Healing is Not the Destination, but The Journey
Why most people get constantly lost in their healing journey.
How do you heal your most hidden wounds?
Some people seem to be able to find a formula that gradually gets them to break through and finally leave their past behind, whilst other people seem to struggle to figure out a way out of their past and get constantly stuck experiencing the same things in circle.
One day (or one week) everything appears to be improving and then something happens and triggers them back into the old state of emotional pain.
What’s the secret to all this?
Well, there is no secret, yet there are a couple of special ingredients that help people move forward on their healing journey.
1. Attention
I went through my personal struggles in the past, just like 99.9% of other people did. And if I have to trace back one of the key elements that allowed me to make progress throughout my healing journey, it was the consistent attention I payed to myself and my emotions. It almost became an obsession understanding what was going on and what I could do to change things around.
Some times this worked beautifully, and in other moments this constant effort and strong attention I had, created a lot of resistance towards what I was experiencing and just made me feel stuck. And this happened because I was lacking the second key element, of which I will be talking about in a second.
But overall, paying careful attention to my inner feelings was the 1st element that allowed me to pinpoint what was “wrong”. It allowed me to locate and identify the pain and lack of love I was experiencing and, most importantly, the element of attention shed light on the why I finding myself in sorrows. And knowing your why is like switching the light up. It helps seeing things in a much clearer way.
So step after step — or shall I say baby step after baby step — I was able to paint a bigger picture of my emotional circumstance and the journey I would’ve had to embark to heal my wounds.
What’s even more important is that now, as I look back to what I did, I can clearly see that the daily practices I used to perform to keep my attention acute and vibrant, are the most important.
As I was striving to get to the end of that journey and experience emotional freedom, the actual journey itself made me able to climb to the top and experience the ultimate climax, having my personal breakthrough.
Therefore, even if it sounds cliché, the constant and careful attention you pay to your personal journey will supply you with the emotional tools you need to be able to get to the destination.
It’s like having the right tools to dig into the ground to find gold. With no tools there is no gold because you don’t have the opportunity to dig, correct?
In the same fashion, if you want to dig within yourself, you’ve got to gear yourself up as you walk your path to your personal emotional freedom.
2. Courage to take (meaningful) action
This is a big one. And it blends with the first element perfectly. One doesn’t work without the other (and it’s what I was lacking when feeling stuck).
In other words if you pay enough attention to yourself, but don’t have the courage to take meaningful action, then you will only be wasting time and energy.
Allow me the use of another metaphor: if you light up a match (attention) but let it burn without using it to light up a bigger fire (action) then your match will burn itself out and become ashes.
I personally always did something that could keep the spark alive, I always took some action when I got to a more clear understanding of my inner struggles. It’s like moving one foot in front of the other one in order to be able to walk.
You pay attention, you come to a deeper understanding, you take action, you move forward.
This is the formula to healing, and this is how some people, maybe even unknowingly, manage to make progress and eventually get to their final destination.
Therefore if you’re feeling stuck at some level within yourself, then start by paying careful attention as to why you feel stuck or what is causing you to feel stuck.
Then take some meaningful action towards it — this could be buying a book about that specific topic and learning more, meditating or taking some time for yourself to journal and expand your thoughts in regards to this matter, gaining different and wider points of view.
If you do this with enough consistency, then you will feel things moving within you, and life teaches us that dynamism means evolution as opposed to stillness that leads to deterioration.
Whenever things are moving, then you’re making progress.
Therefore keep moving, keep digging, keep lighting up fires within you and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The destination is close.
