The Swirl in the Marble: Why Old Feelings Come Back After You Thought You Healed

I have been going through a lot of my old writing as I work on a couple of books. The first is a collection of erotic stories written by my alter ego Nikki Ivana, the Las Vegas Masseuse. The second is a revision of my 2012 book, Mild To Wild: Fun And Easy Ways To Heighten Your Intimacy.

Both projects are bringing up lots of old memories and feelings. Many are good, but some are not. The not-so-good feelings are often judgments and criticisms of my past self. Regrets. Irritations. Grief.

Some of these feelings surprise me because I thought I had already worked through them.

But what I have found over years of personal growth and development is that sometimes healing doesn’t mean an issue disappears forever.

When Old Feelings Come Back

As I’ve been working on these books, I’ve found myself feeling frustrated about the shitty editing job that was done on Mild To Wild and how much I allowed that to hold me back from promoting the book all these years.

There is a lot of regret there.

I regret that I didn’t do something about it sooner. I feel some shame about the way I handled it. And there is grief when I think about what could have been if I had believed in the book enough to fix the problems and keep putting it into the world.

Then there is the fear that comes with looking forward instead of backward.

What if what I’m doing now has little or no impact? What if I missed my opportunity? What if it’s too late for me?

Those are uncomfortable thoughts to sit with.

And some of them surprise me because I thought I had already worked through these feelings. I’ve done a lot of personal growth work over the years. I understand that I made the choices I made with the awareness and resources I had at the time.

And yet, here are some of those feelings again.

The Swirl in the Marble

What I have found over years of personal growth and development is that some problems are like the swirl in a marble.

We can heal one layer, but as our insight and awareness go deeper, we may find the same issue there. The swirl runs through the layers.

Finding it again doesn’t mean the work we did before didn’t matter. We aren’t necessarily back where we started. We may simply be encountering the same issue from a different place, with more experience, more awareness, and a different understanding of ourselves.

If you have ever had something come up and thought, “I already dealt with / moved through / healed from this issue,” then you know what I mean.

I’m experiencing some of that now.

The regret I feel today isn’t exactly the regret I might have felt ten years ago. I’m looking at those old choices as the person I am now, with everything I’ve learned since then. Of course I can see things that the version of me who was living through it couldn’t see.

The challenge is remembering that current insight doesn’t mean past me should have known better.

And that is where being the witness becomes important.

Becoming the Witness

I’ve been doing my best to stay in the witness position as these feelings come up.

For me, being the witness means noticing what I’m feeling without completely losing myself in the feeling. I can feel regret without becoming regret. I can notice the thought, “Maybe it’s too late for me,” without deciding that thought is true.

Adding more judgment and self-criticism for having these feelings isn’t going to help. If I’m already feeling regret about something I did in the past, beating myself up for feeling regret just gives me another layer of pain to deal with. Learning about self-compassion can offer another way to work with regret and difficult emotions.

What does help is to notice, breathe, and relax enough to give the feelings some space.

Once I create some psychological space around the issue, my next steps become easier to see. Instead of being completely inside the problem, I can become curious about it.

What am I actually feeling?

What am I afraid of?

What does this part of me need?

And sometimes, what do I need to do differently now?

Being the witness doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. It means I can have my feelings without letting them make every decision for me.

If you find yourself wanting support as you explore what you’re feeling and what you want to do differently, erotic life coaching can give you a space to explore those questions.

What If You Can’t Let It Go?

Most often, once I have created some space around an old feeling, I eventually get to the place of knowing I need to let it go.

Especially when I’m dealing with feelings and reactions related to something that happened a long time ago.

Sometimes I really do just need to let it go.

But knowing that and actually doing it aren’t always the same thing.

If I notice that I’m resisting letting go, I don’t want to force myself past that resistance. Instead, I do a little detective work.

What part of me doesn’t want to let this go?

What is that part afraid will happen if I do?

Is there something I still need to understand, acknowledge, grieve, or learn from?

And what does that part of me need in order to feel safe enough to move forward?

Sometimes resistance isn’t something I need to overcome. It’s information.

Once I understand what that part of me is trying to tell me, I can figure out what it needs.

And very often, what it needs is surprisingly simple: reassurance.

Reassuring Your Past Self

Often, what I need is simple reassurance.

I can remind myself that current me learned the lesson. Current me knows things that past me didn’t know. And current me is taking care of things differently.

I can’t go back to 2012 and make myself respond differently to what happened with Mild To Wild. I can’t recover the years when I could have been promoting the book. I don’t get to find out what might have happened if I had made different choices.

I can grieve that.

But I can also remind myself that I’m doing something about it now.

I’m fixing the book. I’m looking at the material with everything I’ve learned since I originally wrote it. I’m deciding what I still believe, what needs to change, and what I want to teach today.

And I’m going to put it back into the world.

When the fear says, “Maybe it’s too late,” I don’t actually have to know whether that’s true. I just have to know what I want to do now.

That’s something current me can take care of.

Moving Forward Instead of Looking Back

Maybe you have your own swirl in the marble. Something you thought you had already dealt with, healed from, forgiven, or moved beyond, only to discover another layer of it years later.

If that happens, you don’t have to make it mean that you’ve failed or that all the work you’ve already done didn’t count.

Maybe you’ve simply reached another layer.

Notice what’s there. Give it some space. Get curious about what that part of you needs. Reassure yourself when you need reassurance. And then ask yourself what you want to do now.

We can’t change what our past selves did.

But we can take care of our present selves and make different choices moving forward.

That is what I’m practicing right now.

And I’m curious: Do you have a swirl in your marble?

If you’re ready to explore your own patterns, desires, or next steps with support, see my current offerings and find out how we can work together.