I have to laugh because I used to have this image of healing that does not match reality.
What healing is NOT
Healing is not a woman running in a field at sunset with one final spin in a white knee-length dress with a smile and a tipped sun hat.
Or journaling on an oversized boho cushion with a cup of green tea and a puppy by her feet.
And it’s definitely not like those commercials where friends sit around smiling at a bar doing cheers and then walk in slow motion with hair bouncing and smiles from ear to ear.
Those beautiful moments are the short breaks between the work of healing.
What healing is
- Refusing to silence that part of you that is hurting, begging to be acknowledged.
- Some days it’s smiling back at your kids because you love them even though you don’t feel anything.
- Real genuine laughter that comes once in a while to give you a glimmer of hope that you are human and that healing is possible.
- Sometimes feeling ashamed for sharing your struggles with someone who cares, but you do it anyway because you want to break free.
- Your bones feeling broken when you refuse to stop pretending you’re invisible.
- You feel like a fake when you finally face what you’ve been running from your whole life but you always knew was there.
- It’s finally thinking there’s a time when you won’t feel afraid, but you secretly wonder who you are if you aren’t constantly worried.
- And the hardest one for me: Getting ready to finally meet yourself- it’s you alone.
Read this: it is important→ How do you know you are truly healing?
You know you’re making progress NOT by your thoughts or feelings, but by your behavior. This is one of the first things my anxiety coach told me when we began working together.
It’s easy to get discouraged when you’re working hard to get better and it feels like you’re not making progress because the panic attacks are still coming.
It’s been encouraging knowing feelings are not an indication of healing but looking at how behaviors have changed.
Our behaviors show us what we believe, and as our traumas heal, our beliefs change, and so do our behaviors.
Why bother if healing is so hard?
Feeling pain is better than feeling afraid of an invisible tormentor. When we shut ourselves down to the bad, we also close ourselves off from feeling the good things life offers.
Sometimes we have to walk by faith, not by sight.
Breaking generational curses takes lots of effort and lots of patience. Healing often means trying new ways of living, which feel unfamiliar. But as we focus on small changes, we can stay on the path knowing that we’re not only making our lives better but changing our children’s and their children’s futures.
I know that if you have the desire to make a change in your life that you can do it.
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To learn how I’m finally healing anxiety after 30 years, read Anxiety Confessions. (You might be surprised at what really works!)
