“We need to feel to heal, yes.  But too much feeling too soon, too fast, just re-triggers trauma.  Feeling is healing only when it feels safe to do so,” Cory Muscara.  Navigating the mind is difficult work.  Some of the most challenging work we face.  In my personal experience, I believe this quote sums up some of how my cycles repeat and I’m willing to bet it’s the truth for most of you as well.  We think we have healed, that we have gotten to a point where we can “handle” old situations again only to find ourselves balled up in a corner repeating the same patterns.  Real healing means knowing what works for us, what triggers us, and what we need to avoid versus what we can safely engage with.  That includes our feelings.  I know there are many times my mind isn’t a kind or safe place to be.  The floodgates of every negative thing unleash themselves in my brain and it’s abundantly clear there is work to be done.  I consider myself a high-functioning person (even if trauma exists still) and I know I fall back into patterns constantly.

While we aren’t responsible for what happened to us, we do bear the burden of fixing it.  We are responsible for where our lives go from the point we decide to move forward.  It’s naïve to think we will never experience a trigger for something personal to us—the world isn’t meant to sugar coat life because life simply happens.  It isn’t personal even if it is personal to us if that makes sense.  Getting to a point where we aren’t triggered by the world is key to navigate through it.  That is where boundaries are important.  Unhealed wounds, hurt people, and unresolved issues create an entirely new slew of issues if we don’t deal with them properly.  While the world won’t shield us, we need to shield ourselves.  It’s ok to say that we are working on these things.  We’ve been trying to live in a world that doesn’t work, pretending it’s the norm, all the while knowing inside something isn’t right.  It’s up to us to manage our expectations as well as our progress on that path.

Healing isn’t linear and it takes a lot of courage and fortitude to stand up and say we are no longer going to deal with what broke us.  it’s a great responsibility to take on our lives—but that responsibility is one of the greatest things we will ever pick up.  The decision to heal and move forward is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves because we are learning to live in our own story and to take back the power of what is ours.  It isn’t noble to push beyond where we are at if we are genuinely unhealed because that backfires.  We also don’t want to get to the point where we feel nothing.  It’s a fine line to deal with what we know works for us and knowing when it’s time to push and, more importantly, when not to.  Keep going, no matter what.  Even if it means saying no.  Keep going until we can say yes and know we mean it.  Keep going until it makes sense.  Don’t hurt ourselves in the process, but do not stop.  Remember, every step is momentum, and any progress is progress.  Take the win.