You don't need to figure it out, you need to heal

I used to be a figuring out addict. I was always trying to solve, plan, and make sense of my life - analyzing every choice, feeling and circumstance - believing that if I just figured it out, everything would fall into place.

Over time, I realized that this endless need to figure things out wasn’t about life being confusing. The truth is, when there’s an unresolved wound, unprocessed emotion, or unmet need, our minds naturally try to “solve” life as a way to cope. We project that internal unrest onto the world around us, believing that if only the circumstances made sense, we would finally feel okay.

Often, the endless need to figure life out is just a symptom. We mistake the unease we feel about our life for a problem with our circumstances or lack of insight, when really it’s pointing to something within us that needs care. Until that underlying need is tended to, life can feel like a puzzle that’s always just out of reach, no matter how hard we try to solve it.

The shift happens when we stop trying to force clarity and start turning inward with curiosity and compassion. Healing doesn’t mean ignoring life’s challenges - it means addressing the underlying patterns that keep us feeling stuck, overthinking, or chronically unsatisfied. When we do that work, clarity often arrives naturally. The answers we were chasing are no longer something we have to “figure out”; they emerge from a grounded, healed place within us. A new sense of order emerges, organically.

If you recognize this pattern in yourself - always analyzing, planning, and overthinking - know that it’s not a personal flaw. It’s a signal. And the most powerful thing you can do isn’t to figure it out harder; it’s to tend to your inner self. Healing changes everything - from the way we make decisions to the way we experience life - and paradoxically, what you stopped chasing begins to arrive.