Healing? Read This.

Life is a journey that never ends. The point of life isn’t to win in the end. Life is to be lived with awareness of self and to live the best you can. Some people don’t care to improve massively in their life. They want to live comfortably with minimal worries in life. Some people want to see how far they can take their craft or skill and see what can come of it if they put their all into it. As the journey of life unwinds, we all endure tough situations that leave use scarred once we fight our way out of it. Some things can cut us physically. People go through sickness or injuries that can change their life for the moment or forever. 

Other pain is less physical and more mental and emotional. We shouldn't allow anything that is temporary, like pain, to have a permanent hold on us and cause everything else in our life to crumble. Hardships are never forever if you take the time to figure your way out of it. 

In the Beginning

When we feel the pain of a loss of friendship or a break up, the pain is heavy. Our minds are clouded and flooded with thoughts of what happened and what you could’ve done differently. Nothing hurts more than seeing where you went wrong and how your actions made the other person feel, especially after the moment has passed. Our brains are wired for self-preservation, meaning we instinctively act in accordance to what will make us feel good or get us out of harm's way. Being self-aware is not part of that preservation order. To think about our own thoughts and actions is to forcibly train our brain to self-correct. It hurts to understand the pain of another when you are the cause of it. This is no time to bash yourself for your actions. Choosing yourself can feel guilty at times. Knowing you have to take responsibility could remind you of being corrected as a child. After all the turmoil that your mind sends you through, it's imperative that you take hold of your current circumstances and begin to seek and create the life you want. To heal from not only the most recent events but any events that could relate to that one that still may have a hold on you. 

The Healing Self

The hardest part of being in this culture of healing, unpacking your childhood traumas, and the like is that people hate the work involved. As I mentioned earlier, your brain doesn’t want to look inward and understand why you have built these formidable walls and lack the wherewithal to communicate your thoughts and feelings. Everyone wants to heal from their pain but don’t understand that emotional and mental healing is active not passive. You must do something to heal your heart and mind. Time alone does not heal all. If you spend the next two years harping on the pain you endured, you are not healing. If anything you're picking at the scar, only reopening your wound. We must take responsibility for our healing and that encompasses sitting and thinking about what happened, then brainstorming or researching what we can do to fill our void. During this journey in this modern era, our phones are always listening and they have no problem showing us what we need or reminding us of our own pitfalls. Any time I go through something novel  in life, my social media always finds algorithms that give me some sort of portrayal of my real life occurrences. It gets kinda weird sometimes to be honest, but the fact of the matter is that social media can be your detriment or your championing ally. 

Finding Your Healing Activity

Find your preferred way of healing. Everything isn’t for everyone. Some people enjoy journaling(me). Others have to speak out loud and vocalize their feelings to hear it for themselves. Create a hobby or use any present hobbies as a meditative activity that allows you to work through your problems instead of sitting in a dark, messy room. This can be comforting for the moment, but we aren’t looking for comfort, this is the truth. If you still have trouble being uncomfortable, the first step is to figure out why. Life will continue to throw things at you, and if you only seek comfort through it all, you may never truly feel at ease. It’s like prey always on the watch for the next predator, never knowing when they may strike so they live in fear, never able to TRULY relax. You don’t deserve to live like that. Better days will come from the work you put in through healing yourself, not hiding, and definitely not running. 

Once you have found an activity that you enjoy, dive into that activity. Look for every moment to enjoy moving your hands, body and mind. You can use this time as an outlet for the emotions raging through you. I heard that emotion is just Energy in motion. We can better feel our emotions when we put them to use. In the wild, animals tend to stray from still water for drinking because still water can mean many negative things. Running water from a stream, river or waterfall is ideal for animals to drink from because any pollutants run through, unable to settle and ruin the water. You can think of your emotions in the same way. If you keep them bottled up, they can pollute and ruin your mind or body. However when you put them to use and move them about as you move, they will better serve you, despite how negative they may be. 

A Butterfly Emerges

To heal yourself is to choose yourself. To choose to spend your time doing things you once enjoyed or finding new things to enjoy. Friends and family are a great way to get through our mental struggles. On the other hand, we don’t have to run from our alone time either. This time can be where we create ourselves and dream of what we want life to be. This is time to allow ourselves to enjoy who we are. Healing is like the chrysalis of a caterpillar. Time will pass and one day you will bloom into a beautiful butterfly. 

-J