Humans move very quickly. Day in and day out, we are rushing around. Checking off to-dos, sustaining, improving, or declining. We say yes, we make plans, and we get up the next morning and do it all over again. When life hits us with a curveball of the emotional kind, a death, a breakup, an accident, a trauma; we still continue on. And in contrast, something that does not move at the pace in which our busy lives do is healing. Healing, from anything that has caused pain, is slow. It creeps along, sits you in an uncomfortable cloud, muffling all other sounds of joy.
The initial pain confronts you. It meets you at your doorstep and demands that you face it at least for a moment. Then it may fade away, and this is how it is sneaky, because it will always return. Until you have stood face to face with it, talked with it and worked through it with yourself can you truly close the door and move on. Even after this it may come by again, to stay on theme with the metaphor it might pop by your home around the holidays or an anniversary.
I was talking to a long-term friend who is very close to my heart the other day. She is one of those people that feels like home. She’s been there for a lot, but she has also listened and understood for things she wasn’t there for. We were talking through a difficult situation she was going through and the conversation turned towards this premise; the unpredictability of healing. We alway predict the ways in which we believe something may effect us down the road. I always assumed that I would know when I was going to fall in love, and instead it snuck up on me. My friend, in this situation, thought her previous relationship would affect her down the line in a direct way, and instead it is affecting her in an indirect way that she doesn’t understand fully yet. And its frustrating! Not feeling healed is aggravating. Maybe this is because we all know how much effort it takes reach a state of security and peace with harm that has happened.
This is long winded way of saying that healing is intricate. And on going. It will meet us at our happiest moments. It will knock on our door and demand all of your attention. It will push you down in front of a crowd, and probably laugh about it, knowing that it is making you stronger. Healing doesn’t fit into our fast-paced, over-productive worlds. So we make time for it. Time to sit in the mud and face the dirt. And I think that is where we find the strongest versions of ourselves. And damn, pulling yourself from the mud is a really fulfilling feeling.
Just some thoughts.
The song that was playing in the background of this reflection was, Heavy by Birdtalker. Give it a listen.