Grounded Healing & Integration Series – Chapter 37

The Edge of Healing – When We Want to Run Away

Sometimes, the deepest healing doesn’t happen when we are relaxed, but when we most want to run away.

You wake up one morning and feel an unspeakable heaviness. Your body is drained, and emotions crash over you like waves. Instinctively, you want to leave—distract yourself, go to work, scroll your phone, talk to someone… but none of it truly helps you “get away.” Because what you’re trying to escape is… yourself.

At the edge of healing, we often face two choices: to run, or to pause.

To pause might be as simple as closing your eyes and breathing. Or gently whispering, “I see you, dear pain.” You begin to notice that the urge to run is actually a protective response—one that may have saved you before. But now, it stands between you and what truly needs to be felt.

True transformation often begins with permission.

Permission to feel uncomfortable. To be messy, sad, angry, helpless. Not to identify with these states, but to acknowledge their presence. When you do, you stop fighting yourself—and instead, you offer your energy to the part of you that’s struggling.

This kind of presence isn’t analytical. It doesn’t rush to fix. It simply holds space. And in that space, you’ll begin to meet a deeper self—one no longer afraid of emotions, one gradually walking toward integration and wholeness.