As you heal & progress, above all else, please be kind to yourself.
My healing journey in the beginning would’ve been much easier if I gave myself the compassion I undoubtedly deserved.
Frustration would’ve been replaced with understanding. Impatience with patience. Confusion with acceptance.
But it isn’t easy having patience with yourself when you’re not fully aware of what’s happening within your mind, body, and spirit.
After all, compassion is nothing without understanding.
Although I knew I was unpacking 12+ years of childhood wounds, I was still caught off guard by the intense emotions that made many nights unbearably heavy.
I truly believed that within a few months and after a few therapy sessions I’d be healed.
Haha.
Rest assured, I got realistic about my healing and healing in general.
Here’s what I learned:
If It’s Coming Up, It’s Coming Up To Go
I remember feeling more at ease with my healing process when I heard the phrase: “If it’s coming up, its coming up to go.”
Instead of viewing each emotional response to a trigger as “proof” that I wasn’t healing, I began to see them as opportunities to alleviate my inner burdens.
The fact I even recognized that uncomfortable feeling and where it was steaming from was proof enough that healing was taking place. I was simply in the next phases of my release.
From this change of perspective bore another belief of mine and that is: There’s levels to this shit.
I still honor the saying that healing is non-linear and… I don’t think there is a line, just levels or layers.
Each release, new discovery, newly-formed thought pattern or behavior perfectly guides us into the next release, discovery, thought pattern, and so on.
Everything has always led me to the next thing and the next. As if, I couldn’t have unpacked one feeling without having unpacked another.
It might’ve felt as though each triggering scenario kept me on a loop but as I look back, each one served a specific purpose and fed off of one another.
Healing isn’t linear, it’s evolutionary.
Perfect Timing
I spoke before about trusting that the Divine always has our best interest at heart, including the timing of things.
In this case, the timing of healing.
I’d often raise my blood pressure, becoming angry as to why after all these years I was being forced to deal with my inner wounds.
I hadn’t felt this way since middle school. Why now?
Well, I can name three reasons as to “why now” in my scenario:
- I was in a great financial position to afford regular therapy sessions with a therapist I liked.
- The friendship I developed a year ago with someone who was also Spiritually-inclined ended up being my #1 support during healing.
- I was now living on my own and had the space to comfortably be vulnerable, no matter how ugly it got.
I use my own example to say that whatever it is you’re healing now, is being healed in perfect timing. It’s happening now for a reason and is guiding you to your next blessing.
Sometimes, it’s easy to see a tiny bit of the “why”, like in my case.
But when it’s difficult to see, when you have moments of frustration because “Why now?” or “When will it be over?”- Trust that in all things, Spirit has carefully orchestrated this moment, all past moments, and all future moments for your greater good.
Tell Them That It’s Human Nature
There are some days where Spirit leaves me speechless.
Like a few weeks ago when I had to ask myself: Why are you so hellbent on holding onto beliefs that do nothing but hurt you?
I was stumped.
Why was I holding so fighting to these damaging perceptions?
It wasn’t until I brought it up with my therapist that she reminded me: It’s human nature.
The same way we as humans retain behaviors that keep us from physical harm, we retain behaviors that protect us against emotional harm.
In fact University of Michigan researchers suggests that the brain process emotional pain the same way it does physical injury.
Yes, there are some limiting beliefs and behaviors that were taught to us, and, there are others that we developed within ourselves as a means of social survival.
For example, it was easier for me to believe that love is earned. That if I worked hard enough and gave all of myself to someone else, I’d eventually have love reciprocated.
Now, of course this isn’t correct. But believing that love isn’t earned, and doesn’t require self-sacrifice would have then lead me to ask: “Well then why haven’t I received love?”
Seeing my peers easily enter relationships while actively battling low self-esteem due to my environment was difficult enough.
It was more comfortable to believe I hadn’t worked hard enough for affection than to believe I just hadn’t gotten it yet. And worse, allow my mind to tell me it was because I was “ugly” or “gross”.
This limiting belief carried me, mentally, throughout my pre-teen and young adult years.
I was in complete survival mode for years.
And it was working.
Until it wasn’t.
Now I stood looking at the very things I placed to protect me, “begin” to negatively impact my quality of life. It’s a jarring experience.
Letting go of the tools you once used to protect yourself and stepping into the unknown is instinctively going to cause a ton of resistance. Resistance the manifests itself as anxiety, fear, self-doubt, and even procrastination.
It’s expected.
Understanding my natural response to adopting new thought patterns & releasing the old helped greatly in cutting myself some slack and effectively working through those tough feelings.
Beyoncé Wasn’t Built In A Day
From recognizing how my human instincts play a part in healing to trusting in the Divine, the last thing to “click” for me was that this is all a journey: Traveling from one place to another (we always eventually get to that “other” place we desire to be).
So we should embrace it to the best of our abilities.
And yes, sometimes that means simply being nice to ourselves.
My hope is that the perspectives I’ve laid out before you today guide you towards self-kindess and allow you to be gentle with yourself on the toughest of days.
I know that on the days where I cried the most, my only regret is I wasn’t present enough to hold myself tighter and show myself care.
So again:
As you heal & progress, above all else, please be kind to yourself.
