My Therapy Journey

A Journey Through Healing

(revised March 2026)

My healing journey did not begin in a classroom.

It began with a crash.

Over twenty years ago, after my divorce, I did what many of us do when our hearts break. I stayed busy. Very busy.

I worked long hours as a director in a non-profit. I taught at a college across the city. I picked up spin classes in the evenings. I filled every open space in my life with activity, responsibility, and productivity.

There was just one thing missing.

Space to feel.

Six months later, the pace caught up with me and I burned out. Completely.

My workplace offered short-term counselling, but it felt cold and mechanical. It was clear that I needed something deeper, something human. That search eventually led me to a remarkable teacher who profoundly impacted my life at a psychotherapy school.

Through that work, something began to shift.

For the first time, I learned how to sit with my feelings instead of outrunning them. I learned how to use my voice. I learned that my needs mattered and always had. I learned that boundaries are not selfish; they are a form of self-respect.

Healing changed my life, but it also changed my relationships. When you grow, the dynamics around you shift. Some relationships deepen. Others fall away.

At times, that loss was painful. Including the eventual loss of my relationship with my mother before she passed away. Our love was real, but so were the unhealed wounds between us. Watching her struggle with her own pain taught me something powerful: when pain goes unprocessed, it does not disappear. It finds other ways to live, in the body, in our relationships, and across generations.

That truth continues to shape the way I understand healing today.

When Healing Meets Institutions

Years later, I returned to therapy school to formally train as a psychotherapist. I believed that the professional path would deepen the work I had already been doing for years.

What I did not expect was how complicated that experience would become.

Being in therapy school opened my eyes to the ways healing is often institutionalized. Many therapeutic frameworks are rooted in the work of brilliant thinkers, but most of those thinkers lived in a very specific time, culture, and social context. Their work has shaped the field, but it is not the whole story.

For many people, especially those from the global majority, healing does not live neatly inside those frameworks. 

Culture matters. 

Ancestry matters. 

Race, identity, community, and history matter.

I learned an important truth about healing spaces: sharing culture, race, differences, or background with a therapist does not automatically mean the work will support your growth. Some practitioners, even well-intentioned ones, are still operating from frameworks and damaging systems that are shaped by dominant culture, institutional bias, or old-school ways of thinking. They may have stopped evolving in their own healing, or they may unconsciously replicate patterns of power, control, or limitation, mirroring the very dynamics people are trying to heal from.

This realization reinforced something I’ve always believed: therapy is not one-size-fits-all. Healing requires practitioners and modalities that meet you where you are, honor your lived experiences, and allow for exploration beyond traditional frameworks. It also reinforced my commitment to stay in a growth mindset to continue seeking, sampling, and learning to trust the practices and people who genuinely support my evolution instead of requiring a performance.

Healing Is Not One Size Fits All

One of the most important things my journey has taught me is that healing is not linear and it is not universal.

There is no single method that works for everyone.

Some people find powerful insight through psychotherapy. Others find transformation through coaching, energy healing, movement, meditation, or spiritual practice. I have worked with people whose strength comes from their relationship with God, from prayer, from church, from Hindu traditions, from ancestral practices, and from sacred rituals passed down through generations. Healing does not belong to one system. It belongs to the human experience.

Many of the wounds we carry did not begin with us. They live in family systems, in cultural histories, and in the stories passed from generation to generation. Healing sometimes means listening not only to our own lives, but also to the echoes of those who came before us.

Over time, I also came to understand something many healing traditions agree on: the body remembers. Experiences that are never processed emotionally often remain stored in the nervous system, in our muscles, in our breath, even in the way we move through the world. Healing is not only about insight. It is also about allowing the body to feel and release what it has been carrying.

Sometimes meditation works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes yoga is transformative. Sometimes it isn’t the right fit.

Some modalities awaken insight. Others awaken the body. Others awaken the spirit.

Healing is the relationship between a person and the tools that help them come home to themselves.

Learning Boundaries Through Life

Early in my journey, I abandoned myself. I gave my energy, time, and effort to clients, friends, and people who leaned on me. I wanted to be available. I wanted to help. I wanted to show up.

But without boundaries, I overextended. People began expecting it. Some even demanding it. And eventually, I crashed. Completely.

In that process, I hurt people. I disappointed people who had trusted me. I withdrew when they needed me most. I feel the weight of that still. I’ve taken accountability. I’ve reached out, made amends, and connected with each person I could. And while remorse is heavy at times, it was also an essential teacher.

It showed me, more than therapy ever could, how much I had neglected myself. How much I had given without replenishing. How much my growth depended not only on insight but on practice, on real-life application, on seeing how my choices affected the people I care about, and on learning to protect myself.

There was also a lesson about institutional expectations. At one point, faculty made it feel like I had to prove my equanimity, that I had to demonstrate that I could remain completely unshaken in the face of emotional upheaval. The truth is, it wasn’t that I lacked the skills or the tools to be a competent therapist. It was that I didn’t fit into their box. I didn’t bend to their control. I didn’t conform to the way they wanted the work to look. That was not a reflection of my ability; it was a reflection of the limits of the environment. And realizing that taught me something essential: my growth, my steadiness, my capacity for presence, doesn’t need to be validated by anyone else. It’s something I cultivate within myself, through life, experience, and conscious choice.

This is the paradox of the healing profession: you cannot pour from an empty cup. You cannot support others fully if you have abandoned yourself. That lesson did not come from therapy school or a therapist. It came from life, from my mistakes, from paying attention to the ways my energy and presence affected others, and from making a commitment to myself to do better.

Now, I have strategies. I have tools. I understand how to protect my energy, set my boundaries, and still be present for the people I care about. But more than that, I’ve learned that true equanimity isn’t something you prove to an institution, it’s something you cultivate within yourself, moment by moment, in the real world.

Where I Stand Today

After more than twenty years of doing my own work, I can say that the journey leads somewhere meaningful. Over time, you begin to understand your values. Your boundaries become clearer. You learn who your real community is. Your voice becomes steadier.

This philosophy also shapes the way I work through Soulful Roots. My goal is not to place people into a single framework of healing. My goal is to create spaces where individuals can explore what genuinely supports them.

Because healing is not about fitting into a box.

It is about remembering who you are.

It is about exploring, sampling, trying, making mistakes, taking accountability,  and being with what your body, mind, and spirit need. It is about honouring and understanding your ancestry, your culture, your beliefs, and your lived experience.

It is a journey that is difficult, sometimes uncomfortable, often humbling, and always worth it.

💜