What Healing Looks Like

Working in the healing arena I often hear this question asked in many different ways – What does healing look like?  Along the way, I have heard a lot of unhelpful ideas about what being “healed” looks like.  It’s important to call out these misguided and unhealthy ideas because they can get us stuck and make our process harder and longer than it needs to be. Here are just a few –

• Healing is a destination, a goal to achieve.
• Life will be happily ever after once you’ve reached a certain level of healed.
• Healing means perfection – if you’re still making mistakes then you can’t be healed.
• Once you’re healed you become something more than human (guru-like).
• That someone or something else can heal us other than ourselves.
• You can be too old to heal. 
• There is a right way or one way to heal.
• That being healed is for other people. You’re just too broken. 

If that isn’t what healing is about then what should we look for?  Having been in the trenches, personally and with hundreds of other people, as we consciously navigate our healing this is what I have found healing looks like…

• Taking responsibility for our healing and ourselves in general. Just about all of us have had trauma. Our trauma may not be our fault but as adults it is now our responsibility to heal the wounds that were inflicted.  
• Letting other people be responsible for themselves (their feelings, actions, consequences, etc).
• Realizing that this is a process that is no linear. There will be easier and harder times. We will move forward and then stumble and then move sideways and then take a detour, then run ahead, then fall flat on our faces. That is all part of the process and even when it feels like we have taken two steps back we are just engaging in the dance of the journey.
• No matter how much healing you do life will always be happening. People will still hurt us. Relationships will still end. Loved ones will still die. We will still make mistakes. We will still get up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes. The difference is that when we have done enough of our foundational healing then we can be present to what is happening in the moment instead of reacting not only to the present situation but projecting decades of woundedness on top of it. When we can let the past be the past then we can surf the ups and downs of our present life with resilience.  Doesn’t mean the past won’t catch us off guard every now and then but we won’t be living in it and reacting out of it most of the time. This also allows us to be available to our present life blessings, relationships, opportunities, etc. 
• Letting go of limiting stories including our trauma stories so we no longer identify with our wounds. They become something that happened but not who we are.  
• Knowing that no one thing, medicine or person will have all the answers or be THE solution. There are no magick bullets or shortcuts. Learning to trust ourselves because no one else can have our answers.
• Owning Our Power. Communicating what we mean and what we need. Speaking and treating ourselves! and others with respect. Being mindful of what we are creating with our thoughts, words and actions.  You are more powerful than you think!!
• Remembering that we are perfectly imperfect. We are meant to grow and learn and evolve. Life isn’t about getting it right. It’s about living it fully. It’s ok to be messy. It’s ok to make mistakes. Don’t pay any attention to other people’s judgement and fear. This is YOUR life. You decide what you want it to be.

Your healing journey is as unique as you are and will often not look anything like what you expected.  Instead of becoming more guru-like I have found that my journey has taken me right into my humanity – more emotion, more vulnerability, more messiness, more acceptance of myself. That was not what I expected and so much more than I could have hoped for.
At some point, you will find yourself still engaged in your healing, maybe more than ever before, and yet, you will know longer feel or identify with being wounded even though you may still have wounds you are working on.  Instead, there comes a time when you will know that you are healed, and you are healing. That life is a never-ending process of becoming. As Abraham-Hicks says, “You can never get it wrong, and you will never get it done.” So, keep on leaning into life and healing, whatever that looks like to you. Enjoy the ride. You’ve got this!