What Exactly Is Healing?
What Exactly Is Healing?
Often in my office I will sit across from a client who says to me “I just want to heal”. When we begin to dive into what that means, we find they are looking for the absence of pain. They believe they will feel healed when they no longer hurt, no longer grieve, no longer have unmet longing.
I think it is out of this belief that so many of us find the “wrong” way to heal. In order to not feel pain, we block, numb or hide from the pain and pretend it is not there until it is so overwhelming that we have no choice but to acknowledge its existence. Or for others, until it has morphed into a dysfunction that has complete control over us.
But what if healing, at least in the emotional sense, is not the absence of pain? What if it is the decision to feel, to live fully despite the pain. To not run, but to hold a place for the pain and to walk through it. Sometimes after you start living and feeling, the pain will subside easily. Sometimes it will take years, and sometimes it never fully leaves us, but if we live and refuse to allow our inner self to die, we can find healing in the pain.
Over my next few blogs I’d like to take a look at what this means exactly. What it looks like to find healing in the pain, and what it looks like to live fully. If you find yourself in the midst of pain, I hope this provides a safe place for you to feel, to grieve, to experience and to find hope.
~Julia
