Sitting at My Fire
Have you ever heard people say, “This happened for you, not to you”, or “everything happens for a reason”?
I remember hearing that long before I began any of my healing work. And to be honest—it used to make me mad. Enraged in fact.
When my dad died at 18, people would say, “One day, this thing—your dad dying—is going to help so many people.”
And I wanted to scream.
Because in the midst of my grief and sorrow and the overwhelming unfairness of it all—I couldn't see it. I couldn’t even reach for that idea. I felt so unseen.
People would say things like, “This will pass” or “It won’t always hurt this much.”
I think they meant well. I think they were trying to offer hope… trying to help me see that it wouldn’t last forever. But in those moments when my heart was breaking open and I was drowning in sorrow—it wasn’t helpful.
Why?
Because it felt like they were trying to get me to skip the feeling.
To skip the sitting.
To skip the fire.
They wanted to fast-forward to healing, without sitting in the grief.
There was no one helping me process.
Just people trying to get me to the other side without actually walking me through the middle.
And so… I buried it.
Because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.
Every time something painful happened, I buried that too.
No one had modelled how to sit with the ache.
So I just... kept burying.
Back then, I didn’t know there were ways to heal that didn’t require talking about the pain.
I didn’t know support could look so different—quiet, tapping, and deeply effective.
I recently returned from Sanibel, Florida.
If you’ve never been, let me tell you—there’s magic in the sand there.
The beach is scattered with the most extraordinary seashells.
Every time you walk along the water’s edge, there’s this little flutter of wonder:
What will I find today? What’s waiting for me beneath the surface?
If you bring a little shovel and start digging, you’ll find thousands of hidden shells beneath the sand.
And it hit me.
That’s what healing work is like.
When we finally decide to go beneath the surface—when we dig—we discover all these buried parts. The shells. The wounds. The live wires.
They’ve just been sitting there.
Quiet. Hidden.
Until something touches them. And then—zap.
A trigger.
A reaction.
A flood of emotion.
A behaviour we don’t quite understand.
And most of the time, it’s happening unconsciously.
Because like me, many of us were never taught how to sit with the pain.
We were never given the gift of witnessing.
So we buried it.
What I’ve come to know—deep in my bones—is this:
In order for something that’s happened to us to transform into a teaching or a gift,
we first have to heal it. Sit with it. Really SEE it.
Only then—only then—can we begin to see the wisdom inside it.
The pattern. The meaning. The deeper purpose.
And here’s the beautiful part: when we do that work, when we sit with our wounds instead of burying them, we gain something priceless—the ability to hold space for others.
I’ve noticed this in my work, especially when someone comes into session who’s lost a parent at a young age.
I can feel that pain.
Not as a live wire anymore. But as something integrated. Something softened.
And that’s not just because time has passed.
It’s because I’ve done my own healing work—specifically through EMDR.
It’s been transformative for me—because I had no idea what was under the surface.
I didn’t realize I was holding so much.
Through EMDR, I was able to see and make sense of why I felt the way I did.
I was able to let go of so much I didn’t even know I was carrying.
And because of that, I can now offer presence—not reactivity.
I don’t hijack someone’s story with my own. I don’t bleed into their pain.
Instead, I witness it.
I hold it.
I stay.
And in that space, they get to discover their own knowing.
That human connection—the one that whispers you’re not alone—that’s everything.
What I see in the world, over and over, is this:
When we don’t heal our own buried pain, we struggle to meet others in theirs.
We lose our capacity to connect with suffering.
Not because we’re bad or broken, but because somewhere inside, there’s a voice saying,
“Well, no one helped me through my pain. Why should I help them through theirs?”
And so, we harden.
We look at homelessness and feel disgust.
We see addiction and feel anger.
We witness mental illness and feel judgment.
But underneath all of that?
It’s just the echo of our own unmet pain.
It’s the body remembering how it wasn’t held.
It’s the nervous system still on guard.
These buried wounds—they don’t just disappear.
They show up in the body.
They show up in relationships.
Sometimes they show up as tumours. As illness. As anxiety that won’t quit.
People ask me all the time:
“Is it possible to change the imprint? To heal what happened?”
And my answer is always:
Yes.
But only if we’re willing to attend to the pain first.
Only if we’re willing to stop burying, and start sitting.
So if you’re in it right now… if you’re considering beginning… if you’ve already started walking this road—I just want you to know:
You're not alone.
And healing doesn’t require you to talk about everything.
It doesn’t require you to rip the wound open again.
But it does ask you to sit.
To notice.
To feel.
And maybe—just maybe—to let someone sit beside you while you do.
From my heart to yours,
Kara
P.S. If you're feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to begin, our free group EMDR session might be the softest place to start. You don’t need to talk or share your story. Visit www.shiftchange.life to learn more.
