Healing Is Messy AF
You may have heard it said that healing isn’t linear and has many ups and downs. Yes, and I would add it’s messy AFFFFFFF. Obviously, with all my content and offerings, I am speaking from my own experience. Depending on what you’re working to heal, it can feel very freeing and expansive, like a huge weight taken off your shoulders. When you dig deep into the core wounds, those that occurred early in childhood as a result of interactions/perceptions of caregivers, it can manifest mess in different ways.
As a cancer rising, of course I’m going to dive right into the deep end of the mess. Healing seems like a great idea at the time. You are faced with something that frustrates you and doesn’t work and you want change; you want growth. Awesome! So you dive in that pool to learn to swim better. The water will feel refreshing, the zero gravity feeling will help you feel lighter, and you’ll get some low-impact exercise! So you dove into this healing pool and realized wow it’s actually uncomfortably cold, and someone else’s hair is stuck on my fingers, and now it’s raining, your skin is reacting to the chemicals, and someone peed in the pool. I’d say that’s a more accurate representation of healing. You’re welcome for the sensory triggers.
Healing isn’t glamorous. It isn’t cute meditations in Bali or on top of a majestic mountain. Don’t get me wrong - those can be great environments (when not exploiting local culture and land). The core of true healing, though, is facing those inner demons taunting the inner child and doing battle in the weirdest ways.
For example, you want to heal the part of you that feels weird meeting people in social settings so you jump in that pool. Suddenly, you’re opening old wounds about being bullied for how you looked, what you wore, how you talked, how you walked, your skin color, your religion, the food you ate. Or suddenly you have a vivid memory of a parent telling you to be quiet when you were just joyfully telling a story, but their energy was spent. In these scenarios we internalized, “I’m not worthy, I’m not lovable, etc.” “I’m only accepted or loved if….xyz…conditions are met.” A floodgate opens of all these unmet needs from exes and friends, bosses you had to tolerate, things you didn’t stand up for when you wanted to. Your healing pool became a wave pool. But that wave doesn’t last forever! It just needs to flush its way out!
Our brains create little roads connecting all of these memories and messaging. As healing adults, we have to pave new roads while accepting the old ones exist without judgment. Those old roads got us where we needed to go when we had no other options. Thank you, old roads! And now we are grateful we can work on new ones. New ways of doing things, new ways of thinking about self and our relation to others.
Great so now we’ve explored and started to heal. Maybe you had an amazing journaling experience or session with a life coach then the following weekend when you want to reward yourself, you find yourself with low energy, depressed and irritable AF. Every little thing seems to go wrong and by the end of the day you are cussing out your neighbor’s dogs who are always unleashed and unattended. Me. I’m talking about me. See how messy? That’s all part of the ugly process of healing work and sometimes we just need to accept the rollercoaster because the other end of this will be SO worth it.
We set things in motion and if we get in these moods along the way, we acknowledge them as totally human and try our best to accept them as part of us. We check in with our bodies; what do I need in this moment? Alone time, a task, a walk, a nap? Inner healing work takes a lot of energy and it continues while we are doing other things; it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Those roads we just paved? They need to settle and dry - traffic is going to be awkward for a bit.
The good news is we are built for this. Our minds, bodies, and spirits are so resilient and so adaptable at any age. I think this process may increasingly feel uncomfortable and unending as time goes on because of all the instant gratification in the world today. As tech advances and resources fight to be available to you faster than their competition, we will expect our healing to be just as quick as saying yes to it. Like our physical bodies take time to heal cuts and infections, so too do our emotional and spiritual wounds.
Give yourself time. Give yourself grace. We are so grateful the healing is already happening. May your healing pool be free of pee and hair!
