There’s an enormous pressure in this day and age to be ‘healed’ as quickly as possible. And when people talk about healing, it actually sounds a lot like looking/being perfect. Healing from a breakup or a childhood trauma or losing a job, in our society or social media, looks like being better, looking better, being more successful. And to a certain degree, healing can actually do that- but it doesn’t happen over a month’s time in the gym or even a year in therapy. And often, you can’t even see it. Healing is slow and happens years before the glow up.
We see life through high and low moments and decide upon it’s worth through those moments. Failure are the low moments and success are the high moments. Losing the job, the partner, going through a crisis are all low moments, and getting the job, the dream wedding, the house with the white picket fence are all high moments. And the common thought is that if you have a life with many high moments, then you are stable and healthy. That’s a very simple and inaccurate way of looking at life and healing.
It is possible to go through many crisis’s and be pretty healthy and go through many good moments and be pretty depressed. Healing or being healed can’t be determined through a have or have-not mentality. And to understand why healing is slow, we first need to remove the attachment of a particular image and expectation to healing or being healed.
Firstly, healing is an active verb. There is no such thing as being healed. Life doesn’t stop happening and the things that have hurt us don’t go away, and so the idea of being healed is an unfair expectation to put on yourself or a person. There is such a thing as feeling better and that is the goal.
It takes time because you are going against all of your instincts and belief systems that have helped you cope with life so far. These instincts are intrinsic in you as are these belief systems. It’s like deciding to remodel your house without having a blueprint or an engineering degree. You can’t change the plumbing, or move the sink, or collapse a wall, or build a wall until you’re able to discover where all the pipes, studs and nails are. And that’s a slow process- to discover the pains you instinctively act upon or the fears you hold onto or the negative belief systems that you live your life by. Only after you discover the blueprint can you work on making changes. And the changes might not result in perfection, but they will feel better.
Healing looks like taking a minute after being triggered rather than reacting, allowing your feelings and emotions their space, functioning better, allowing yourself to rest, recognizing your needs and communicating them, seeing other people’s needs and showing up, leaving abusive and painful situations, crying when sad, laughing when happy, reacting to things differently than you would have in the past, being forgiving of yourself, and more. And this takes a ton of time.
