The Healing Trap: Beyond the Search for Perfect Peace

I recently had a profound realisation that I want to share. For a long time, I believed that true peace could only come once I had freed myself from all trauma and uncomfortable sensations. I spent years trying to "fix" myself, thinking that if I could just resolve every emotional wound, then peace would finally arrive. But this belief itself was the trap—the idea that peace is something to attain, something that only exists after suffering is gone. What I discovered is that peace was never absent; I had just been looking for it in the wrong way.

And in this recognition, something else became clear: healing and letting go still happen, but not through force. Without pushing or pulling, without the need for things to be different, they unfold naturally, by themselves. The process of release continues, but now it happens in its own time, without the struggle of seeking or longing.

The Illusion of Conditional Peace

Many people fall into a subtle but pervasive illusion: the belief that peace is something to be attained, that liberation arrives only when all wounds are healed, all emotions settled, all residues of suffering removed. But what if this very search keeps us bound?

A common assumption is that true peace will come once the mind is clear, the body unburdened, and all past traumas resolved. This belief is reinforced by both modern self-improvement culture and spiritual traditions that emphasize purification. Many people embark on endless cycles of therapy, meditation, or self-inquiry, hoping to reach a perfected state. But this is the mind’s final trick: the belief that peace is conditional, something that arrives after an imagined completion. True peace is not an achievement; it is the awareness in which both healing and suffering arise and dissolve.

Is Peace Something to Be Attained?

Consider this: Is peace something that comes after the body is free of trauma, or is peace the awareness that sees the trauma? Is it something to be gained, or is it the ever-present openness in which all experiences come and go?

The mind will always conceptualise peace, defining it as a state, a feeling, or the absence of discomfort. For example, many believe that peace means never feeling anxiety again or always being in a state of bliss. But true peace is beyond concepts; it is not in the body or the mind, but in the awareness that contains them both. The mind cannot grasp it because it is not an object—it is the silent witness to all objects.

Resting as Awareness

So I ask you to stop searching for the perfect version of yourself and do this instead: Right now, even with any lingering sense of longing, simply rest as the awareness that notices it. If a part of you still longs for something more, let it do so—without identifying with the one that seeks. Can you allow even the longing itself to be part of what is witnessed, rather than something that needs to be eliminated?

When there is no longer a demand for peace to take a specific form, it may become clear that peace was never actually absent.