What people do not tell you about healing.
It’s messy, it’s hard and it’s without a doubt challenging. This is something I guess most of humanity knows, as we have all been healing from something at one point or another through life. Through my own personal healing journey, as well as through my work professionally supporting others, one thing I have found, is that healing is never completely finished. Non of us will ever be the finished, perfected product of humanity. Having spent so much time over the years struggling with feelings of not being where I ‘should’ be, not being perfect, having triggers pop up to throw me into internal introspection and shadow work around worthiness. I have come to the realisation that, it’s all part of the never ending cycle of human evolution. To heal, to grow, to heal deeper, layer by layer through time, evolving further with each and every lesson that life throws our way. The important part of this, I suppose is, the perspective we choose to view life with. Do we choose to focus our energies on the struggles, viewing our life as a never ending catalogue of hurdles and difficulties. Or do we look at the growth we made with each triumph. Do we praise ourselves for the strength we hold in surviving things we thought we couldn’t. Do we give gratitude to ourselves for simply being us, gratitude for the breath in our lungs and the love in our hearts. I fully understand this is an easier said than done state of mind, when trekking through the muddy waters of emotional pain, but the way we view a situation really can be the difference between a life of struggle or a life of happiness.
Healing will be completely unique to each and every individual. Even with the exact same circumstances, no two people will ever experience it in the same way. Our brains will process things differently. Our bodies will react differently. We will have different time scales on moving through the stages of healing. Everything in life is completely unique to you, because there is only one YOU in this world. It is, however, comforting to know that others have been through similar experiences and can share their story to give hope, strength and information on ways to navigate through the challenges. Awareness around Mental Health and trauma is without a doubt becoming much better in society over recent years. With the boom in social media and many influencers and celebrities sharing their experiences. However, I personally do feel there is still movement needed to bring about a real, raw account of overcoming trauma. I believe it to be comforting to others to know they are not alone. To understand others have been where you are and now stand on the other side of those turbulent waters, with their arm out ready to help others ashore.
So, I thought I would begin to share some of my real, raw lessons from overcoming various childhood trauma’s. Trigger warning to sexual abuse, but if it helps just one person, it’s worth putting myself out there to let you know there is light and happiness at the other side of where you may be now.
The biggest lesson along my healing journey, is realising there is no end point. Now this may seem daunting and negative….but hear me out. I’m not by any means suggesting that you will forever be in the depths of your trauma. There will come a time when you get the other side of the darkest days, you will feel so much brighter, lighter and happier in your own mind, body & soul. You will be able to live the life you have been dreaming of with a full heart and pride for yourself in overcoming what you thought would take you under. What I mean by no end point, is that you will learn more about yourself layer by layer over the whole period of your life. Healing is not a destination. It is a lengthy, long winded journey. We can not change what has happened to us. It will forever be part of our story, but we do not have to stay in the same chapter. With any good book, one chapter of pain, heartache and struggle, can lead to another chapter of strength, love and happiness. We will always be aware of the trauma we experience, but we do not have to let that trauma define who we are or allow it to limit the live we create. Uncover it, understand it, move through it and grow. With each layer of healing it becomes easier and much quicker to move through. From healing layer by layer, you can identify triggers as soon as they crop up. You become aware of the familiar feelings, thought processes and behaviours. So you are able to work through them quickly, to understand where it’s come from, to feel it and release it, then move forward faster. You learn not to stay stuck in the darkness. What once felt like your weakness, over time becomes your strength.
Another huge lesson for me has been the fascinating but brutally and intensively difficult part, your body remembers what your brain may not. For anybody who has ever been affected by sexual abuse, this can be an incredibly traumatic journey to navigate through. The link between the brain and the body where this kind of trauma occurs can be complex to say the least. Our brain can easily dissociate to protect us from extremely traumatic events, especially when this happens in childhood. What can become so confusing, is when feelings, pain and fear arise in your body without the logical explanation from your brain of why this is happening. This part of my healing journey took many years for me to understand. Through personal therapy, I became aware of using the felt sense type of theories to understand why I was experiencing panic attacks and intense anxiety. This led me down a very long road of research and using various modalities to uncover deep trauma in my body, to understand it and slowly begin the process of releasing it. I found Reiki Healing along this journey, which I can say hand on heart, was the best method for me to release trapped trauma in my body. Anything like this, explore in a safe and supported environment with professionals who have a vast amount of experience in their field. It can be dangerous to our mental health when uncovering sexual trauma too quickly, so please be patient and kind to yourself if you are starting to uncover this.
Healing changes your life. The way I view this, is, we have two options.
Option 1 - We can stay where we are, in the life that’s familiar, always going round the same cycles in different variations. Here we may live unknowingly in victim mode. Always looking outside of ourselves for life to improve. We will be wondering why similar situations always happen to us. Never truly understanding why we keep attracting the wrong partner, or the wrong job, the same old money struggles and falling into the same old dip of our mental health. Staying in option 1 means that life happens to us, with our peace and happiness out of our control. We will forever be waiting for our external environment to change in order for us to feel the happiness we seek.
Option 2 - The more challenging but far more rewarding option. We dig deep into our own soul, the darkness, the negative, the vulnerable, the inner child, the light, the love, the amazing……..all of what we are! This is where real growth occurs, real self love and acceptance for all that we are. It’s where we unpick our potential and start to change our life for the better. It is certainly not an easy path to take, especially when we have gone through many traumas in life. It is here we start forgive those that have harmed us, not for their benefit, but for the sake of our own soul. By delving deep into the realms of our own mind, body & soul, we can understand what has happened to us and free ourselves from carrying the weight of it through our life. Through this journey we can start to see our worth and when we realise this we stop accepting and attracting less than we deserve. We begin to see that life happens for us, we take accountability for ourself, our thoughts, feelings and behaviour patterns. Then we take the reigns and steer our life in the direction we want. We are the creator of our own story, if you do not like the book you are in, dig deep and write a new one!
Through any healing journey, you will change, your relationships will change, your life will change. Some people in life are only meant to stay with us for certain chapters. As we grow, we will outgrow others. It’s part of life. Those that are meant for the next chapters will arrive in divine timing, often when you least expect it. You will outgrow jobs, houses, lifestyles. Healing means change and changes means growth.
Know that you are not alone.
You are far braver, stronger and deserving than you believe.
Trust the process and know the dark days do not last forever.
Much love,
Jen x