Clearly the focus this week is on healing.  Today I want to go over one of the feelings that happens while you go through healing.  Obviously we can run the gamut of emotions when it comes to daily living let alone when we are actively trying to move forward and heal ourselves.  Emotions come out of the woodwork, sometimes weird behaviors/coping mechanisms develop.  But one thing I don’t read a lot about is what you lose when it comes to healing work.  Honestly, this has been the most fascinating part of this journey for me.

There comes a point in healing where you literally stop looking for what you used to.  Yes, there are moments when it doesn’t feel good to do what we used to do so we stop.  There are also moments when we may see that a behavior is no longer appropriate for what we are trying to achieve.  But the moments that I have loved the most are what I call before and after.  These are moments of revelation where it just clicks—so I guess we can call them clicks as well.  These are the moments when something happens that finally just make sense and you literally have 0 desire to do what you used to.  For example, you might drink every night to sleep and then you read something that strikes you about achieving position at work, and you realize you’re drinking because you’re afraid to step up in that arena.  That may be enough of a before/after to never drink again.  In that moment, even though it IS an epiphany, you aren’t trying to heal—you have experienced a level of healing.  You no longer need to drink.  No, I’m not suggesting this is HOW it works for everyone, far from it.  I’m using this to illustrate the release.

That is the point—the release of what we hold on to, thinking it helps when really it is hurting or holding us back.  When we are truly healed, we no longer look for the things that either gave us comfort or caused us pain.  We see that thing as something that isn’t ours or isn’t a part of us any longer.  We no longer run on the hamster wheel searching for the next level.  We simply exit, and ascend.  It’s also a bit like putting down the weight you’ve been carrying.  You simply don’t need it anymore—whatever “it” is for you.  For me, that has been the best feeling.  Letting go of the portion I no longer need means I’m not seeking it in other people—I can simply be.  I also no longer feel like I need to put on a show for other people to GET what I thought I needed.  You accept life as it is because that is all you need to do—accept.

To be clear, I’m not pretentious enough to think this works for everyone.  Healing is a multi-faceted, multi-layered, multi-go-around type of animal.  Some parts of healing may look like what I described above.  Sometimes those areas are just the beginning and open up an entirely new wave we have to address.  This work is so important, no matter what it looks like, because this is what opens life to us.  It opens the flood gates to new experiences, ones we can consciously choose, ones we are meant to fulfill, and new ways of seeing the world.  Sometimes that vision is scary because we have mechanisms in place to protect who we thought we were.  But if we can release those things we carry, we can move forward freely.