddenly felt whole again.

No trumpet sound.
No divine epiphany.
It was quieter than that.

One day, I noticed I no longer felt hollow.
The space in my chest—the one I used to fill with men, alcohol, attention, noise—was now full of something else.

Presence. Stillness. Self-trust.
Me.

The wound hadn’t disappeared. It had transformed.

The pain that once drove me to numbness had become the very source of my power.
It deepened my compassion.
Sharpened my intuition.
Taught me how to hold space—not just for others, but for myself.

This is the paradox of the Wounded Healer.
We do not heal others despite our pain—we heal because we have walked through it.
Not perfectly. Not without scars.
But with tenderness, honesty, and the understanding that our wounds aren’t the end of the story—they’re where the real journey begins.

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A Message for the Healer

If you are reading this and feel something stirring in your chest—
A recognition.
A sadness you’ve been holding.
A whisper: This is me.

I want you to know:
You are not broken.
You are not behind.
You are not alone.

Your healing is not something you must finish before you begin your sacred work.
Your healing is your sacred work.

If you feel tired of holding others without being held—
If your body aches with the weight of stories that are not yours—
If you feel like no one sees the depth of what you carry—

Let this be the moment you turn inward, and say:
I deserve to be held.
I deserve to rest.
I deserve to heal.

There is a path for women like us.
A spiral path.
One that honors the wound and teaches you to walk with it—not as a burden, but as a teacher.

This is the foundation of the Healer’s Journey.

And it begins not with answers, but with the courage to finally tell the truth about how much it hurt you—and how ready you are to come home to your heart.