Why Are You Still In Pain, Even After All Your Healings?

If I had known what I’m about to share with you, I wouldn’t have been in pain for so long. Have you ever felt what my cousin once asked me: "Sis, I have a question. Whenever there is a trigger for a wound that you thought it has been healed, that do you do. Sometimes I thought my heart was healed once I connected with my inner child a while ago but I found that the pain is still there which limits me from enjoying my life or moving forward."

Just like her, You might have named the feelings. You’ve journaled, reflected, maybe even talked it through. You’ve tried to fix it. And yet it lingers. It loops. You feel stuck in the same pattern of pain. Somewhere inside, you quietly wonder: “I am so frustrated. Why can’t I get over this?” If this feels familiar, you’re not alone. This stuckness isn’t a failure of will, or a lack of effort. It’s something deeper, something that can’t be resolved by mindset or self-awareness alone.

Healing Is a Whole-Body Experience When something overwhelming happens, our body goes into survival mode, you know the familiar fighting, fleeing, or freezing to stay safe. In those moments, the thinking part of the brain shuts down, and the fear, pain, or helplessness couldn’t be released in the body. Even long after the overwhelming event has passed, the body still reacts as if the danger is happening now. That’s why past relationship wounds aren’t just a memory “in your mind”, they live in your body. Over time, the body becomes the keeper of what was never spoken, the hurts that weren’t heard, the emotions that felt too much, the truths that had no room to exist. Layer by layer, the unresolved past get tucked away in a quiet, murky place out of sight, but never truly gone. Philosopher and psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin called this, the Felt Sense: a subtle, often vague yet deeply real bodily knowing.  Imagine a young child feels something uncomfortable such as sadness, confusion, or fear but doesn’t yet have the words to express it. The child might cry, act out, or withdraw. Not because they’re misbehaving, but because something inside is trying to find its way out: a shape, a name, a voice. The felt sense is just like that. It’s the fuzzy edge of something real within you that hasn’t yet been put into words. Now, as an adult, you might keep sensing the familiar pain in you still, a heaviness, a tension, a foggy discomfort. But you don’t yet know what it is or what to do with it.

A sweet spot for full transformation, Is that moment when you know something feels off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

This is what Eugene Gendlin called the murky zone. This unknown, unspoken, uncertain, unclear murky zone is where the unresolved issue lives.  The part that never had a voice, trapped, feeling helpless inside. The place where you are lost in pain, is the entry point of further transformation.

In this murky place, You don’t need to push for an answer right away. You don't even have to fix it or explain it. You just continue to breathe, ground, and stay present with enough safety, patience, and curiosity. something incredible begins to happen. The body starts to unfold. Sensations express, Words may arise, An image. A memory. A realization.

As you keep staying present, simply witnessing the forward movements inside you, the inner movie starts to make sense.

And with it, a natural physical release emerges: a deep breath, a tear, a yawn, a soft “ah… now I know what this is.”

This moment is called the felt shift. when a wounded part, held in safety and presence, finally connects with its own truth. It’s a gut feeling, a full-body clarity, an inner Aha. This is the heart of change. It is your body moving naturally toward truth, relief, and inner peace.

How do you know when a wounded part has truly found peace? You no longer just understand your patterns. The part that once carried pain and the part that tried to protect you began to listen to each other. They start to integrate, finding a shared understanding. There’s less inner tug-of-war between what you know, what you do, and how life unfolds around you. You feel a quiet calm, a harmonious light, a grounded trust, a sense of wholeness, life becomes simple and easeful. 

However, if you still feel uneasy, like a tug of war within you and find yourself in a familiar frustration, please know: you’re not failing. Healing doesn’t move in straight lines. It unfolds in spirals, gently revealing layers that are ready for your care and continue to deepen.

Wondering if childhood wounds are affecting your current relationships? Take the short Childhood Relationship & Trauma Assessment to find out.

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From my heart,