The Myth of Fixing Yourself - Healing Without Perfection
- Oct 22
- 3 min read
You were never meant to be a project to improve. Healing isn’t about fixing your flaws — it’s about remembering your wholeness. Beneath every effort to repair lies an invitation to simply be.
For years, I believed that if I could just find the right practice, the right healer, the right mindset — I could fix myself. I tried everything. Therapy. Meditation. Supplements. Endless books about self-love and transformation. Each one offered a promise: do this, and you’ll finally feel whole.
But underneath all that effort was a quiet exhaustion. No matter what I did, the emptiness remained. I wasn’t broken in the way I thought — I was simply disconnected from who I truly was.
We live in a culture obsessed with improvement. There’s always a new tool, a new ritual, a new version of “becoming your best self.” But what if the constant need to fix ourselves is the very thing keeping us from healing?
Because healing, as I’ve learned, isn’t about striving. It’s about remembering.
When my own life came undone — when illness stripped away my plans, my strength, and my identity — I couldn’t “fix” anything. My body wouldn’t obey. My mind was fogged with fatigue. My heart was tired of pretending to be fine.
So I stopped. Not because I wanted to, but because I had no choice. And in that stillness, something remarkable happened. I began to feel again.
Not the polished feelings I was used to sharing with others — but the raw, unfiltered ones. Grief. Anger. Longing. Tenderness. I picked up a paintbrush one day, simply because I didn’t know what else to do, and the colors on the canvas spoke truths I hadn’t had words for.
That moment became my turning point. I wasn’t fixing myself — I was listening to myself. I was giving voice to what had been silenced for years.
It’s such a subtle shift, but it changes everything.
Fixing keeps us striving — reaching for a version of ourselves that always seems just out of reach. Listening brings us back to presence — to what’s here now, in the body, in the breath, in the ache and the beauty of this exact moment.
True healing isn’t linear. It doesn’t happen because we master another method. It happens in the soft, ordinary spaces — when we make tea and actually taste it, when we allow a wave of sadness without explaining it away, when we sit at the window and feel the light touch our skin.
These moments may look small, but they are sacred. They are how the soul finds its way home.
The more I softened into what was real, the more life began to return. My energy, my creativity, my sense of belonging — not all at once, but thread by thread. And I realized that healing was never about fixing what was wrong. It was about reclaiming what was true.
Sometimes remembering hurts. It asks you to face the places you’ve abandoned, the parts you’ve silenced, the tenderness you’ve protected for too long. But that tenderness is not weakness — it’s the doorway. It’s how you come back to yourself.
So if you’ve spent years trying to fix yourself, and you’re weary from the chase — I understand. You don’t need another method. You need permission to stop running.
Because you are not broken. You are unfolding. Your body, your heart, your spirit — they already hold the wisdom you’re searching for.
Begin by listening. Sit in the silence. Let the truth surface through your breath, your art, your smallest acts of care. You will find that what you thought was broken was only waiting to be heard.
If this feels like where you are — tired of fixing and ready to remember — stay close. I’ll be sharing how I learned to listen to my own life, and how creativity became my medicine.
DK Hillard is an artist, writer, and sacred guide whose Soul Woven work explores the threads of healing, creativity, and embodiment. She facilitates transformative art journeys through Paint From Your Soul and other intuitive practices that help women return to themselves. Join her list at www.dkhillard.com to be notified when new sessions open.
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