“To heal a wound you first need to stop touching it.” “Looking backwards is needed to move forward.” Well, which one is it? I think it’s a mix of both, with perspective being the key.
There’s a content creator on TikTok that I hate-follow—complicated, I know. She used to focus on lifestyle and beauty tips but now leans into wellness and self-help. I’m all for that type of content but my issue lies in some of her so-called advice. One of her claims is that you must stop revisiting the past in order to move forward.
I’m not saying she’s wrong, but she’s not entirely correct. I first heard this when I was at a low point. I was micro-analyzing every decision I had ever made, largely because of a narcissist who gave me faux support and then dropped me once I became collateral damage. I was poking at my wounds like a mad scientist, trying to figure out how everything went wrong and how I could make it better.
That’s why blanket advice never works. Healing isn’t one-size-fits-all. It depends on the situation. I’m not offended or shocked by what she says but it feels tone deaf when she presents it as a universal fix. If I failed a math test and decided not to “touch the wound”—meaning I didn’t go back to see my mistakes—would that magically earn me an A next time? Of course not.
The past, in many ways, is a teacher. Looking back allows us to see patterns, to understand our own choices, and to prevent repeating the same mistakes (that’s why we learn about history, right?). Reflection doesn’t mean living in the past—it means using it as a guide for the future. There’s a difference between staying stuck and learning from what you’ve lived through.
Healing also takes time. Sometimes it’s a breakup and sometimes it’s worse: a friendship breakup. From my own experience, losing a friend can hurt more than losing a partner. You’ve grown with them, faced challenges together, and suddenly it’s gone. The hardest part is realizing you’ve outgrown someone but don’t know how to address it, end it or move forward. I’ve written before that some friends are temporary. Sometimes their absence is obvious, other times it happens gradually. Either way, nothing lasts forever.
I’ll admit I’m the queen of overthinking. I replay old mistakes and stack up a million “what ifs.” If I had a second chance, how I would handle things differently. I’m slowly letting go of that mindset because time is precious and once it’s gone, there’s no getting it back. Unless someone builds a time machine—please sign me up. Most often these thoughts come after an argument, long after the other person has probably moved on.
Another habit of mine is inheriting problems that aren’t mine to carry. Why? Because I like to make my life harder and because I want to make things easier for everyone else. I believe this behavior stems from the multiple group projects I had in college that resulted in team members that failed to do their part, putting my grade and reputation at risk.
That pattern reminds me of an important truth: sometimes we need to look back at where we’ve been to understand why we keep repeating certain choices.