Curiosity, Courage, Connection, & Thoughts on Healing Culture
Today is my second day in Scotland. Wind doesn’t seem bother me. Cold comes like heat waves. Weather is its own character here, and I’m getting to know her intimately.
Curiosity.
Connection.
Courage.
These are the words that roll around my mouth these days. As I come to the end of my thirty third year of life, I find I am more interested in simpler terms of living. Simpler methods of finding joy. Simpler values to live by. Simpler—not less complex, less complicated.
For many years of my life, I felt complicated. Internally complicated with what felt like an unfixable mind and unsolvable insecurity. Externally complicated with unsatisfying relationships and competitive friendships. Life didn’t make sense to me and I spent years trying to make sense of it.
Years of therapy simultaneously supported and challenged my sense-making. Therapy asked me “why” and “where from,” and the more answers I found the more complicated everything seemed—“so I have an insecure attachment, trauma, anxiety, depression, my love languages are really just what I didn’t get in childhood, my eating is still disordered, my nervous system is broken and I need to heal my gut?”
While the analysis freed me in many ways, it also imprisoned me in a cycle of “healing.”
I was never well enough, never stable enough, never healed enough. The more mainstream mental health became, the more I read online about what was wrong with me and what needed fixing. Now I didn’t just need to fix my body and my face, I needed to fix my brain.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m wildly happy that mental health tools & education is more widely accessible and destigmatized. Being a part of that movement, I think it’s important that I’m critical and mindful of how I present this information as the culture of mental health advocacy and education evolves. And what I’m witnessing is the effects of what happens when anything gains popularity in western culture—monetization, performance, and hierarchy.
Healing and wellness culture is not immune to social pressure. Myself included. I’ve fallen into the trap of using click-bait titles and fear-mongering to attract readers. I’ve had to pause many times to ask myself if what I’m writing is really in service of helping people find relief or for metrics.
I recognize that people are in different places and timelines on their path to wellness, and “5 Signs You Have Anxiety” could be the reason someone finds wonderful tools to cope. And, I have to question whether that pro outweighs the anxiety-provoking impact of being inundated daily with the 5-signs-we’re-broken.
At some point, self-analysis becomes unhelpful. For me, at least. And this is why my focus lately has been less on picking myself apart or trying to understand myself, and more about being present with what’s in front of me and trying to understand others.
After 18 years of therapy, I feel…fine. Not euphoric, perfect, or “healed” like I used to aspire towards. I feel fine. In a wonderfully simple, stable, and settled kind of way. I’m fine. I’m enough. Life still throws curveballs, I get stressed, I feel insecure and fumble in conversations and struggle to go to sleep. I wonder how I’ll pay bills and freak out about a pimple. I get overly excited about french fries and spill everything…everywhere. I panic at meals sometimes and wonder if I’ll ever really love my body. I’m not a puzzle to solve. I’m not done or finished. I’m not healed. I’m human.
Now that I feel well and stable, now that I do have the education and skills and awareness, life is less daunting, and I’m enjoying living it.
Now, I am less focused on what is wrong or broken or needs improvement, and more focused on what is right and working and good enough.
How?
Curiosity. Courage. Connection.
Curiosity I love for its openness. It allows me to ask questions without judgment or expectation. A way of investigating without seeking. Observing with wonder. A childlike approach to the world, and a simple invitation to get-to-know kindly.
Courage to me is how I leave myself behind over and over and over. Not leave myself—but let go of what I think I know. Leading with my heart, not my mind. Trying, despite any fear or insecurity. Courage informs decisions that lead to great unknown, and it is usually in this unknown where my life makes sense without me needing to make any.
Connection happens here, too. In courage. From curiosity. And I have to say this one is the hardest—I can fake curiosity until I’m truly interested, I can fight fear until I feel courageous. But connection feels hard to fake. How do I pretend to connect? I say this not because I don’t ever feel truly connected—I say it because I think connection is what I fear and simultaneously long for the most, and I have no interest in faking it. I desperately want to feel connected, and real connection means being open. It requires vulnerability. I can’t feel the wind if the window is closed. Connection requires that I open the door to my heart and say, “come in, I am comfortable with you seeing what’s inside, and I’ve made it safe enough for you to stay a while.” This goes for relationships and living—connecting to my life, to my environment and experiences, and to the very tactile and sensory world we live in. Food tastes different with your heart cracked open.
For now, this is how you’ll find me. Tasting the world with the windows open, wide-eyed, in wonder.
Curious, courageous, and connected.
Or at least, trying.
XX
Rachel
A few pics from today’s exploration. For a video, watch my latest reel on instagram:
>Learn more about Rachel’s journey with Eating Disorder recovery, depression, divorce, & finding comfort in the discomfort of living in her memoir, Where the River Flows.
>>Subscribe to Rachel’s Substack publication, The Messy Middle to read honest stories of living with uncertainty, mental illness, & life in the messy middle.
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