Healing Isn’t Linear — What Happens When We Lean In

I’m writing this from the Cayman Islands, where I arrived Saturday evening with my beloved partner to prepare for a retreat I’m leading later this week. Everything around me is genuinely beautiful — the perfect space to unwind, a perfect sunset, a perfect place, and even an opportunity to catch up with friends while here.

Truly perfect.

And yet when I woke up Sunday morning — Mother’s Day — I felt it. A discomfort I couldn’t quite pinpoint. An unease sitting heavy in my chest. And alongside it, a familiar narrative: you should just be happy. Everything is perfect.

And yet I couldn’t enjoy what was right in front of me.

I also felt the resistance — that particular reluctance to sit down and actually feel into what was there. So for a little while I did what most of us do. I scrolled. I distracted. I half-heartedly tried to breathe my way out of it.

And then I committed. I sat down and quietly leaned in.

What Was Actually There

Part of me already knew what was there. I just didn’t want to go there — for a million reasons. Again? Really? I know what this is. I should be over this by now.

And yet I was not.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. And 27 years ago on May 10th — a very long day that became a very long night into the early hours of May 11th — I lost my mother. I was 21. I was sitting by her side alone. It was devastating. I felt so young, so alone, so lost without her guiding light.

And it is still in my tissues.

There it was — sitting heavy in my chest, waiting for me to meet it again with kindness and compassion. To acknowledge this part that felt so injured, so isolated, so abandoned at such a young age.

So I sat with it. Gently. Tenderly.

The tears came. I stopped trying to make them go away or pretend they weren’t there or that it wasn’t that big of a deal. I honored the is-ness of the present moment and leaned in with all my heart — and really saw and witnessed and sat with this part that felt so devastated.

And as I did, I could feel it start to lighten.

It just needed to be witnessed. Honored. Seen and felt once again.

The Spiral of Healing

Healing isn’t linear. I find it works more like a spiral. And every time the spiral deepens, the healing goes deeper too — because I have deepened in my capacity to be with myself as I am.

After I gave space for the tears — not just without judgment, but with something more than that. Not just no judgment but a genuine yes, you can be here. Actually more than that — yes, of course you are here, and I am here with you — it all settled. I felt honest. Integrated. And I was able to move more fully into my day.

I shared my vulnerability with my partner. We cuddled. And then I got to spend the rest of the day scuba diving in these extraordinary waters.

Somehow the silence underwater felt meaningful yesterday. When the auditory field is stripped away it’s like all your other senses take in more. And then I got to experience this perfection that is here — in my imperfection that is perfect — taking all of me with me.

That felt good and right and sweet.

What This Has to Do With Nervous System Wisdom

I share this today because this is what nervous system wisdom actually looks like in a real life. Not a perfect meditation. Not a flawless breath practice. Not having it all figured out.

This.

It wasn’t about regulating yesterday. It wasn’t about technique or tools or doing the right thing with my breath. It was about willingness — and more than willingness. It’s about building enough capacity and having enough tools that the willingness actually becomes possible. That’s the distinction that matters. Because telling someone to just feel their feelings without giving them the capacity to do so is like telling someone to swim without ever teaching them how.

The nervous system doesn’t always need to be calmed. Sometimes it needs to be witnessed. Sometimes the most intelligent thing it can do is bring something forward that has been waiting — patiently, faithfully — for you to finally have the capacity to be with it.

And when you do — when you actually turn toward it with kindness rather than resistance — something happens. Something lightens. Not because you fixed it. But because it finally felt safe enough to be seen.

That is nervous system wisdom. Not the absence of difficult feeling. But the growing capacity to be with it — fully, honestly, without abandoning yourself in the process.

A Note on Capacity

This is why the work we do in practice matters — not just in the moments when everything is fine, but precisely for the moments like Sunday morning when something old and tender surfaces and asks to be met.

Every practice builds capacity. Every time you show up on your mat or your cushion or in a live session and practice being with your own experience — even when it’s uncomfortable, even when you’d rather scroll or distract or push through — you are building the very capacity that makes moments like Sunday morning survivable. More than survivable. Meaningful.

You are not practicing for the easy days. You are practicing for the days when grief sits heavy in your chest in the middle of paradise and asks you to be with it again and possibly again. 

That is the practice. And you are already doing it.

If You’re Carrying Something Today

If something in you recognized itself reading this — if you are carrying something that you keep trying to push past or talk yourself out of feeling — I want you to know that you don’t have to fix it right now.

It’s not just about willingness. It’s about building enough capacity and having enough tools that the willingness actually becomes possible. That’s the work. And it’s a practice — not a destination.

You are not behind. You are not broken. You are spiraling deeper — which means you are healing.

And that is enough. You are enough. 

If this resonated and you’d like to go deeper into this work, I’d love to have you inside The Practice — my online membership for meditation, yoga, breathwork, and embodied living. You can learn more at sandravanatko.com. ♡

And if you’d like to explore this work more personally, I offer a small number of private somatic mentoring spots through Hakomi-informed coaching. You can learn more here.