Ever feel like you're subconsciously waiting for a point at which you're fully healed in order to feel OK and really live your life?

​TL;DR (but hope you do): "Healing" has no end point, but that doesn't mean it has to feel hard forever. And maybe there's a better way to say "healing" that doesn't imply brokenness or a fixed point of repair?
P.S. don't forget that our next Somatic Skills Group is coming up on March 26th. Save your spot here!

​

Reader–

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of "arrival;" the implicit notion that one day we will arrive at "healed" as if it were a specific, fixed destination.

This idea of one day arriving is often an unconscious undercurrent running through our belief systems, shaping our sense of how OK (or not OK) we are. How good (or not good) life is.

I'd like to think we all understand that being completely "healed" from all of our pain and hardships is a fallacy. We logically know there is no magic end-point to our healing efforts; no finish line to cross, marking the completion point of our growth.

And yet, this sense of working toward an arrival point often shows up, both in my own personal healing work and in the work I do with clients. We sometimes slip into a pattern of behaving and (perhaps unconsciously) believing that there is a fixed point of arrival, and when we reach it we'll finally feel OK...

We'll no longer struggle with the people pleasing, the overdoing, the nonstop anxiety. We'll no longer put our needs on the back-burner, or let our emotions bottle up to the point of explosion or shut down. We'll be in tune with ourselves, our needs, and our bodies.

And when we get there –when we arrive– we'll finally feel good; we'll be the person we know we are deep down. We'll no longer let fear or pain or patterning disrupt our lives and keep us stuck in the same old mental spirals. When we arrive, we'll finally feel good enough, safe enough, worthy enough to LIVE. Like really liiiiive. We'll be "healed."

Sound familiar?

​

Breaking this down one step further, when we look at the word "healed" or "healing" what does this as metaphor imply about our process?

Does talking about our evolution as a person through the context of "healing" and "wounding" imply that we are broken and need fixing through intensive "doctoring"? And does that doctoring then have to come from someone else (outside of ourselves) who holds more power and knowledge than we do? Does it further reinforce the notion that we have a wound that will one day be fully healed, with just the right kind of care?

I haven't yet decided against the word, because in many ways I think it can be helpful language, especially in the context of trauma and chronic stress. And though, it makes me wonder if I/we should consider something less definitive and wounding-oriented when thinking and speaking about our growth and evolution as a being.

Because I don't believe any of us are broken. I don't believe that the way we get better is through intensive experiences of "doctoring" facilitated by other people we've handed our power over to. And though I do believe it is possible for some of our deepest wounds to heal to a point of no longer causing deep suffering, I don't believe there's a point at which our growth is ever done.

​

I want to be clear, longing to feel good, find ease, to trust yourself, and to liiiive fully are worthy desires. It's not wrong to want these things. Wanting get to a point in our healing processes where we feel secure and trusting in ourselves, and our ability to attune to our experiences and tend to them with love and resourcefulness– that's a straight up VALID thing to endeavor toward.

And...

When we're working so hard to arrive at "healed" we tend to completely miss the markers of growth and moments of transformation that are already happening, right here right now. We find ourselves in a holding pattern of never feeling content or satisfied with how we have grown, constantly pushing for more.

A sort of Grass is Always Greener paradigm.

Wisdom traditions have taught for a long while, and modern psychology is catching up with the realization that one of the most impactful endeavors we can undertake in our efforts to heal is to build the capacity to be present with our inner experience (feelings & sensations), without judgement or expectation, and with a sense of curiosity and levity.

Building our skills to be present in this way creates a paradoxical shift: when we stop trying so hard to create change, we change.

When we're so focused on getting there, we're in a future-oriented mindset, disconnected from our present moment experience.

While it's a uniquely human gift to be able to think about the future, when we find ourselves here often we miss out on exactly the practice that we're trying to build in the first place: the ability to be with our present moment experience without having to always distract, numb out, disconnect or dissociate in order to feel OK.

​

So, I leave you with this question // invitation:

What if healing wasn't a destination to arrive at, but rather an ongoing, evolutional unfolding into new ways of being?

A continual practice of turning toward your inner experiences in-the-now, rather than reaching for an imaginary version of yourself in the future?

​

Alright Reader, If you're thinking "YAS, THIS, but how??" ...

​I hope you'll consider joining me in our next Somatic Skills Group, happening March 26th. These free monthly gatherings are exactly the kind of place to start and deepen your practice of being with yourself in the present.

And if you're looking for more individualized support, reach out and set up a 1:1 consult call to see if somatic coaching is the right thing right now, to support your ongoing unfolding into new ways of being 🖤

​

xo
​Holly

​