So many people think they're healed because they've mastered avoidance. They find themselves surprised when something or someone triggers what they thought they were over, only to realize the old wound is still there. They feel just as hurt as the day it happened. I want us to dig a little deeper to figure out if we're running away from our pain or if we're in fact actually over it.
I'm going to list some actions or (non actions) that most of us have all been guilty of at some point to show us WHAT HEALING DOESN'T LOOK LIKE
1. Refusing to talk about said event/hurt/offense/experience/trauma.
Just because you've become a master at compartmentalizing the wound and not ruminating on it doesn't mean you're healed. Yes, it's a step toward progress in the right direction that it's not consuming the forefront of your life and mind, but it's still unprocessed. Which means two things; 1) that unprocessed trauma will repeat itself more times than not keeping you in an awful cycle of toxicity and 2) unprocessed trauma will remain parked exactly where you left it. It'll remain hidden where you buried it, and hang out there until you’re ready to dig it up. This can even be decades later. Ask me how I know. It's a classic case of "We don't talk about Bruno!" When Bruno is still alive and well and hanging out in the dungeon until someone comes to check on him. Your trauma is Bruno. (Check out Disney's Encanto for that last reference.)
2. Numbing yourself emotionally or mentally
If your coping mechanism happens to be a substance, please note that the deeper the wound the more of the substance you'll need to forget it. There is NO substance in the world enough to fill a God sized void. Logically, you've done nothing but MOMENTARILY escape your reality. I want to emphasize momentarily. It's temporary. How long can you cope this way? You can't live your life and work and parent and function constantly being under the influence or hungover. People try this every day. We know them. We are them. How is it working out? All this does is ruin your health and your finances trying to keep up with cost of keeping your habits at hand. Who and what is suffering if you're constantly checked out? Even if its food. Doesn't always have to be drugs or alcohol. Your problem will still be waiting for you there when you come down off your high, or get back from your trip or sober up, or max out your cards from another shopping spree.
3. Letting enough time pass; thinking that "time heals all wounds".
Ummm no it doesn’t. It takes time to process, but healing doesn’t come just with processing by itself. Healing is a package deal. One that comes with forgiving and acceptance, it comes with rewiring of thought patterns, healing comes with prayer and fasting. Healing comes with doing the inner work, not just letting the clock tick away. Trauma isn't going to process itself just because time has passed.
4. Moving on;
A person can "move on", yet still be stuck in their pain. Why else do we repeat patterns? I learned something recently called trauma reenactment. It's fascinating just what the mind will do to help the body out. It's too big of a topic to discuss here & I'm definitely not a psychologist, so stay tuned or click the link to learn more, but in short, it's reliving the past over and over again in order to remedy it, only with new characters to replace the original ones on your personal movie set. There's an old saying, "wherever I go, there I am." Which means you can run all you want but you can't out run yourself. You take yourself with you, you are the common denominator and that includes the pain you carry within yourself. You haven’t addressed yourself just because you moved physical addresses or gotten a new partner. Many people jump from place to place or relationship to relationship because they really just don’t want to take a cold heart look at themselves. Which is completely fear based because they're afraid of what they'll see, so they'd just rather not look. I cannot tell you the amount of people I know that do this. They keep looking for someone to tolerate their unhealthiness instead of just becoming healthy. I'd say about 80% of the world works this way. They don’t want to be held accountable for anything or to anyone, and so they move on right at the time when relationship bonds deepen to that level of accountability. Same thing with church hoppers, job hoppers and serial daters. Let's call it what it is, you've found something or someone new to distract yourself with to avoid (there's that word again) having to look yourself in the mirror. More so, you want and need someone to validate you and lift you up because you don't have the confidence to do it yourself. Folks, that is the epitome of unhealthy. They’re really running from themselves and whatever it is that they’re unwilling to face.
5. Naming it and claiming it, or as the kids say these days manifesting your healing without putting in the actual work.
Look, I'm all for positive affirmations. Yes, using your voice to speak out loud and put things out into the atmosphere is extremely powerful and effective. However, this is part of that package deal when it comes to healing. Package meaning you need to be also doing the behind the scenes work of confronting what you're afraid of. Making amends to people that we've harmed, or we feel have harmed us. It requires making daily journal entries or attending therapy or our weekly small groups. Like, what are you doing to ACTIVELY pursue your healing? Because talking about it is a great start but it's not enough to get you there. Healing isn't going to just fall in your lap with some daily verbal affirmations. I'm a huge fan of therapy, but I'm not a fan of therapy that doesn't challenge you or motivate you to venture out and do something different. If you find yourself sitting on a couch week after week for years on end with little to no change then you're therapist is robbing you. Even with church, whatever we're learning from the pulpit or reading in the Bible means nothing if we're not putting it into practice. If not, what are we actually manifesting?? Are we being challenged at all? If the answer is no, then the naming and claiming is a cute & trendy idea, sorry, not sorry.
6. Making yourself incredibly busy with extracurriculars.
I met someone a few months back who seemed to almost brag about spending six days a week on his extra curricular sports. All I kept thinking was, that's great, I'm sure you're REALLY good at whatever it is that you do, but how's your heart though? I don't mean cardio wise. I mean, how's your mental and emotional health? What else in your life is suffering? Because I believe it's impossible to spend THAT much time in one area without something or someone in your life suffering. The people that I've come across who drown themselves in work, the gym, or any other hobby under the sun rarely have a good balance going on in their life and simultaneously they are AVOIDING something deep within themselves that God's trying to air out or process, or address or Heal. Are we even allowing Him the time & space to do that if we're exhausting ourselves on extracurriculars? He won't compete with us, nor should He have to. I think what a lot of us will find is that if we slowed down long enough, our pain or trauma or resentment would come bubbling up to the surface and deep down we're not ready to face it. I'm all for healthy activities and keeping fit, but we all know when we take something overboard right?
Welp, I'm SURE I've stepped on some toes so I'll end here. But it's ok, that's what I'm here for. Healing isn't easy and I'm not going to pretend it is. All I want to remind you is that your pain is looking for an outlet. Do yourself a favor and give it one. Don't keep carrying it around. Its trapped in there and wants to be freed. So many of us hold the key to unlock our own freedom. You have to want your healing bad enough & take an active role if you really want to see it show up in your life. If you're going through a tough time and need some extra backup or support, please reach out to the Healed Honey team via the Contact page and I'd love to connect with you. Have a great Christmas Honeys!
Happy Healing!
Love,
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