Why Do Old Wounds Resurface: A Gift or a Curse?
I have been quiet. Life had asked me to slow down, turn inward, and practice the very work I have spent years working on and helping others with.
Not perfectly. Not without getting triggered. Not without having moments where old parts of me showed up.
But in a way that gave me a much deeper understanding of what it really means to notice, to honor my capacity, and to choose differently when an old wound gets activated.
And that is what I want to share with you today.
Understanding Healing is a Non-Linear Process
One of the most important things I have learned about healing is that you will never handle everything the exact way you plan it out in your mind. You will get triggered. Old patterns will come back and parts of you that you thought you had healed will show up again.
And that does not mean you have gone backward. That does not mean you didn’t get it right and It does not mean your years of work on yourself were wasted.
Sometimes it means you are being given an opportunity to grow and expand differently than you were able to before.
The Foundation: Setting Boundaries
One of the first major changes I made at the beginning of my healing journey was creating very firm boundaries with my mom. For most of my life, there was a lot of role reversal between us. I was more the parent, and she was more the child.
As I got older, I became her personal assistant in many ways. Her needs always became the priority. I supported her financially and emotionally while she was battling long-term alcoholism. And regardless of what was happening in my own life, I had to show up. I truly did not see I had any choice. This is a common experience for people carrying unresolved trauma. Trauma can literally and figuratively narrow our perception, making us unable to see choices or possibilities that may be available to us. It makes old responses and patterns feel like the only option rather than recognizing that other possibilities may exist.
This became a very deep introject for me. An introject is a belief, thought, behavior, role we take on during childhood and over time, we take these on as our own truth. We don't question them because they have been ingrained for so long; we believe it is part of who we are.
For me, the belief was essentially: I have to take care of my mom. It is my job. I have no choice.
And that belief ended up showing up everywhere. I felt like I needed to be the perfect mom, the most caring friend, the most understanding partner, the daughter who always went above and beyond. The person who always asked about everyone else's life, their job, their problems, their feelings.
But I never consciously stopped and asked myself: What about me? What are my needs? How am I doing? What do I actually want? Who am I outside of taking care of everyone else?
For a very long time, I didn't know the answers to these questions. It was part of my identity.
I began working with a therapist during a big life transition (divorce) who helped me understand that a big part of why I had ended up in the situations/relationships I had was connected to this core wound with my mom. She told me that if I really wanted to heal and be surrounded by healthy relationships, I needed to start by cutting the cord from my mom, meaning that role had to end. I needed to create distance and establish firm boundaries.
And I did. For eight years, I created boundaries. I created distance. I built a whole big life outside of that role.
When Old Wounds Resurface
About eight months ago, my mom's cancer spread and she lost the ability to care for herself. Before I even fully realized what was happening, I found myself right back in the role I had spent years working so hard to step out of.
I was paying large amounts of money for round-the-clock care for her. She was at my house, or I was spending almost every day at her home. I was managing things. I was making decisions. And once again, my life began revolving around my mom.
At first, you might look at that and think: Yep, There it is. The old pattern is back because that is what I thought and in some ways, it was. But something was different this time.
Why Old Wounds Return—And What That Actually Means
I think life gives us opportunities to expand in ways we don't always understand at first. Sometimes those opportunities come through very hard and painful experiences.
We may think, Here we go again. Another lesson, Another hardship to overcome.
But maybe it isn’t.
Maybe it is opportunity to experience this differently.
That may be why some of our old wounds return.
Not because we are being punished.
Not because there is something wrong with us that still needs to be fixed.
But because life is continually giving us opportunities to expand.
I think this is something we don't talk about enough in healing work.
We can do years of healing and have an old pattern return. I want to be really clear that this does not mean that healing didn't work. It does not mean you failed or did not get it right.
It very well can mean you are actually ready to meet it from a different place.
When an old wound resurfaces, it is not always asking us to go deeper into painful experiences to heal more. It may be an opportunity to go deeper into wholeness.
Deeper into our capacity to experience joy. Deeper into our ability to stay connected to ourselves while also staying connected to other people.
Deeper into our capacity to receive love, to trust and are ability to remain present.
Maybe the first time we encountered the wound, our healing involved protecting ourselves.
The next time, we may be ready to connect to ourselves and others in a way we were not ready for before.
For me, that was my experience. I had spent years learning how to create boundaries with my mom. I needed those boundaries. They were an important part of my healing.
But when she became sick and I found myself caring for her again, something unexpected unfolded for me.
I wasn't being asked to become the daughter who sacrificed herself again.
I was being given an opportunity to discover that I could care for someone I loved without losing myself.
Life is a series of experiences, challenges, tests, and opportunities that show us where we can evolve further.
Healing is about becoming aware enough to recognize when the old pattern has been activated so we have an opportunity to respond differently. And that was the difference for me this time.
