Joanne Smith argues that healing doesn't require grinding through prescribed tasks. Her own recovery came from curiosity and interest, not daily writing assignments or structured routines. There's no single formula for healing, only different paths that work for different people.
It kind of— I question a lot about the need to go and do the work, to go and work on yourself and to go and do the emotional things and all of that stuff, because actually I don't feel like it's— maybe it's just the way it's worded, maybe it's the way it's worded, Because maybe there is things that you do, but to me it never felt like work. It never felt like going and doing work. So I have done things that have been really useful, that have driven me down the recovery road, you could say, but the things that I'm doing weren't things that I was told, you have to go and follow this process and do this and do that, and you have to go and— And write for 20 minutes every single day, like for example, some programs out there are very directive and I think maybe that's where this go and do the work thing comes from, and some people will get well by following a process and going and doing work, but for me and many people that I know, there is no one way to get well, we're all individuals and we're all really different. And it's a different process for every single person, you could say, but with similarities. So for me, it was a case of I didn't really consider the learning as doing work, it was just interest, it was just purely out of interest, like, ah, that's got my interest,
