 Hey Psych2Goers, welcome back to another video. Healing is not easy. There's a lot of stigma regarding going to therapy and doing any independent inner self-work. It's still seen as something that either weak or crazy people do. That's just not true. It might not be 100% easy, but healing is a journey that leads to deep fulfillment that nothing outside of you could shake or take away. This process is very humbling, but with high risk comes high reward. During this journey, you will start to feel the growing pains of change and self-integration. Keep moving forward. This discomfort is helping you move into a beautiful life in which you have a deeper sense of inner peace. Here are nine uncomfortable signs that you are healing. Number one, you allow yourself to feel your emotions. When you're still stuck in survival mode, you're mostly focused on logic and what you see because emotions are painful for you to feel in process. It's hard for you to take the time and make room for your emotions to just be acknowledged and validated because it reminds you of hurt that you would have liked to keep buried. When you heal, you start acknowledging your negative and positive emotions because you realize that extreme focus on one is detrimental to your whole being and that you are a whole person. It's uncomfortable at first, but as you are no longer suppressing or denying them, you see the value of your emotions and feelings and of just letting yourself sit with them and allowing them to pass. Number two, you're getting better at expressing and maintaining boundaries. When you're not healed or in the process, you struggle with stating and enforcing boundaries because you're afraid of rejection, feelings of shame and guilt from putting your own interests first or saying what's on your mind. It's unusual to set firm boundaries when you're not used to it, but once you start, it creates more healthy interpersonal dynamics because you stated your opinions and emotions. You have the mental and emotional clarity and you are more capable of making your own decisions. Number three, you accept that you've been through difficult experiences. Life is hard and unfair and instead of suppressing all of the experiences that you have been through, you acknowledge and accept that they happened. You accept that these people, places and things had life-changing impact on you and probably still do. Once you have accepted that these uncomfortable events impacted you in their entirety, they actually start to hurt you less because you've accepted the truth and are in charge of the narrative of your life again. Number four, you're less reactive and more responsive. When you're in survival mode, everything and everyone is a threat and is treated as such. Nothing is trusted and you don't have time to sit and logically think things through because you are pure action, meeting to defend yourself constantly. Once you start healing, your natural response of lashing out, shutting down, running away or people-pleasing is tested and slowly makes way for questioning your feelings and reactions regarding things. You even find yourself asking, why do I think this way? Where does this thinking come from? You start practicing emotional self-regulation, self-analysis and responsibility. Number five, you realize that healing is not linear. Healing is uncomfortable because you're unearthing and confronting things you would have preferred to keep suppressed. Once you get into the rhythm, you realize that part of that healing is that this distress is okay and normal because it's not a straight road to inner peace and healing. You understand and have experienced the highs and lows of healing and know that the feeling of today will not match the feelings of tomorrow or even later on. Number six, you begin to step out of your comfort zone. Here's the thing about healing. It's not something everyone will do. However, if you decide to, it actually has far-reaching benefits beyond the acceptance and acknowledgement of the traumatic experience. Once you are in the healing process, you're developing bravery around your emotions and your mind. With this newfound conscious control, you are no longer scared by things that scared you before. Scared of making a living situation change? You now are redecorating your bedroom and experimenting with pink colors you never thought you would. Going to a party you don't know before you would have recoiled at the thought. But now it's a little less anxiety inducing and you have a bit more confidence. Number seven, you easily accept disappointments and take them in stride. Life is a balance of success and failure, light and dark, ups and downs. When you're not healing, disappointment hit you like a freight truck to the chest, knocking all of the motivation and passion out of you. With healing, you understand that bad days do happen and can't be avoided but are also temporary. Any disappointments or unmet expectations are accepted and taken in stride. You respond in better, healthier ways that are less reactive. Number eight, you have more inner peace. Healing brings about self-integration. If you're a Harry Potter fan, it's as if Voldemort brought back all of his horcruxes and decided on becoming a better, complete person who accepts the natural way of life on a soul level. And if you're not a fan, it's like taking inventory of all of your experiences, painful or not, and seeing yourself as the whole person. You develop this inner peace because you deeply forgive yourself and you can readily forgive others too. By having this peace and integration, you are less likely to self-sabotage because you're no longer a warring country within yourself with conflicting desires and emotions. You reconcile your inner differences, you no longer criticize and dismantle your character in your mind. And number nine, you welcome help and support. The independent survivor has a don't ask for help mentality, maybe because they never got it when they needed it or because of the harsh rejection when they spoke up. They shut down to get by and decided to do it by themselves because they had no choice. With healing, you start to realize that as strong as you are, you can't carry and do everything by yourself. You do need help. We all do and it's available out there for you. You are more open to support and less afraid of having this need for assistance met. The pride and shame you might feel for asking for help are gone because you know that it's okay to let go of the heavy burden on your shoulders and have someone to lean on. Did you relate to any of these points? Do you feel that you are beginning to heal as rewarding as the first step of healing is you will run into the discomfort of your healing and this will try to make you stop to lessen or ignore the pain, but whatever you resist, you prolong. If you are in the healing process, well done. I'm proud of you for doing this work and I hope you can find peace through it. If you're not, that's okay because healing is a long process that takes time. You're still living and doing what you can, applaud yourselves. Did you find this video valuable? Tell us in the comments below. Please like and share it with friends that might find use in this video too. Make sure to subscribe to Psych2Go and hit the notification bell for more content. All the references used are added in the description box below. Thank you for watching and see you next time.