2025: The Mirror, the Wound and the life I learned to keep living

There is a story we often tell about healing, that it happens only through breaking, through pain, through the wound.
But 2025 taught me something more honest and more complete:
The mirror shows us who we are.
The wound shows us what mattered.
But the life we build alongside them is where healing actually lives.

This year held both the losses that stripped things back and the gains that quietly sustained me. It was not a year of reinvention. It was a year of alignment.

Some losses were clear and unavoidable. Relationships that could not be carried forward without self-betrayal. Dreams that no longer fit the person I was becoming. A version of myself that believed endurance alone would eventually be rewarded.
Other losses were more subtle. I lost the habit of explaining myself endlessly. I lost the belief that love should require self-abandonment. I lost the urge to rush grief into insight or pain into purpose before it had been felt.

As a psychotherapist, I had language for these processes , but living them is different. The mirror this year showed me where I was still clinging, still hoping, still trying to make something work through effort alone. The wound revealed how deeply I had cared. And that mattered.

But alongside the loss, something steady was growing.
2025 brought goodness. I didn’t chase, but I learned to notice. It arrived quietly and stayed because I allowed it to.
I learned how to care for myself without guilt. Not as recovery, not as repair, but as a way of being. Long walks where my nervous system could finally exhale. Time outdoors,  hiking, moving, letting the land hold me rather than asking anything of me. Coffee enjoyed slowly. Food that is nourished, rather than numbed. Small rituals that reminded me I was allowed to take up space in my own life.

Friendship deepened in ways that felt safe and unforced. People who didn’t need my story to make sense of me. Laughter that wasn’t followed by collapse. Presence without performance. These relationships reminded me that safety doesn’t always arrive with intensity.  sometime,  it arrives with consistency.
There was travel, not as escape, but as perspective. Changing landscapes shifted something internal. I didn’t need transformation, I needed context. Nature offered that freely.
Professionally, something settled. My work as a psychotherapist felt more embodied, more trusting, and less driven by outcome. I relied less on knowing and more on listening. I allowed silence to do its work. The mirror here was reflection; the wound was humility; the gain was present.

Creativity returned gently. Journalling not to analyse or resolve, but to accompany myself. Writing that didn’t need to become anything. Thoughts that could exist without being shaped into meaning. That alone felt like freedom.

What I gained most in 2025 was permission.
Permission to enjoy my life even while carrying complexity.
Permission to stop proving resilience.
Permission to let the good be good,  without waiting for it to be taken away.

And what I learned about loss is this: it does not negate what was real. The wound is not evidence of failure , it is evidence of connection, investment, and care.
The mirror still reflects honestly.
The wound still holds meaning.
But this year reminded me that healing is not lived only in the depths — it is lived in pleasure, connection, slowness, and trust.

The Mirror and the Wound is not about fixing what hurt it is about learning how to live truthfully alongside it.
2025 taught me that both loss and goodness can coexist and that choosing to stay present for both is, in itself, a form of healing.