When Knowing Isn’t Enough

Recently, I found myself in a situation I thought I’d long since outgrown.

It was my birthday. I had booked a getaway to the sea, a small ritual of freedom—a hotel, a sauna, some distance from the everyday. I’d planned the day with intention, even invited someone I like. We share a lightness. There’s laughter. There’s tenderness. And I thought: This will be good.

But then I drank too much the night before on my friends easter barbeque…

And in the morning, everything crashed.

The familiar grip of a hangover wasn’t just physical—it was emotional, energetic, existential. A fog descended. My body was dysregulated, my thoughts spiraling. I looked around and everything became a trigger: the people walking along the promenade, the fact that I was “trapped” here for the night, even the thought that I might have to just escape in my car in the middle of the night. Suddenly, I was back in the terrain I thought I had already crossed—panic, disorientation, the desperate need to get out.

And I knew what was happening. That’s the hard part. I knew that alcohol lowers my defenses and inflames my nervous system. I knew I hadn’t eaten enough. I knew that drinking coffee in these situations is the last thing I should do either.

I knew that my panic wasn’t about the place or the people or the day—it was old trauma memory, old programming, old emotional charges flaring up in a vulnerable state.

I knew. And yet I couldn’t hold myself.

The Gap Between Insight and Integration

This is the space I want to talk about. The gap between knowing and being able. Between everything we’ve learned and those moments when we still fall.

We often believe that once we’ve “done the work”—read the books, gone to therapy, meditated, journaled, healed our inner child—we won’t collapse anymore.

That we’ll be able to stop the spiral with a breath, a mantra, a choice. And sometimes we can. But sometimes, we don’t. And it’s not because we’re lazy. It’s not because we’re failing.

It’s because the body stores what the mind understands.

And the body doesn’t operate on logic—it operates on safety.

When the Old Pattern Feels Safer Than Change

In moments of stress or overwhelm, the body seeks familiarity, not truth.

It reaches for the pattern, the script, the protective wall—even if that wall is built from suffering.

For me, the old story sounded like this:

"You’re trapped. You don’t really want to be here. You’re with the wrong person. You should have stayed home. You’re wasting your time again.”

These thoughts weren’t wisdom. They were defense mechanisms dressed in insight.

What I really wanted was escape—not because the moment was wrong, but because it was vulnerable.

Because receiving connection while dysregulated felt dangerous to my system.

Because staying, in love and in presence, still requires a kind of strength I am slowly building.

And Still, Something Has Changed

The difference now is: I see it. I saw the pattern. I didn’t believe it entirely.

I took space. I breathed. I cried. And eventually, the wave passed.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was true.

And healing, as I’ve come to realize, isn’t linear.

It’s not about never falling again. It’s about falling more honestly, with more self-compassion, and returning faster.

What I Know Now

I know that I can’t always prevent the crash. But I can learn to catch myself sooner. I can stay connected, even in discomfort. I can forgive myself—not later, but in real-time.

And maybe, most importantly:

I can stop measuring my growth by how rarely I fall, and start honoring it by how present I remain in the falling.

So here’s to all of us—who know the way, and still sometimes forget.

Who are healing, not to become perfect, but to become whole.

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