Towards the end of last year, I was proudly telling my friends, "Oh, I've fired my therapist. I've gotten what I can from therapy." Part of it was true —I felt I was getting diminishing return from therapy. Another part was honestly my ego patting itself on the back on the progress I've made, reassuring the kid inside me that I was finally "good enough." I wanted to believe I had arrived somewhere, that I was complete.

I thought by doing these work — understanding my emotions and stuff — will help me navigate my next relationship successfully. However, fast forward a few months, I recently just ended a relationship. Even though it was brief, having a relationship that didn't work out still hurts. It's not just about losing the person; it's the space it leaves behind and the questions it stirs up.

As much as I'd like to say I've processed it fully, I found myself overthinking and second-guessing the decision I made. It's my way of coping—a habit of intellectualizing the experience to find "takeaways" and create closure. But I've realized that this tendency can sometimes be a trap. By analyzing and problem-solving my emotions, I might be avoiding actually feeling them.

When we resist hurt—whether by overthinking, distracting ourselves, or brushing it off as unimportant—it doesn't go away. It lingers. It festers. The stagnation in these moments becomes unconscious desires influencing our subconscious. Life is about ebb and flow, and the more we resist the hurt, the more we get stuck in it.

In reflecting on the relationship, I've come to realize that if two people aren't fundamentally on the same page, you can communicate things, but they don't always communicate across. It's like speaking the same language, but the meaning gets lost in translation. It's not a matter of who's right or wrong, or who's done more inner work; it's about being in different places with how you experience and process emotions, and even how you see the world.

You can only meet someone as deeply as they've met themselves—and the same goes for me. I have my own faults, blind spots, and tendencies I'm still working through, and I'm far from having it all figured out. I think part of me hoped that my own emotional growth would automatically bridge the gap between us, but it doesn't work like that. Relationships are mirrors, and they reflect both the ways we connect and the ways we're not aligned. It's not about one person being "wrong" or "lacking," but about the reality that depth requires mutual willingness, capacity, and timing.

In a coaching session on self-trust, Joe (the coach) offered a powerful reminder: when we feel hurt, our instinct is often to resist it by telling ourselves not to take it personally. But resistance only deepens the discomfort. Hurt, when embraced, becomes a clarifying force—it reveals what truly matters and the parts of us that are unshakable. As the saying goes, "Offer yourself for annihilation to find the part of yourself that can't be annihilated." Instead of resisting, feel the hurt—it's how we uncover what's real and enduring within us.

The truth is, you're never really done with self-discovery. It's not like a to-do list where you check off "healed" or "self-discovered." Growth is more like a spiral—you revisit old patterns, themes, and wounds, but each time with a little more depth, perspective, and intuition. The same challenges return, not to show you that you've failed, but to invite you to explore yourself more fully.

The work is never done, and perhaps that's the beauty of it. It's a reminder to let go of attachment to outcomes and instead focus on how we show up—with curiosity, wonder, and willingness to grow. (Hopefully) that's where the real transformation happens...