Why Healing Feels Like Breaking First: The Truth About Growth That Nobody Talks About

Man sitting on a couch

“I thought healing would feel like peace. But right now, it feels like everything is falling apart.”

If you’ve ever said that to yourself, or quietly thought it during a hard moment, you’re not alone. I've certainly felt like that!

In the early stages of healing, it’s common to feel like you’re unraveling. You may cry more, feel emotionally raw, or question everything you once believed about yourself and the world. It can feel like breaking. And in a culture obsessed with “fixing” and quick results, that experience can be terrifying.

But what if this breaking is not a failure… but a beginning?

At the core of what we do at ReiDefine Wellness, we believe healing is a sacred process: one that often looks messy, nonlinear, and painful before it starts to feel freeing. In fact, the emotional "breakdowns" you’re having might be signs that your body and spirit are finally safe enough to soften, release, and start rewriting old stories.

Let’s unpack why healing feels like breaking first... and why that’s not only normal, but necessary.

The Lie We’ve Been Sold About Healing

Most of us come to healing with hope... and often, a hidden expectation: This will fix me.

We may expect therapy or mindfulness or somatic work to immediately bring clarity, calm, or happiness. Social media floods us with neat timelines and inspirational quotes, giving the illusion that growth is always graceful.

But healing is rarely linear. And it is almost never pretty at the start.

Real healing often means confronting the parts of ourselves we’ve suppressed, avoided, or armored up against. It means facing grief, rage, confusion, shame... and all the emotions we were taught to hide, especially if we grew up in environments where survival depended on staying quiet, compliant, or strong.

So when we begin healing, we don’t suddenly “rise.” We often fall apart first. And it normally hits like a ton of bricks!

Why Healing Feels Like Breaking

Here’s a truth that might shift everything:

You’re not breaking because you’re failing. You’re breaking because you’re finally safe enough to feel.

Our nervous systems are wired for survival. If you grew up in a home or culture where emotional safety was inconsistent, or nonexistent, your body likely developed protective strategies: shutting down feelings, over-functioning, dissociating, people-pleasing, staying numb.

But as you begin to heal, especially in trauma-informed spaces or somatic therapy, your system starts to let its guard down. What was once frozen or hidden inside begins to thaw.

Tears come unexpectedly. Anger bubbles to the surface. Long-forgotten memories or body sensations may emerge.

It feels like chaos. But it’s actually clarity.

Your system is reorganizing. Your body is processing what it couldn’t before.

The Somatic Experience of Breaking Down

Somatic (body-based) healing work helps us reconnect with the sensations, movements, and emotions stored in our bodies. And that reconnection can feel overwhelming at first.

When your body remembers what your mind forgot, it can feel like:

• Sudden exhaustion or emotional overwhelm

• Feeling “too sensitive” or easily triggered

• Restlessness, anxiety, or the urge to isolate

• Emotional flashbacks (reliving a feeling without knowing why)

• Physical symptoms like nausea, tightness, or pain

These reactions aren’t setbacks; they are signs your body is moving from survival mode into integration. And just like detoxing, things may feel worse before they feel better.

This is especially true for first-generation immigrants, BIPOC folks, and those from culturally complex backgrounds who’ve had to silence their needs or emotions to belong, survive, or “make it.” Healing disrupts those old narratives, and that can feel destabilizing before it feels empowering.

Breaking ≠ Broken

We live in a world that teaches us to fear messiness. To be “put together” at all times. To measure wellness by how calm or functional we appear.

But healing isn’t about perfection. It’s about permission.

Permission to be human. To cry. To collapse. To be in process. To feel like everything’s crumbling and still be worthy of love, support, and dignity.

This is especially important in communities where strength has been the only option for generations. Where being “strong” meant not showing pain. Where vulnerability was seen as weakness.

But real strength includes softness.And real healing includes falling apart.

How to Care for Yourself When You’re Breaking Open

If you’re in the thick of emotional unraveling, here are some ways to ground yourself:

1. Pause and Breathe

Simple, slow breaths can remind your nervous system that you’re not in danger. Try box breathing: inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4. Repeat.

2. Let the Emotions Move

Tears, shaking, or even rage... let it move through safely. Punch a pillow, scream into a towel, take a walk, dance it out. Your body is doing its job.

3. Write It Out

Journaling what you’re feeling, without trying to “fix” it, can bring clarity. Try prompts like:

• “Right now, I feel…”

• “I’m afraid that if I break…”

• “If I could speak to my pain, I’d say…”

4. Stay Connected

Don’t isolate. Reach out to a trusted friend, therapist, or healing space like ReiDefine Wellness. You don’t have to go through this alone.

5. Remember: This is Temporary

Breaking down is not the end. It’s part of the cycle. You are not stuck, you’re shedding. And every layer that comes off is bringing you closer to your whole, authentic self.

Reclaiming the Narrative: Breaking as a Beginning

There’s an old Japanese art called Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. The cracks aren’t hidden; they’re honored. They become part of the story. They make the object more beautiful, not less.

Your healing is like that.

The breaking is not proof that you’re broken.It’s proof that you’re healing.

You are shedding the version of you that survived, and becoming the version of you that can thrive.

At ReiDefine Wellness, we walk with people through the messy, sacred middle. We honor the unraveling. We make space for the tears, the rage, the numbness...because we know what’s waiting on the other side.

And if you’re in the thick of it right now, please hear this:

You’re not doing it wrong. You’re doing the deepest work there is.

You Are Not Alone — Let’s Heal Together

If this post resonated with you, we invite you to:

• 💬 Share your experience in the comments — what has healing felt like for you?

  
  

• 🫂 Book a free consultation with one of our culturally aware, trauma-informed clinicians.

You are worthy of healing that honors your story.

Even, especially, when it feels like breaking.