The entire point of healing isn’t just to recover from what hurt us or broke us, but to actually confront the truth of who we are and who we became to deal with the hurt, in order to start to piece together a new identity. The hurt shakes us so violently not just because our egos were bruised, but because unconsciously we recognize that we must be reborn, that we must strip away layers of conditioning so that we can fully step into the person that we are meant to be.
If we continue to suppress the pull to change, to grow, to evolve, we will remain in a loop, experiencing the same or similar ego blows until we decide to begin the journey of becoming who we were always meant to be. This is not a one-time journey, nor is it a journey that happens in a straight line or without hitches. However, the sooner we begin the journey, the earlier we begin to see the shifts and the changes.
The journey of healing is not just about the details of your story but how you tell it. It’s the way the lens through which you view the world shifts, the way your perspectives begin to differ. It is the way you begin to accept your life the way that it is: big, beautiful, messy, human.
The most healed version of us isn’t the one without flaws, nor the one that is unaffected by negativity of any kind. Rather, our most healed selves aren’t controlled by these negative emotions. They allow themselves to feel the full spectrum of human emotions but know that those emotions do not control or have any power over them. The things they fear do not prevent them from moving ahead in their lives.
It is easier to look into the lives of others and see all of the ways that they can better than it is to sit with ourselves in solitude and honestly confront the person that we are. To point out the darkness in us, to confront the places we are hiding from, the emotions we are suppressing and all the potentials within us that are unrealized; then do the work every single day to become the best version of ourselves.
Sometimes when we feel our emotions so deeply, we can get the instinctive urge to say, “something is wrong but I can’t figure out why,” but often I find that in times like this, nothing is really wrong and perhaps these emotions are hitting so hard right now because you stopped running for a bit, or you have nothing to distract yourself with. You are finally at a place where you feel safe enough to feel. Maybe something isn’t wrong right now but something was wrong in the past and you were too distracted to feel it. That pit in your stomach isn’t from today; you’ve been carrying it with you all this time.
If we don’t sort through our pain, it stays with us in our body until we are ready or we have no choice because pain demands to be felt. And when it is time to sort through those feelings, it’ll require that you sit in silence and feel into your body and notice the beating of your heart, the seemingly new feelings, you will begin to remember past memories you had suppressed. Piece by piece, day by day, your pain will begin to step into the light and reveal itself to you. And then you must be brave enough to look at it, to witness your own pain, to feel it, to heal it.
You will let yourself cry until you have no tears left, scream until you have no voice left, shake until you have no energy left. You will allow yourself to fall apart and look at the pieces of yourself and mourn for them. You will release as many times as you need to; you will not hold back or allow yourself to run behind the walls you have built up. Block by block, you will take those walls down. This is what it looks like to heal.
And when you have released, you will get up, stronger, wiser, better. Knowing that in you lies the power to put yourself back together. You will leave people behind and meet more aligned people, you will change locations, pick up new hobbies and careers. You will start reading, writing, or painting again. You will fall asleep feeling lighter and wake up feeling refreshed. You will understand that you must feel the full spectrum of human emotions; when it’s time to cry, you will cry, when it’s time to feel anger or frustration you will let yourself feel it.
Healing isn’t just going back to put a band-aid on what broke; it’s also learning how to let things shatter and begin to rebuild again, better, stronger, more intentionally.