The Real Work: Awareness Over Perfection
I want to be really honest about this because I think sometimes healing work can accidentally make people feel like they are doing something wrong when they get triggered. I was not peaceful and regulated every day for these last eight months. I had emotional relapses. I had moments where I became reactionary and overwhelmed. I had moments where my emotions came out in ways I didn't feel good about.
But the difference was I recognized what was happening. I could feel that my body was at capacity. And I could pivot, I did not stay stuck.
I wasn't living inside the old pattern unconsciously anymore. I was noticing. And noticing can really change everything as long as we remain present.
Learning to Honor Your Capacity
This has probably been one of the biggest lessons for me. I have always had a full plate. I am a mom. I have my home and animals. I have my nursing career and my business. I have lots of responsibilities. Adding what essentially became another full-time job of caring for my mom pushed my capacity to its limit.
But years ago, I didn't have any understanding of capacity. I would just keep going. I would push through doing it all, living in a perpetual state of fight or flight. I would tell myself I have to do all these things and still show up as that caring, doting person for everyone.
This time, I could actually notice: I am at capacity. I don't have the capacity for that right now and I adjusted my life around it.
I stopped doing a lot of my normal business functions aside from seeing my clients. I limited social interactions that didn't feel supportive. I was able to articulate to people, I don't have the capacity for a phone call right now. I would text instead of having three or four phone conversations about my mom's care in one day.
And this is one is big: I stopped expecting myself to function as though nothing had changed. In my work, I talk often about how unprocessed trauma teaches us to pretend and perform. Clinically, this can happen when our nervous system has become accustomed to living in a chronic state of activation “go,” where functioning, doing, and pushing through become our default. It also happens when there is a disconnection between our cognitive awareness and our emotional experience ( Left brain + Right brain) we may intellectually know that something has changed, while we are disconnected from the other part of us that continues showing up as though nothing has.
Finding Glimmers in the Difficult Moments
I continued looking for small moments that could help me feel peaceful and present. For me, that might have been just been sitting outside in the evening, reading with my animals, with a few candles lit, surrounded by my plants. It wasn't able to keep up with my normal self-care routine but It was something, Simply creating a little space for myself for 10–15 minutes at the end of the day. Those moments became my glimmers. I also kept doing my own work. I continued having regular somatic sessions for myself. I needed somewhere to go and feel and not think. Not figure anything out. Not be the one holding everything together. Just feel.
Going through this experience gave me an even deeper gratitude and appreciation for the work I do with other people.
The Unexpected Gift
And then something unexpected happened.
My mom became a glimmer.
Her illness was heartbreaking. There is nothing more difficult than watching someone you love become so sick that they can no longer care for themselves.
But something beautiful happened within the heartbreak.
She was finally able to see more clearly, and I was finally able to see her.
She is sober as a result of her limitations. She is present now. She asks me about my day. She shows gratitude for the things I do for her—and I can feel that she truly means it. This may not seem like much but to adult me and my inner child, it is everything.
When your coping mechanisms are taken away, there can be a kind of clarity that wasn't there before. There was no drinking, no smoking, no avoiding. No distractions.
She was just there. And somehow, I was finally able to just be there too.
She sees me.
And I see her.
I can feel her care. I can feel her love. Which is something I have not felt for a very long time.
I know she loved me prior to all this, and I'm sure there were moments when she tried to show me that love. But I don't think I was able to receive it because of the boundaries I had created that did not allow it. Having this time with my mom has been one of the greatest gifts of my adult life.
Not because I would ever wish for the circumstances that brought us here. But because this circumstance has allowed both of us to experience something I don't know that I could have happened any other way.
What This Means for Your Healing
If you are in the middle of an old pattern resurfacing, I want you to know this: you are not starting over.
The work you have already done is still there. It is still part of you. It has changed you, and it continues to shape how you move through the world.
So instead of immediately thinking, “Why am I back here again?” I would encourage you to become curious.
What if this is an opportunity to expand you deeper and bigger?
What if you are being given a chance to experience this part of your life from a place you didn't have access to before?
Because you are not the same person who was wounded the first time.
You have more awareness. More capacity. More choice. More connection to yourself.
Remember, you will still get triggered. You will still have moments where an old part of you takes over.
The work is noticing.
Noticing when the old pattern is showing up. Noticing what is happening inside of you. Noticing when you are moving away from yourself. And then, when you can, choosing something different.
Maybe your boundaries change.
Maybe you repair.
Maybe you allow yourself to hear or receive something you couldn't receive before.
Maybe you stay present for something beautiful that you would have once missed.
That brings us back to the question: Is the return of an old wound a gift or a curse?
Maybe it can be both.
A curse when we unconsciously return to the same patterns without awareness and abandon ourselves all over again.
But a gift when we notice what is happening and realize we have a choice.
When we discover that we can meet the same wound from a different place.
When we realize we can experience something differently than we did before.
Perhaps the return of an old wound isn't asking you to go back at all.
Maybe it is life simply showing you that you are ready to move and expand in a way you couldn't before.
And maybe that is your unexpected gift.