The Truth About Healing
Today's blog post covers a topic that may be on your mind right now. It's super important now and will only continue to become more important as we exit 2020 and enter 2021. And that topic is <cue trumpet fanfare>: Healing.
What is healing?
Believe it or not, this is a controversial topic of debate. For when we get down to defining it, it can reveal both a lack of consistency and a lack of clarity. And as a professional Healer representing the lineage of King Salomon, it's vital for me that I’m clear on my own philosophy and beliefs of what healing is so I can create clear understanding and safe space for my clients. It makes all the difference when it comes to aligning our goals, setting both extraordinary and realistic expectations, and creating a robust plan of action for getting there. And that's my #1 priority: Serving and caring for my clients in a way that empowers them to live their life's purpose and healing in a way that clears the way for more freedom, joy, peace, and direction in their lives.
Perhaps it will be easier to begin with what healing is not.
The misunderstandings surrounding healing lead to significant confusion. What you believe healing to be may or may not be what I believe or what he or she believes healing to be. But without seeking that clarity, these assumptions and expectations lead to disappointment, disillusionment, and ultimately, result in the opposite of healing:
Stagnation and Separation.
Stagnation:
The unwillingness or inability to move forward and remain in the flow with what is.
Fixating one's life force on the past or the future and ignoring or minimizing the present.
The state of inertia brought on by fear, doubt, shame, or overwhelm.
The attachment to things staying the way they are and undermining change.
Contraction and suppression of authentic expression.
Separation:
The belief that no one else will understand or that others will judge you, so there's no point in asking for help/support.
Self-insulation by being hyper critical and judgmental of others.
Creating personas, masks, or false selves as defense mechanisms to disguise pain, trauma, weakness, and suffering.
The attachment to beliefs and narratives that you are alone in your process: no one who will get it, no one who will listen, and no one who can help - a disconnection that can manifest physically (the absence or superficial connection to friends or family) and spiritually (the absence or superficial connection to God or a Higher Power).
So from my perspective, healing is the consistent process of learning to counter stagnation and separation.
Doing the deep, unique inner work of bringing light to what compels us choose these beliefs and behaviors and rewriting our story to discontinue that which blocks our progression, blocks joy, corrupts truth, and/or creates vicious cycles of needless suffering.
A sticking point for many is the belief that healing is supposed to be about feeling good.
Making the pain disappear. Forgetting the past. Making the hardship go away. And while that's not completely untrue - when we heal we can feel better, the pain will be less, the past won't bother us in the same way, and life will be smoother - to be clear, those are all results of healing. They are the fruits of having faced and undergone the work of healing and learning to overcome stagnation and separation. They are not the process of healing. And it is this disconnect which creates confusion and disappointment, and inevitably blocks and delays true healing because the experience isn’t lining up with the expectation.
It's not that we must all agree on what healing is and how each of us should heal. It's certainly not a one size fits all kind of thing! However, there are principles, or overarching truths, that underlie Healing that always apply. And if we can be clearer on these principles, both in our relationship with self and with others, we can heal much more deeply, more quickly, and suffer significantly less in the process - as individuals and as a whole!
Principles of Healing:
There is always change associated with healing; movement from one state to another. Consider the formation of a scar, the eruption of a seed sprouting, the shift in perspective following a major life lesson. Sometimes it is drastic and jarring, sometimes it is subtle and only perceptible from the outside or in hindsight. But transformation and growth always takes place.
Healing is a challenging process that may not feel good in the moment. Like the seed bursting, growth spurts, and the shedding of skins, we must let go of what we believed ourselves to be in order to become what we are. This is the means to the end. Whether it's a bruise, a broken bone, a broken heart, or an identity that no longer fits, unless we release our attachment to these states of being, they will linger and our resistance will prolong the pain. It is in embracing the challenge and rising to the resistance that we can gain new perspectives that empower us to experience the temporary pain and overcome and to know ourselves more intimately, and what we’re capable of, in the process.
Healing is not the path of least resistance. In fact, it's often the past of greatest resistance. The hard decisions, the overcoming of paralyzing fears, the ownership of consequences and accepting responsibility for making it right, the releasing of emotions that have been suppressed for too long. Like working out, unless we challenge and appropriately stress a muscle, it will not strengthen nor grow. So if you seek to heal, you must avoid the temptation of choosing the easy route or letting the high road intimidate you because it seems like a lot of work. Healing requires energy and effort, and the more you invest, the more benefits you reap.
New beginnings require endings. This is the cycle of life, like the rhythm of breathing, the passage of days, the turning seasons of Nature. Beginnings lead to endings and endings lead to beginnings. So in order for us to transform and evolve, we must allow ourselves to embrace this cycle and not get trapped in only wanting beginnings and avoiding endings. Everything, everyone, has their time and place in the grand scheme of things. When we surrender to this truth, we suffer less and can move forward more easily. When we resist this truth, we suffer more and can get stuck more often.
Healing is unpredictable and often inconvenient. Wouldn't it be great if healing followed our schedule and allowed us to keep living life the way we've been living it? But that isn't how it works. It most often brings to light things we didn't realize were blocking us or draining our vitality (thought patterns, self-limiting beliefs, behavioral habits, relational ruts), and it sparks upheavals where something has to give. Either it goes this way, and you heal, or it goes that way, and you delay the healing until later and get stuck on repeat. But either way, it illuminates your choice and your power to create change either way. Healing will call on you to adapt.
It's not about what's on the surface. The symptoms are the signals that the origin of the imbalance has rooted and is actively growing. And sometimes, those symptoms don't connect linearly to the origin. To focus solely on the external manifestation only empowers the imbalance to anchor further in your life, sending its roots even deeper to produce stagnation and separation. To achieve true healing, going beneath the surface is required to expose and explore the hidden layers leading to the origin and its roots.
I hope these Principles of Healing offered you clarity and at the very least, new perspectives to think about. For when anything is resistant to healing or keeps showing up no matter how many approaches you take, you have to adjust your strategy, go outside the box, and seek support to see a bigger picture. In truth, we have to get out of the way! And from my own experience, I know these principles can help pave the path to getting there.
If you're wondering if change is even possible, it's up to you to question your current reality and create space in your mind, no matter how small it is at first, for a new version. A new version of you, your life, your future, and the world you wish to live in.
