Feeling broken after trauma or when we're in chronic pain often stems from seeing the "done" point of healing as an erasure (literal or figurative) of the experience. However, when we can shift from seeing healing as linear to healing as a spiral, we can engage with ourselves and our lives on a much deeper, more satisfying level than before the pain.
Over the weekend I was reminded of the importance of having practices. Practice in movement. Practice in nutrition. Practice in breath. Practice in self touch. Practice in boundaries.
Practice is important because it is within our practices that we engage with our lives. Living becomes challenging (or burdensome) when we are practicing only to be "done" with the need to practice, when we desire only the goal.
In healing this goal often looks like wanting to find the end. We want to be finished. We want to walk away from that painful period in our lives and never look back.
That is important. And completely valid. And completely possible.
However, our understanding of what constitutes “end” is problematic. Our “finished” space is often visualized as one in which we can drop everything that was related to the time of healing because we are now healed. Once we’re healed, we can get back to “real life." (Interestingly, this is often conceptualized as the life before the pain/trauma - which is another way of saying the life that led to the pain to begin with.) When “done” equals “forgotten” or "erased," it is no wonder consistent practice feels challenging. You're chasing a state of unconsciousness that you've already passed with the implication that the life you're living now is not actually your own.
We are taught that life is a line. We are born, we live, we die. We get injured, we heal, we move one. Beginning, middle, finite end.
However, when we step back a bit, we see that life is a spiral. The sun and the moon chase each other across the sky in slowly oscillating paths. We repeat routines over and over, yet slightly different every time. We move along the arms of double-, triple-, quadruple- (probably infinite-) helices, constantly moving forward, and constantly revisiting past spaces from different vantage points - vistas that we've never seen before no matter how many times we've been here.
We are taught that pain and injury are an interruption to life instead of seeing them as the messages they are. We are taught that repeated patterns are meaningless coincidences instead of stabilizing influences or opportunities to grow and be differently. We are taught to compare our pains and problems to others’ and see them as lesser instead of being encouraged to acknowledge them as simply ours to change or not change as we are ready.
It is no surprise to me when clients ask me, “How long do I have to do this self massage/these exercises/meditation/breathwork?” because we live in a world that has become sight blind to the true spiral weaving of life. We look for the full stop, instead of the evolution. We look for “Am I done yet?” instead of “Does this still serve me?”
There is nothing wrong with the desire to “be fixed.” There is nothing wrong with wanting a deus ex machina to make the problem go away. Sometimes we need that type of support. Sometimes we need an external resource to bolster us and help us to figure out where to go next. Sometimes we look at what is immediately under our feet instead of searching ahead on the path. This phase of healing is totally valid!
Yet, when we can't see the whole and appreciate the spiral that's when we believe ourselves to be broken, and all of the things we are doing to "fix" ourselves serve only as reminders of that brokenness.
It is when we reclaim the understanding that this healing phase is just a phase, that we can grasp that healing happens every day, always. When we claim ownership of our bodies (that we will exist in long after we stop seeing the practitioner/therapist/doctor), we can see clearly our responsibilities to ourselves and honor the practices that serve us as celebrations of our life instead of an impediment to it. When we open to the idea of life as spiral, we can become aware of the possibilities in our replaying and repeating patterns and leverage them to reach levels of healing so much deeper than quelling the scream of pain that originally (finally) got our attention.
Will you always do the same self massage/exercises/meditation/breathwork? Probably not. But you will always do something to engage more fully with your life. You will listen to what your body needs and make changes as needed. You will find what works in the now, and what works for the next turn of the wheel. You will own your health. You will know you are worth it.
And you own that worth now, by owning that in the doing you are already done. Whole. Healed.
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