What If You’ve Already Healed More Than You Realize?
Updated: Aug 25
Several years ago, as part of my own inner-healing process, I was asked to keep a “healing journal” while reflecting on another person’s journey toward healing. A year later, drawing from experiences in my own journey, I felt inspired to create healing-journal prompts that could help others.
If you are looking for gentle support as you work through painful memories, today’s reflection is for you.
A Memory I Had Forgotten
Yesterday, while revisiting some of those journaling prompts, I came across an entry that surprised me. It concerned a painful memory connected to a sad song named after an iris.
Only a week or two earlier, I had written two blog posts about irises and completed a painting featuring one large iris. Throughout that entire creative process, I did not remember the painful experience I had once associated with the flower.
When I think about irises today, only beautiful new experiences come to mind. I enjoy their delicate beauty and fragrance whenever I pass them in Tuzla. I often stop to admire them and take photographs.
The old memory no longer defines what the iris means to me.
When Did the Healing Happen?
I cannot identify the exact moment when I found peace concerning that particular experience. Somewhere along the journey of reflection, forgiveness, and releasing the past, the pain gradually disappeared.
I had to reread the healing-journal entry I wrote in 2024 to remember how strongly I had once connected irises with something painful. As I reflected on that entry, I realized that the negative emotions were no longer present.
Now, I simply love irises.
Sometimes, while we are working through pain and continuing to move forward, we do not recognize the moment when healing occurs. There may be no dramatic breakthrough or clear dividing line between “before” and “after.”
Healing can happen quietly.
One day, we encounter a familiar object, place, song, or flower and discover that it no longer carries the same emotional weight. The memory may still exist, but it has lost its power to control our response.
A Healing-Journal Exercise
Today, I invite you to reflect on an object in your home that evokes sadness, discomfort, or another painful emotion.
You might look through a drawer, browse an old photo album, or examine objects you have kept from an earlier season of your life. Notice whether something unsettles you emotionally or brings a difficult memory to the surface.
When you identify an object, spend some quiet time considering the memories connected to it.
You may wish to explore the following questions in your journal:
What does this object remind me of?
Which emotions arise when I look at it?
What did I lose, need, or hope for during that season?
Is there someone I need to forgive—including myself?
What would I like this object to represent in the future?
If possible, give your emotions a creative form. Write a poem, make a drawing, take a photograph, or begin a painting. You do not need to create something polished or beautiful. The purpose is simply to express what may be difficult to communicate through ordinary words.
Allow yourself to grieve or cry if you need to. Do not rush the process, even if it continues for several days.
If the memory becomes overwhelming or connects to significant trauma, it is also wise to pause and seek support from a trusted counsellor, pastor, therapist, or mature friend. Healing does not require you to face everything alone.
Making Room for New Experiences
As you continue the journey of reflection, forgiveness, and releasing the past, you may begin to encounter moments of hope, joy, and healing in the stillness.
Gradually, you can make room for new and positive experiences connected to the object. The negative emotions may soften. The memory may lose its intensity. Something that once represented sorrow may eventually become associated with beauty, growth, or peace.
Keep what you write and return to it later. You may be surprised to discover how much has changed.
Perhaps, like me, you will reread an old journal entry and realize that the pain has disappeared without you noticing exactly when it happened.
Healing is not always dramatic, but that does not make it any less real.
There is healing in the process.
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