Stop Looking For Your Old Self

Last updated on March 24, 2026

She’s no longer there

I left an abusive marriage in 2014. And thus began my healing journey, too. For the longest time, I searched for the woman I left behind, but I could never find her. I was beginning to wonder if she was lost forever. Then I heard an excerpt from one of Carl Jung’s writings. He said, “Healing does not restore the former personality. It creates a new one.”

When we’ve been silenced or minimized, we often strive to return to the person we once were. Or how life was before it made us feel small.
But that isn’t how true healing works.

It is like the caterpillar and the butterfly: we don’t return to our old form; we transform into something altogether new.

Something more beautiful.

Stop searching for your old self, looking for who you used to be; before the break-up, before the death, before the trauma
Instead, watch the unfolding.
Wait, and witness the beautiful soul you are becoming.

Luna moth, not a butterfly, but equally beautiful