Are you healed enough yet?

This article is Part 1 in a series about healing. I have A LOT more to say on this topic.

I explore all of this more in my next three blogs. Check out part two here.

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As a healing arts practitioner, and someone who has spent decades on my own healing path, I spend a lot of time contemplating healing.

It's one of those frequencies that is so beautiful and simple, and yet holds incredible amounts of nuance.

Healing is as diverse as humanity, for I believe the healing journey is your soul’s journey. There’s no one “right” way to go about it, and most likely you’ll shift your relationship with healing many times over the course of your life.

Healing holds many paradoxes, and I believe the healing path invites us to hold these paradoxes as part of the healing.

So what I want to explore over the next few weeks here are the nuances of healing, the beauty of healing, and what gets in the way of our actual healing.

The first facet to this topic I want to explore is that often the way we’re approaching healing is actually antithesis to the healing itself.

Common patterns that get in the way of healing

Now I first need to say, it would be impossible for me to address every possible angle of this. Because again, each person’s healing path is absolutely unique to them. But I want to illustrate some common patterns I see, and offer a wider perspective around healing.

1) Someone wanders through my doors telling me they’re “so close.” They just need to solve this “last piece,” or heal this “last thing” and they’ll reach a point where they’ll feel ok with themselves.

They’ll have arrived at some threshold that will deem them healed or complete to some degree. Where they’ll have achieved a level of ascension or mastery of sorts. Or they won’t need to heal anymore.

I often see this approach in folks in some “new age” communities who have been taught to hold a high frequency and believe that feeling the depths of pain is antithesis to healing. This also happens in general for folks who feel frustration that they’re facing the same core wound again. And question, “shouldn’t I have healed this by now?”

2) Someone comes to see me who is very attached to their identity as wounded, or is attached to a story of victimhood, where something outside of them keeps getting in the way of their healing or happiness.

There’s a way in which their attachment to their pain or situation holds them back from a level of possible healing. This is often very unconscious, as most people would say they are tired of feeling how they're feeling.

I want to be very nuanced in this instance because folks get immense amounts of relief when they finally receive a diagnosis to identify with after knowing something was wrong for years, or find community with others who understand their experience. And sometimes the goal of the healing journey isn't about getting rid of pain, but having a new relationship with it. So I’m not speaking to these scenarios here.

But no matter what, I think it is beneficial to look at our level of attachment and identity with our pain.

What we have wrong about healing

1) In the first instance, I often sense a story in the body (coming from very young parts) that you’re not ok, and need to prove that you are somehow. Or you’re not good enough until you’ve attained a certain level of self-mastery.

There’s a need to conquer your body, or win at healing in order to prove to yourself (and most often, caregivers/parents) that you’re ok. There’s often a quiet desperation. A subtle sense that you’re not complete or whole or even “good” until you do. It can also be a way to control a world that feels so out of control.

And gosh, of course you feel this way! In addition to your own childhood experiences, there is a story of unworthiness that has been intentionally planted within you by a powerful industry preying on healing, wellness, and self-improvement. Preying on the belief that you’re broken, selling quick fixes to healing and promising that you’ll be the perfect version of you, that you'll arrive at the top of the mountain of attainment.

2) And in the second instance, the clinging to an identity of brokenness or victimhood, or holding onto illness or pain, gives you something you’ve wanted. Whether it’s love from a caregiver, or a sense of belonging to a community, or affirmation that you’re just bad at your core.

This is often beneath the surface of consciousness, and obviously not true in all cases of chronic pain/illness. But regardless, I sometimes encounter stories held inside the body that say: “I’m not worthy. I deserve to be punished. I’m just innately bad and this is what I get. Or, if I let go of this pain no one will care about me.”

As an example, about 10 years ago, I had an insight that when I was younger, I loved getting hurt in gymnastics because I got attention from my parents who were at-capacity dealing with my two (pretty out of control) brothers. I had some chronic pain in my adult life that would resurface, and I got a chance to really love and integrate the part of myself that was desperate for their attention.​

In both of these cases, I want to illustrate that there’s a core belief that then guides an approach to healing that is actually getting in the way of possible healing.

On the one hand is a need to be better, a sense that you’re not good enough, and a belief that there’s a finish line to healing. The other holds a sense of martyrdom, a belief that there’s no hope or no healing possible, or a clinging to an identity of pain.

In both cases, a sense of not--enoughness lives inside the body.

This is so understandable, and again, very programmed into us from the forces of modern culture.

You are enough! Moving forward on your healing path

I want to offer a few thoughts that can support anyone, anywhere on their path (even if neither of these scenarios resonated with you).

1) Honey, you are NOT broken, and you are absolutely more than enough, just as you are, in this moment.

No matter how much pain you’re in, or how “close” you are. You don’t have to be better, or stay hurt, in order to receive love. You are worthy of it here, in this moment, no matter what. You don’t have to keep buying into the story of endless self-improvement. And, you don’t have to hold onto your pain forever as either punishment, or a beacon of worthiness.

Immense amounts of healing are possible when we release these stories. I believe in miraculous, transformational healings. (Have you listened to Near Death Experience stories?? There’s often remarkable healings involved.)

2) There’s no “end” point to get to in healing. There’s no finish line you must cross before you’re ok (you’re already good enough). There is always more to learn, understand, and weave back into wholeness.

You may be spiraling around the same core wounds or pain for your lifetime, and that’s ok. Because you’re learning and growing and healing, and that is life. You can give up the need to “get there” one day. Because there’s no “there” to get to. Only here. With yourself. Tending to and loving the version of you that’s present.

No matter where you are on your healing path, or what you find yourself encountering, may you know that you're not wrong or behind.

And may you know that ultimately, approaching your body and all that is held there with curiosity, presence, grace, and empowerment is one of the most healing things you can do.

May you know in your bones, both healing and wholeness.

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