Joe latches onto the question from the Gospel of John that Theo raises — “Do you want to be healed?” — because it’s the one most people skip. We assume the answer is obviously yes. I want to be rich, healed, different, free of guilt, free of jealousy. But we rarely stop to ask whether we actually want it, because healing means becoming someone different, with a different story.
“Do you want to be healed? And that’s a crazy question because if I get healed then I’m different. If somebody gets healed, they have a new story.”
What Joe finds beautiful is that Theo doesn’t speed-bump past the question. He wrestles with it, and in wrestling he sees that his old behaviors served him somehow — that there’s a real fear in letting them go. That honesty is not an obstacle to transformation; it is the transformation beginning. Naming the part of you that doesn’t want to change is more honest, and more effective, than pretending the whole of you is on board.
“He’s really wrestling with it… not only is he in the question, he also sees that the behavior of his past has been useful in some way.”
Related Concepts
- You can’t recognize your own transformation in its early stages
- Resistance has wisdom to listen to
- Believing recovery is possible is the first and most important shift
- Paying attention to a pattern changes it on its own
- Wanting someone to change reflects a part of yourself you can’t love
- The most recent epiphany becomes the next rut you have to release
- Good teachings inevitably get corrupted into new moralities