Healing Isn’t Linear, It’s a Spiral

Understanding the Cyclical Nature of Growth

There’s a quiet kind of heartbreak that happens when an old wound resurfaces. You thought you were past it. You’d done the work—read the books, gone to therapy, cried the necessary tears, even had that brief moment of closure where you felt lighter, freer, maybe even proud. You thought it was over. And then something small triggers it again—an offhand comment, a memory, a mood shift—and suddenly you’re right back in it. The anxiety, the self-doubt, the pain you swore you’d outgrown.

It can feel like failure. Like all the healing you did must not have “worked.” It’s tempting to believe you’ve backslid, lost progress, fallen apart. But this assumption comes from a faulty image of what healing is supposed to look like—an image most of us were sold early on: healing as a straight line. Clean, forward-moving, goal-oriented. You start in pain, you do the right things, and eventually, you arrive at peace. Done.

But real healing rarely works that way. It doesn’t move in a straight line. It loops. It circles. It brings you back to familiar places—not because you’re failing, but because you’re ready to see something you couldn’t see before. It doesn’t mean you’re back where you started. It means you’re orbiting the same material with new awareness, new tools, new depth. That’s not failure. That’s evolution.

I’ve seen it in clients who revisit the same core wound multiple times over the years—but each time, they hold themselves a little differently. They respond with more compassion, catch the pattern earlier, recover more quickly. What used to knock them out for weeks now just slows them down for a day. It’s not that the wound is gone—it’s that their relationship to it has changed. The spiral has deepened.

The spiral model of healing honors that we are layered beings. We don’t just heal one time and move on. We grow through cycles. What once overwhelmed us might still show up, but we meet it differently now—not because the pain is gone, but because we are more resourced, more conscious, more equipped to hold it.

There’s real wisdom in returning to familiar pain with new eyes. It gives you a chance to reparent yourself at a deeper level. To choose something new. To recognize the parts of yourself that still need tending—not because they’re weak or stuck, but because they’re sacred. Because healing isn’t about erasing your pain; it’s about integrating it into your wholeness.

How to Tell You’re Spiraling Forward (Not Backward)

• Your emotions still rise, but you don’t get swallowed by them.

• You can name what you’re experiencing, even while you’re in it.

• Your recovery time is shorter than it used to be.

• You notice the pattern earlier and feel less identified with it.

• You’re more curious than ashamed about what’s resurfacing.

This perspective shift matters. When we believe that recurring pain means failure, we shame ourselves for being human. We treat our own complexity as a flaw. But when we expect that we will revisit our wounds from time to time—and that doing so is part of the healing process—we stop punishing ourselves for being in process.

You’re not failing because you still feel sad sometimes. You’re not regressing because old insecurities show up when you’re vulnerable. You’re not doing it wrong because you need reminders, support, or space to feel. This is what healing looks like when it’s lived, not idealized.

Think of nature. Think of seasons. Trees don’t bloom year-round. The earth doesn’t stay in summer. There’s a rhythm to growth. Periods of rest. Periods of decay. Periods of return. But nothing is wasted. Nothing is out of place. Each cycle adds something. Each layer matters.

So the next time you find yourself in a familiar emotional place and your first thought is “I thought I was over this,” pause. Ask instead, “What’s different this time? What can I see now that I couldn’t see before? How can I hold myself with more tenderness this time around?”

This isn’t backtracking. This is integration.

You’re not looping endlessly—you’re spiraling deeper.

And down in the spiral? That’s where the gold is.