Healing Doesn’t Always Feel Good
What comes to mind when you read the word “healing”? For me, I see images of beautiful linen sheets, naps in the sunlight, slowing down, and generally feeling oh-so supported. While this image can absolutely be part of your healing journey, it doesn’t always start that way.
When the body gets cut, for instance, the wound gets inflamed to aid in the healing process. If it didn’t get inflamed, it wouldn’t heal. Inflammation isn’t always a pleasant feeling: i.e. it causes pain initially. As we’re healing our childhood wounds, we have to confront a lot of pain in order to get to the place where we can be on the other side of it. Healing is such a beautiful thing, but it’s not always the most comfortable at first.
If you’re at the very beginning of your healing journey, you might come up against more than few moments of “inflammation” along the way, but I don’t want this to deter you.
Think of it like this: if you get the flu, you want your body to expel the virus and sometimes that means puking your guts out! Not fun, but if you didn’t do that, you’d be sicker for much longer. In therapy speak, this might look like allowing yourself to truly feel into your grief or anger that has been buried for many years and it initially not feeling good. But, the caveat is that once you do this, you will feel immense relief at having done so.
Here is what healing can actually look like, once you get through the initial challenges of facing some of the painful experiences you went through:
A regulated nervous system-you can handle more stressors without it pushing you over the edge, and you’re more able to return to a state of calm/safety without much issue.
You feel energized and your mind is clearer.
The weight of the past no longer grips you and you feel a sense of optimism about what the future holds.
Your relationships improve because you know how to manage your emotions, meet your own needs, and communicate with more clarity.
You realize what is and is not within your control and this creates a feeling of freedom.
You know how to speak the language of your body with much more ease and you can use the information to make values-based decisions.
Your emotions don’t scare you: They’re just information that you know exactly how to use.
Communicating with others feels a lot more accessible to you and you can easily work through interpersonal conflict.
As cliche as this statement is, I want you to really acknowledge that healing is truly a journey. We start at one point on a path and wind up at a very different place in the end. And sometimes we must take many detours along the way before we get to where we’re headed. The truth is that there isn’t this “healed place” that you arrive to where nothing ever bothers you again. That’s just a fantasy!
However, there can be a place where your trauma is no longer running the show, calling the shots. You get to learn how to be in relationship to all parts of you, which is what trauma work is all about. Your path will be unique to you, but the steps are very similar across the board: We’re tending to and befriending our emotions, nervous systems, and making sense together of how the past may have influenced the present, which allows us to make changes from a different point of view (i.e. the adult self, vs. the child self).
Be good to you no matter what! You’ve got this. I believe in you wholeheartedly.
Warmly,
Hannah
As always, this blog post is not intended to replace medical or professional advice and is for educational purposes only.