Personal Growth Is Not Linear: How Movies and Social Media Get It Wrong

This healing storyline we see so often isn’t a lie. It’s just…heavily edited. After all, it’s not usually possible for people to share every gnarly detail of their process in an easily digestible two-minute clip (or even an hourlong interview). It can also be a lot less vulnerable to share a sanitized version of your healing history. Why share the whole mess when you can present a clean narrative arc?

So, people often end up presenting the highlight reel of their inner work. It might go something like this: Someone was making boatloads of money and enjoying life. Then, they got laid off, or woke up one day and realized they still felt empty inside. They knew something had to change. So, they went to a yoga retreat in Bali and began meditating religiously. Finally, they re-emerged as a healed version of themselves.

The rom-com version of healing is comforting, but can also be misleading. Healing is not always so neat and predictable. The rom-com version may convince us that healing happens in just a few pivotal, singular moments: Rock bottom, an explosive wake-up call, a dramatic breakthrough that changes everything. Then, that’s it: I found myself. I figured it all out. I’m finally at peace. The end.

Personal Growth Doesn’t Always Happen in Big Breakthrough Moments

Real healing doesn’t always look like having cinematic dark nights of the soul, achieving transcendent meditative states, waking up with massive epiphanies. It may not look like discovering a silver-bullet healing modality that fixes everything, or leaving earth-shattering therapy sessions with decades-old childhood trauma fully resolved.

Often times, healing may mean making hundreds of subtle shifts and taking teeny-tiny steps that accumulate over time. It’s not that you can’t have transformative moments, but they tend to happen as the result of lots of hard work.

Personal Growth Often Feels Slow and Repetitive

In my experience, healing can be nonlinear: confusing, repetitive, subtle, and frustrating. It may look like taking two steps forward, one step back. Experimenting. Revisiting the same wound over and over. Feeling like you’re not getting anywhere. It’s not always so grand and Instagrammable.

Because this cultural narrative of healing may distort how we expect our own journeys to look, it can set us up to feel like failures. To judge ourselves harshly against unrealistic expectations.

We often think we’re supposed to go from point A to point B in a relatively straight upward line, so we tend to feel ashamed when our process is all over the place. We often think we’re supposed to have flashy turning points, so our lack of massive revelations can make us feel like we’re doing it wrong. Many of us feel like we’re supposed to reach some perfectly ‘healed’ place, so when we notice we’re still works in progress, it can feel disappointing.

The messiness on your journey, the setbacks, the resistance, and the slow progress, isn’t a detour. It is the work. And while Hollywood movies have an ending, healing usually doesn’t. Healing can be cyclical and ongoing. You may circle back to the same wounds; get triggered, again. Life can hand you new challenges. Old patterns may resurface. Hormones fluctuate. Stress spikes. Relationships end. Your coping skills may wobble.

So, when your emotional and psychological growth feels like it’s going off-script, remember that the storyline you may have in your head doesn’t always reflect reality. Many people find that their journeys aren’t cookie‑cutter, and that healing can look different for everyone. Your journey is uniquely yours.

This article reflects personal experiences and general information. It is not intended as medical advice or a substitute for professional care. If you’re finding it hard to cope or need additional support, consider reaching out to a licensed mental health professional.