Healing is in Season + Pain is a Gift
It dawned on me, after reflecting on what’s been coming up these last few weeks, that I’m in a season of healing.
I’ve had a strong urge to slow down and silence the noises from the outside that I so often crave - 👋 Netflix, podcasts, and instagram - so I can attune to what’s surfacing within.
I find the few days before I bleed to be some of the most potent for raising that which is ready to be healed.
It’s worth mentioning that healing has come to mean something different to me than it used to. Instead of “fixing what is broken” its meaning has shifted to “bringing greater perspective and deeper awareness to a situation so I can see it more clearly and feel in my bones what is true instead of going on blindly believing the painful stories I’ve been telling myself.”
In short, healing means cleaning the smudges off the lenses of perception through which I view the world so I can see others and myself how we are, not how I think we are when I’m in my wounds. From this perspective, healing is a process of alchemy, of transforming thoughts and beliefs so we can see ourselves, and our wholeness, more clearly.
So back to how I realized I was in a season of healing.
I was eating an Italian hoagie at a restaurant with my husband, Derek, last weekend and out of the blue a memory of a big hurt from about seven years ago surfaced.
I go back to this hurt every now and again. It was a breakup that was painful from all the angles - as ending a relationship with someone you love and care deeply about inevitably is. What usually accompanies the memories from this time is the thought that, “I should have done it better,” and the fact that I didn’t = I’m an uncaring, terrible person. These two thoughts are particularly painful to believe - but it's been seven years and that hasn’t stopped me - yet. 😉
After the memories surfaced and I wondered to myself, “How awful must it have felt to be blindsided by the person you loved, the person you thought loved you?” I felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me for a moment and then I blocked it out, and pulled myself back into the present.
Or so I thought.
I began tuning in to the space around me. Derek got up to go to the bathroom and while I was alone at the table I noticed a man who was by himself walking around, looking for somewhere to sit but all the tables were full. Something in that moment - in observing his simple act of looking for somewhere to sit without any luck - left me overcome with emotion. My eyes welled and then tears streamed. Still chewing, the sobs started to roll. It caught me by surprise but in hindsight it made total sense. I just let them flow and eventually they slowed and stopped. My body is always on my team and this is its way of telling me there was more for me to look at here.
Over the next few days I contemplated all of it and the most powerful realization came when I brought my habitual thoughts about myself to the light of inquiry. Inquiry enabled me to see and feel how what I had been thinking about myself wasn’t true and was causing me so much pain.
“I should have done it better,” turned into: I couldn’t have done it better than I did or I certainly would have.
“I am an uncaring, terrible person,” became: I am not a terrible person. I was a person with a broken heart who mustered the courage to do the hardest thing she’d ever done because something deep within her had been telling her this was no longer for her (or him) for over a year.
That’s what is true.
The pain of the heartbreak lasted for a year or so, but I’ve bathed myself in the pain of should’s and regret for six more because until now I didn’t take the time to question the story I’ve been telling myself about who I “was” because of that experience.
To be certain, pain does not just dissipate with time - unless it is felt, expressed, followed and understood - it only transforms from emotional to physical, from tears to tensions and aches.
Pain is a gift. It is Life’s unceasing attempt to guide us to truth. The truth waiting for me in this hurt was that I was/am not a terrible person because of this one event. I was a person with a shattered heart who did the best I could at the time. There are truths like this waiting for you, too. Truths, that when you allow yourself to feel them will bring you peace, relief, forgiveness and acceptance. Pain points us to beauty, only every time.
If you’ve had your share of run ins with pain and you’d like support in accepting it, feeling it and learning what it has to teach you and getting your heart’s perspective on the matter, I would be honored to help you navigate the journey. You can find a time for the two of us to connect here.