Healing is a process that no one should rush. Even you.
For so long I beat myself up for not completely healing from various experiences or traumas that I dealt with in my life. I still do. I have felt so guilty for still allowing either people or situations make feel a certain way even after years of “dealing with it.” But I’ve slowly come to realize that it’s okay to still not be okay.
During the trials of my life, I didn’t want to allow myself to feel any pain or anxiety because it felt like I would never get over it if I felt it. Weird right? But I felt as if I allowed myself to feel pain that the healing process would never start or even worse it would never end.
I was completely wrong.
I remember going to a therapist back in 2016 because my stress, depression, anger and anxiety got the best of me. I was currently dealing with a situation and felt so much anger that I suppressed it, which in turn made me angrier. I was mad at myself because I didn’t want to feel angry in the first place. Although I went to that particular therapist one time (finances, not skill, she was great), she gave me some real steady advice.
Feel. She told me to allow myself to feel as much as I wanted to feel. She said it was okay, normal and therapeutic to cry as much as I needed to. Be mad about the situation and even experience some confusion. Feeling all that I needed to feel would eventually help me put things into perspective and my emotions would plateau and eventually dissipate.
So I felt. I felt almost everyday. I let myself cry, get angry and experience so much confusion. The more I felt, the more my thought process changed and my emotions began to not take over me.
The healing process was beginning.
I had to realize that healing doesn’t always feel good. We experience when we’re hurt physically, so the same goes for mental and emotional healing. It doesn’t feel good but eventually with the proper care, the pain begins to go away.
I had to remind myself of that over the past few months. It hasn’t been easy for me since March. I’ve been truly afraid to feel my fears and actually admit to them. Once again I was mad at myself for even feeling. I didn’t want to admit that I was scared and that I was worried and had no hope at one point. I was too afraid to even verbalize to some of my loved ones how I was feeling because I didn’t want to feel inferior or inadequate as a human being and a mother. I, honestly, put on a fake brave face and suppressed a lot of my feelings.
Recently, over the past couple of weeks, the stress, anxiety and fear showed itself with two acid reflux flare ups. That’s when I really realized that I had to allow myself to express my fears, anxieties and deal with my stress in a healthy way.
I had to begin to heal.
I had to address everything going on within me in order to not only heal my body but my mind as well.
This is a process I’m willing to be patient with.
“The cure for the pain is in the pain.” -Rumi
Life Lessons from a Novice 