SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Stop, Drop, and Heal

Day 41, 50 questions for deep self-reflection

Healing is a process and one that must be given patience and respect. I’m learning this. Too often we are in a hurry. Not for anything in particular or for any reason but because we want the outcome and forget the journey. Healing is no exception. Once we know there is something to heal, I feel it reasonably typical that we want the healing to be complete as quickly as possible. But healing itself, is a journey.

This is day 41 of the 50 Questions for Deep Self-Reflection challenge from Know Thyself Heal Thyself created by Diana C.

DAY FORTY-ONE: What if you don’t need to speed up the process of healing?

Day 41? Wait — where the hell did I go?

Remember me? May you do, maybe you don’t, but I was doing this 50-day challenge, mostly every day, until my last post on November 15th. That was day 40. The title, Existence is Exhausting, was a great pre-emptive to the self-imposed hiatus I was about to take.

It seems I’ve taken more than three months off from these daily challenges.

It wasn’t planned but it was definitely needed. It really had nothing to do with Know Thyself, Heal Thyself’s break from publishing, but the timing was a perfect coincidence. I had planned to continue these posts over on Coffee Times, but, it just never happened.

Having said that, like every other day in this challenge, once I read today’s question, it all made a lot of sense. I wasn’t ready to answer this question until now. I couldn’t have. I needed time and patience to understand that I need time and patience.

What if you don’t need to speed up the process of healing?

Slow down, you move too fast…

(I’d continue that obvious thought, but song lyrics are a contentious copyright issue).

I so desperately needed to step back and stop. Not just slow down, but STOP! So I did.

Maybe three months was taking ‘slow down’ to the extreme but how perfect that I’ve come back to this challenge on such a great question. I so desperately needed to step back and stop. Not just slow down, but STOP! So I did.

I don’t like to slow down, let alone stop. And that in itself is reason to wonder why…

What was I afraid of?

• Was I afraid of my ‘past catching up to me’?
• Was I afraid of the length of our blip of existence?
• Was I afraid that if I stopped steaming rolling through life, I may have to actually look around, or make a decision?
• Was I afraid that I would never find what I was looking for (whatever the hell that is) and so needed to have as many experiences as quickly as possible?

Or, was I afraid that if I stopped for a moment, I’d be forced to consider myself. To actually, put me first. I mean, for real, not just this bullshit lip service of my own worth. Would I realize, that I didn’t matter? Or worse, that I did?

Would I realize, that I didn’t matter? Or worse, that I did?

The shame of self

If you’ve read any of the 40 days that came before this, you know I have a tendency for rapid self-exploration. I mean, in that forty days, I was dropping thoughts, beliefs, standards, expectations, blah, blah, blah, like they were a high school romance. Not that I’d know because I never had one of those, but I’ve watched television once or twice.

But what if I was going too fast and missing the real lessons?

What if in my ‘rush’ to self-understanding, I wasn’t allowing myself to dig into the depths and core of trauma.

Introducing shame!

Yep, I got there with my therapist a few weeks back. Like, I can’t possibly be surprised but now we’ve begun the move away from shame and guilt, and it starts with anger. One vibration level at a time.

And this is why today’s question is so perfect.

What if you don’t need to speed up the process of healing?

If I don’t need to speed up the process of healing, then I can allow myself to heal properly.

I can find the cause and heal it the way it should be healed. You don’t put a bandaid on a broken bone and expect it to heal in a day. In the same way, how did I possibly think one day of reflection would be enough to heal years of trauma?

How did I possibly think one day of reflection would be enough to heal years of trauma?

Huh!

What if this question was never about mental health? What if it really was about physical healing? Then the answer is easy — you cannot speed up healing. You can only heal as quickly as your body allows you to. You can only speed it up by stopping and allowing it to heal.

And there’s the real answer!

If you break a bone, there is a certain process that you must follow and if you do not, it will not heal, and may even become worse. Why would we think mental health or personal healing would be any different? We cannot rush the process of healing especially when the damage is deep and slow to form. But it’s okay to slow down and allow ourselves to heal because it’s the only way we ever can.

If you are interested in the journey so far — all the days that came before, I’ve collected all the article links here:

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