Healing comes unannounced. It doesn’t knock. At best, you get a little whisper in your ear in the middle of the night, saying It’s okay, you’re safe now. You’re home. Out of all the possible unannounced guests, I would say healing is my favorite.
It sneaks up on you one day, while you’re still stuck in the web of your old thought patterns. When you still think you’re lost or broken, beyond recovery. It happens in the most unexpected places. (Who knew you could heal at work? 🤯)
They say time heals all wounds, but that particular phrase never sat right with me. I’d say pain, grief, heartbreak — they all stay with us, weave themselves into our DNA and never quite leave. What does happen is that we make space for better things too - love, hope and faith - and if we’re really lucky, they get to govern our world.
Healing may arrive unannounced, but it doesn’t come uninvited. It’s not effortless either. On the contrary, it will only come in once we put in the work - the most important work there is — convincing ourselves that we’re worth saving.
For the longest time, I saw myself as somewhat of a pessimist. Years of therapy and introspection have taught me better. I know now it’s just a defense mechanism. In its own twisted way, my mind has always tried to protect me from danger (pain, disappointment, heartbreak). Spoiler alert: that mission failed.
Although deep inside I held the same belief, I would always get mad when somebody else would call me out for being a “pessimist”. It felt reductive. It meant that I was so fixed on all the bad stuff that I blindly overlooked the good. Every time, I would challenge their assumption with the same answer: “I am a realist”.
And I think that’s closer to the truth.
I do have a natural tendency to focus on the negatives, but I am equally compelled to notice, appreciate and welcome the positives. And that’s my stairway to healing.
Thankfully, over the past couple of years, I found myself walking into more and more healing spaces. Substack is one of them. My current workplace is another. They both pull me in with a force that feels almost magnetic.
I’ve always been hesitant about letting other people heal me. Maybe that is the result of believing, for many years, in the mirage of self-reliance. But I’m not an island. I need other people. There’s power in community — the right community — in letting other people lift you up and allow you to come and be as you are.
Pain and a sense of brokenness will always have a place in my life, that’s a fact. The point of healing is not to erase them, just take away their power and let them sit quietly somewhere in the back.
Healing shows up unexpectedly, but not uninvited. Oh how I loved this. You are so right, healing comes in the most mysterious ways. One day you can’t dig yourself out of a hole and the next you realize that you’re okay. I will be thinking about this post for days, thanks for the insight- as always.