I have never been one to neglect selfcare–whether that be listening to my body, understanding my mind, or feeding whatever fuels my soul.
I am diligent when it comes to the improvement of my overall being and state. Daily life, however, is riddled with unexpectedness and unimaginable circumstances.
No matter how much you read or study or plan, you never truly know what your next day may hold. As of 2022, this has never been more evident to me. In the span of minutes, your whole life could change.
This is why I believe it’s so important to become self-aware; after all, if life is continually unpredictable, your own mind is a home that can be a space for you to understand.
The question then becomes this: what do I do if even my own head doesn’t feel like a safe space anymore?
There does not have to be an event to cause such a thought, but circumstance surely drives a question such as that. In this case, I’d like to examine what that type of healing might potentially look like for an individual suffering from the fragility of an unforeseen future based on the current state of one’s life.
We have all heard the phrase “healing isn’t linear’, right? It is easy to hear, but a truly different idea to process. Healing can look different for every individual based on a variety of factors.
First, what they are healing from holds a lot of power over what healing looks like. Second, how they cope affects the process. Third, knowing what to do next always comes into question.
Healing from a traumatic experience, no matter what it may be, is contingent upon the realization that that healing needs to take place. If we do not recognize our need, the healing process then becomes…artificial.
It is easy to throw a patch on your heart and call it good. It is easy to distract yourself and fill your days with things that don’t really matter. It is easy to push it down so that we don’t have to feel the pain at all.
What’s not easy, however, is feeling every single thing that you are, through and through. What’s not easy is recognizing that in order to truly move on, you have to just let yourself be in whatever state you are in. What’s not easy is thinking every toxic thought you think only to take it captive, over and over and over.
The human experience is not just defined strictly by the times in which the sun seems bright and the smiles come easily. The human experience is also based upon everything you feel when you’re not quite sure why or how or where you are gonna go next.
There is no timeline to healing. There is no universally right way. There will be days where you cannot even seem to move or get out of bed. And there will be other days where you’re happy again despite all the hurt. And then there will be the days that you don’t feel anything at all.
No matter what kind of day you are having today, allow yourself the grace and time to understand that wherever you are is an okay place to be. We put too much pressure on ourselves and what we’re supposed to feel like. Just feel. Just be.
No matter what you are experiencing or how you are feeling, remember that it is right to feel but difficult to dwell. If it hurts, let it hurt. But don’t let the pain dwell on you for longer than it was there in the first place.
Cole Essenburg, my colleague, boss, and friend all in one, said something to me recently that his dad once told him. This is something I am trying to live by lately.
He said, “Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.”
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