MVC The Next Chapter

Why the wrong environment turns healing into endless crisis management—and why stillness is the true alchemy.

I realized something

After I realized something

I realized another something

Then I saw it.

All of it.

I’ve been talking about how healing doesn’t work, not really (stay with me) for a recent while.

At first, when I had the initial epiphany: I was devastated.

I played this devastation down, reading over my recent writings, I see that now. I underplayed my devastation – at realizing the healing, my healing, hasn’t worked – because I just didn’t want to believe it.

Even now, writing this, I can’t fucking believe it. My god, the years years years I have spent waving those joss sticks, babay.

But I’m an Alchemist.

Now I have known this for years. I didn’t really give it a name, and names are both helpful and not helpful (depending on if we get attached to them) but for now it works.

Why?

Because Alchemy is sitting still.

I never really stood still.

‘You never stop to smell the flowers’ a college tutor told me – at 16.

Well, I didn’t stop until about a year ago.

Then I saw it.

The Alchemy.

I saw that the healing didn’t work,

But sitting still does.

When do we ever sit still?

Okay so the above is the intro.

Now take a breath.

I am going to transmit something that will either go right over your head….

Or it will sit in your solar plexus.

Forever.

Here is my latest realization in a run of, oh HUNDREDS of fucking new realizations.

That’s what happens when ya sit still, babay!

So now.

Today.

Here is my revelation from the stillness…

Of course, of course the healing hasn’t worked:

Because the environment wasn’t right.

The simulation

The stimulation

The over stimulation

The rat race

The poverty

The domestic abuse

The needing to work to survive

The taxes

The struggle

The theft

The worry

The bills

The ‘single tax’

The just keeping my head above water

The drowning

The food bank

The endings

The isolation

The injuries

The surgery

The breakdown(s)

The…the…the

I could go on.

So during these periods I had healing.

I felt much better for some of it, but it never lasted.

When I went back for session after session,

There was often a feeling of failure because I hadn’t sustained the healing.

But it wasn’t healing:

It was fixing.

Now that worked.

It kept me alive.

I am grateful for that, truly.

In my apparent ‘rejection’ of the ‘healing’ I am, actually:

Just putting it all in perspective.

To get my head around how much time I wasted,

Truly,

Thinking that healing was something altogether different.

And, perhaps: branding myself as a healer: who was so broken, I knew exactly how to heal.

Others.

Not myself.

So now it is making more sense.

To truly heal we need a safe container.

A safe environment.

Otherwise: it’s just crisis management: which is totally different.

Useful: yes.

Good for longevity: not necessarily.

Stay close.

It’s a process unravelling.

After ‘the fix’, sure, I felt more together, stronger, more able.

But it doesn’t last.

So as I reflect upon this lack of longevity more so…

I realize that healing is ‘a fix’ and not ‘the fix’.

An addiction. Actually.

Take a moment if you need to.

The other night, after working 88 hours in 10 days, I was on a night off (I work nights) – I felt satisfied, accomplished, revelling in my reward.

As I lay in bed, nestled between my pillows and bathing in the softness of the fleece blankets, the local pub started blasting music and the people got louder, louder: louder.

I couldn’t hear myself feel.

Within 20 minutes I had palpitations. Within an hour I had cold chills. After two hours I was catastrophizing from my over stimulated brain. From this point my whole body was shaking.

It wasn’t, though, started by a thought or thoughts. It was started by my environment that triggered a biological response.

No wonder the fix works but the healing doesn’t when we are in the wrong environment.

This has taught me… okay okay… not just this… the last several months and year or so… has taught me that we do need a certain environment to heal. It isn’t just about the talking, processing, releasing and shaking off the joo joo.

Most of my healers are doing very nicely thank you.

Detached houses.

Money.

Safety.

Security and lashings of middle class comfort.

So it is quite understandable that ‘the healing’ might have worked for them.

Their environments supported it.

I share this with you because I sense that you might be in an environment that isn’t currently supporting you, or, you have experienced this lack in recent times or in the deep dark past.

I sense that you haven’t quite understood that your environment is VERY important for your healing and recovery and I sense that you need to….

Allow that truth in – to stop blaming yourself.

I am speaking to me.

And you?

So what do we do if we can’t yet heal?

We sit still (or run).

We thank our bodies for the fight or flights that we might actually need to get the hell out of there.

Once we are out of there we then need to remind ourselves that our bodies are still in fight or flight.

And…

Sadly..

That has to be okay.

I did not invite the cold chills the other night. I was relaxed, calm and centred to begin with.

But no less, the cold chills came.

I caught up on sleep the next day.

And then, to clarify…

I wrote this little piece.

I hope it helps…

In Love,

The Alchemist xx

All my work: © 2026 Matt Valentine-Chase. Image by AI.