A Practical Guide to Starting Your Healing Journey
5 Steps to Kickstart Your Healing from Leading Healers
When you first begin to ask yourself what healing means or what it might look like in your life, it can feel really overwhelming to start. There is so much information available that it's difficult to know who or what is credible, what can actually work, or what might help you, specifically.
There are so many reasons why someone might begin a journey of healing - and there are just as many options available for how to face that journey. And while there is no right or wrong way to get started, knowing what steps you should take can feel confusing. Perhaps you feel stuck, frustrated, or at a crossroads you just can't seem to get past. Maybe you find yourself repeating the same patterns and habits, unable to make a change. Or you might be facing difficult memories from your past. If any of this resonates, you are probably ready to start finding an easier path forward.
For years after a painful breakup, I thought I was over it. I'd earned an MBA and built a successful new career, but I didn't realize I was still carrying the baggage of that broken heart. To protect myself from ever being hurt again, I had unknowingly built the thickest possible walls around my heart. In my attempt to block out pain, I was also blocking out joy, connection, and love. Recognizing this pattern was the true beginning of my healing journey - a conscious choice to tear down those walls, allow all my feelings back in, and finally find the path back to my authentic self.
I know this challenge intimately. On my own journey, I felt overwhelmed with all the options out there for how to heal. I didn't even know I was on a quote-unquote "healing journey," but I knew I was curious to keep growing, keep facing my own shadow, and find a way to feel good in my life without the obstacles I kept facing over and over again.
This article, and all the work that I do, is set to help you demystify healing. It goes beyond the meaning of healing to offer you a practical guide featuring five actionable first steps, synthesized from the wisdom of world-class healers and spiritual guides who have shared their expertise on the Don't Step on the Bluebells podcast. It’s designed to help you navigate the beginning of your own path of coming home to yourself.
Step 1: Listen to Your Inner Wisdom & Follow What Feels Right
The first step is to tune inward and trust your own intuition. With countless healing modalities available, it's crucial to follow what feels right for you, as what works for one person may not work for another. This is about learning to be your own guide, trusting that you have divine assistance and the ability to listen to your inner wisdom. When you lead from this authentic place, you'll naturally attract the right opportunities and people who can feel your passion. Ultimately, it's about honoring that deep, internal pull - that feeling so strong it won't let you ignore it.
To make this practical: Set a timer for three minutes. Close your eyes and ask your heart: "What is one thing I am curious about right now?" Don't judge the answer - just notice what comes up.
Step 2: Embrace the Whole Story (Even the Hard Parts)
Next, it’s important to be honest with yourself: the healing process can be hard. It involves being unapologetically in your story and learning to love every single version of yourself - especially the parts you may have pushed down or regret. While your mind might create stories that healing is too difficult or unattainable, it’s crucial to remember the alternative. A far more challenging path is to continue living your life carrying the weight of unprocessed baggage, when you could instead learn from it and find true relief.
To make this practical: Think of a past version of yourself you sometimes feel shame or regret about. Take one moment to thank that version of you for getting you through a difficult time.
Step 3: Start Small & Experiment Without Pressure
You do not need a perfect, grand plan to begin your journey. It’s okay to dream big, but it's important not to let the pressure of the big dream prevent you from doing something valuable today. The simplest advice is often the best: just "start small".
This mindset is liberating. It gives you permission to experiment without the need for perfection. It’s a call to "break all the rules and just get out there". Whether your tool is a camera, a journal, or a meditation cushion, just begin to experiment with what you feel drawn to and release the need for a perfect outcome.
As I shared in my own journey, I love experimenting and learning as I go along, and it has been a joy to experience so many different variations on healing - from reiki to breathwork, coaching to astrology. My biggest wish for you is to remain open to what is possible.
To make this practical: Choose one tiny action to take this week without any expectation. Examples: Listen to one podcast episode about a new modality, write one unfiltered page in a journal, or search for one local meditation group.
Step 4: Know You Don’t Have to Do It Alone
This is one of the most important truths to remember: you don’t have to do this alone. Even when focused on self-empowerment, seeking support from a community can be a powerful act of strength. Trying to prove you can handle everything by yourself is exhausting; you will grow much quicker by learning from others. There is profound wisdom in finally realizing you don't have to carry the burden by yourself - a wisdom that is earned through experience, not just understood theoretically.
To make this practical: Think of one person in your life who makes you feel safe. Send them a simple message to say hello. The goal isn't to unload, but simply to nurture a supportive connection.
Step 5: Trust the Process & Understand the Goal
Finally, it's essential to release the pressure of reaching a “final healed state.” Healing is a lifelong process of coming back to yourself, not a one-time fix. The goal isn't a destination, but continuous growth. This journey allows you to find your own embodied wisdom - the kind that comes not from simply being told an answer, but from living through the experience and knowing the truth in your bones.
To make this practical: Write this sentence on a sticky note and place it where you'll see it daily: "My journey is unfolding perfectly for me."
Your Journey Starts Now
Beginning your healing journey starts with a simple choice, is sustained by self-compassion, powered by integrating your whole story, supported by connection, and guided by a deep trust in the lifelong process. These steps are all designed to help you come back home to yourself, remember your wholeness, and live from a place of authentic power.
Know that you are not alone on this journey or any other. There are so many of us who walk alongside you.
Advice from Experienced Healers:
"I always tell people start small... it's okay to dream big, but don't let that the pressure of the big dream prevent you from doing something that you can do today... If it's something that kind of doesn't let you not do it... follow it and jump at it, it's going to be fabulous. But just don't force something into being."
— Anamaria Dorgo, from Episode #040 - Healing with Community
"If you're just starting out on this path, it's really important to listen to your heart and follow what feels right for you... what works for someone else might not work for you, and so that element of discernment... is so important. And... you don't need to do it alone either, so to seek out support and we can really empower each other through the relationship, through the connection, through community as well."
— Jules DeVitto, from Episode #037 - Healing with Transpersonal Coaching
"I would say to those people who are taking the path of self development and healing... be aware that you're not jumping from one teaching to the other... please take the time to integrate the insights or the healings or the things you learn... The real work and the healing occurs in a time, in a period after that. So, yeah, rest and relax."
— Naomi Barnouw Lindner, from Episode #009 - Healing with Aura Readings
"You don't have to do it on your own. You don't have to prove anything... you'll grow quicker because of it... The difference between knowledge and wisdom is, knowledge is coming to an answer and then just accepting that that's the answer. Whereas wisdom is coming to an answer, spending a whole load of time basically trying to disprove whether that's right or not, and then landing at the same answer at the end, but knowing it, really knowing it, not just understanding it theoretically."
— Josh Fineman, from Episode #028 - Healing with Men's Work
"...the idea of being unapologetically in your story, and accepting and loving every single version of you. Even those parts that you tend to push down... healing is hard... your mind, it will create stories and will make you think that actually healing is this really difficult thing... but what's harder than healing is actually living your life, carrying baggage, and carrying stuff that actually is You can process and learn from and lean on..."
— Liza Al Sady, from Episode #015 - Healing with Breathwork
"We are here to be our own oracles, to listen to our own divine guidance. No one on this planet... is walking by themselves without some divine assistance. And so we are all here, particularly the light workers, the healers... to be the foremost pillar of light, the beacon to bring through this high healing energy..."
— Marcia Canestrano, from Episode #025 - Healing with the Akashic Records
For further support:
For more stories and wisdom from incredible healers, listen to the Don't Step on the Bluebells podcast. The guests are high-caliber practitioners, and if one of them speaks to you, that may be a good place to start.
If you're a healer looking for community support on your own journey, learn more about the Women Healers Collective.