For a long time, I thought healing was something to work on.
Unpack it. Understand it. Process it. Fix it.
But there was a moment in my life that showed me something different.
When I walked the Camino in 2016, I met a man named Philippe.
We were walking together, and I was listening to an audiobook about healing the mother wound.
One part of it really landed with me.
It spoke to how sometimes healing doesn’t come through talking, or being seen, or being heard, but through the felt experience.
That being physically held, simply, gently, without words, could be healing.
So I turned to Philippe one day and said…
There’s an exercise in this book, it’s not a romantic thing, it’s just about being held.
Would you hold me?
Not to fix anything. Just… hold space.
And he said,
“I’ll ask my wife.”
The next day, he came back and said,
“She said yes.”
And so, for about a week, at the end of each day’s walk, he’d simply hold me.
No words.
No advice.
No expectations.
Just presence.
And something in me healed.
Something I hadn’t even fully known needed healing.
To be held by someone who didn’t want anything in return…
To be felt, not seen, not heard, but felt…
It moved something in me that years of thinking and talking never touched.
We heal in so many ways, through our bodies, through our minds, through being seen, or through being felt.
That hug helped me remember how to feel again.
It brought me back to myself after being so in my head for so long.
And what’s more beautiful…
When I was pregnant with my daughter, we were thinking of names.
I said, “What about Bonnie?”
And Aaron said, “I love it.”
Bonnie was Philippe’s wife, the woman who said yes.
The woman who gave permission for a small act of kindness that changed something in me forever.
So somewhere in the world, there’s a woman named Bonnie who will probably never know that a little girl carries her name because she said yes to help me heal.
It reminded me that healing is not always a process.
Sometimes it is a presence.
Sometimes, it is the moment when you feel safe enough to stop bracing.
To feel what is there without needing to explain it.
To be held. Not fixed.
What parts of you are asking to be felt today?
Tanya Cross
Leadership Coach & The Coaches Coach
Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
