Misconceptions of Healing

Busting some healing myths

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Transcript

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Hello, my friends, and welcome back. Let's talk about healing and what the fuck that even means. Because I see a couple of misconceptions about healing that I would really like to just address up front. The first being that healing means you never get triggered anymore. And there might be some incidences where the trigger goes away. I've had that experience. Like there are certain things that used to send me into a spiral that just don't anymore. But that is not always the case. Healing doesn't mean not being triggered, right? There probably some things that will trigger you for the duration of your life on this planet. And that won't mean that you haven't healed from it. What will indicate healing is how you are able to respond to those triggers. The more you are able to respond in the way that you want to indicates healing. There are some things that I find triggering that I may always find triggering. And what really changed the game for me is when I consider that if this trigger never goes away, if my body always reacts like this, how do I want to handle myself for it? How do I want to treat myself during it? How do I want to treat myself after it? How can I make it easier on myself? Are there boundaries that need to be set here? Changing the way you relate to your triggered self is everything. I think so often we add extra torture to ourselves when we get triggered by thinking that we shouldn't be triggered, or we should be over it by now. Or we shouldn't respond to the trigger in the way that we are. Accepting what is, accepting the reality of where you are at, and deciding on purpose how you want to handle that reality is a major power move. And it reduces so much of the suffering and leads to true healing. Healing will look more like having an intimate knowledge of what triggers you and how your body responds to that trigger as well as how to lovingly respond and manage your bodily response. Your level of healing will be shown in how you handle yourself in your body's moments of need. How you handle yourself in your worst or your most vulnerable moments determines how much safety you feel in the world. This is what true healing looks like- not never being triggered. That's just not real. It's not reality. As we move through life different experiences will happen to us and different things will become triggering. There's some things in the world that are just straight up awful. And we might get triggered by that and that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us. Or that we haven't achieved some level of healing that we were supposed to. Our healing is shown by how we show up for ourselves in those moments. An example in my own life is-- so I think I've talked about it here before so my attachment style is fearful avoidant. And what that means is I get triggered in both a anxious attachment way and avoidant attachment way depending on the circumstance or the trigger. And I have noticed that for me, if I display any kind of emotion, like if I got get angry about something or I get sad about something and I cry like if I display any sign of emotion, I get really anxious about that. Like for some reason that is a trigger for me and I am immediately going into like this fawning, apologetic- like state where it kind of triggers like an abandonment fear. Like if I display any kind of emotion, I start to feel like I'm going to be abandoned. And so that is my trigger that comes up like every time I have some kind of emotion. So my partner and I got into a discussion about politics and I'm very passionate about certain issues and I became passionate and I'm very outspoken and I said you know what I meant and then it was like too much emotional display. For me like it was more than what is comfortable in my body. And it triggered that and so I'm immediately like feeling it. But I know that this is my trigger. I know that first comes this fear that I'm too much and that he's going to leave me because I'm too much and then after that fear comes shame and that's just how it plays out every time. But I've gotten to the point where I know it's gonna happen. I know that those feelings are what's going to arise in my body every time I display emotion. so now that I know that trigger and response so intimately, I know it's coming. I know what it feels like. I know how it tends to display. I just take care of myself during it. I know that okay, this is the part where you're anxious and worried and afraid that you're too much for everyone around you. And I just help myself through that. I'm a friend to myself during that moment and then the shame part comes like I know it will and I take care of myself during that part too. Because the thing about this fear of abandonment is that every time I abandon myself, if I were to turn on myself, when I have this experience, it will make it worse right? I'm afraid of abandonment and then I abandon myself all that does is aggravate the trigger and response. Whenever I can be there for myself no matter what, that creates a sense of safety. It creates a sense of safety for myself knowing that okay, there is one person in this world that will never abandon me and that's me. So, this is an example of a trigger that just might always be there, but the more I heal the relationship with myself, the more I'm able to meet myself in those most vulnerable moments with so much love and so much compassion and so much support and I can actually help myself through the experience instead of making the experience worse. The second misconception I see about healing is that you can just go back to being who you were before XYZ happened. Sometimes I hear people say that they just want to go back to being the person they were before they were in the abusive relationship. And that probably isn't going to happen. You went through something and the things we go through do change us. We can't be someone who hasn't been touched by abuse because that is an experience that we've had. It's part of us whether we like it or not. But you can experience healing in the sense that you can integrate that life experience into your being in a way that feels good or empowering to you. In a way that makes sense to you. You can carry that experience with a newfound strength. And wisdom. It can become part of who you are in a way that doesn't drag you down. Healing isn't an erasure; it's integration. We can integrate those life experiences in a way that feels empowering to us and enables us to move forward and that is the way that we can experience healing. And another misconception is that being healed is a destination. Healing in an emotional sense, is more like a lifelong practice. It's a lifelong practice of deciding to be a safe space for yourself. It is a practice of setting boundaries as needed, and learning to listen to the messages of your body instead of bulldozing over them. Healing isn't linear, meaning that just because one day you totally handled something in your ideal way doesn't mean that six months later, the same thing won't result in a total meltdown. There are some wounds that run too deep to be ever completely healed in one lifetime. I think about generational trauma and cultural trauma. These things cannot be healed by one person in one lifetime. It's just not realistic to expect that. And that doesn't mean right we curl up in a ball and give up. It means we are part of the process of healing. We get to be part of the solution and it will be a constant process of learning to love yourself in every moment of your humanity no matter what. It will be a constant devotion to developing and nurturing the relationship that you have with yourself. And the deeper and more loving that relationship that you have with yourself the deeper level of healing that you will be able to access. But it's not like a checklist item that we can just check off. We are complicated and nuanced beings living complicated and nuanced lives. There are constantly things going on in our lives and in the world that require healing from. It's not a destination. It's a process. A process that we can become more and more skilled at. And I think we understand all this better when it comes to the physical body healing. I injured my knee once and it's better like it's healed. It doesn't affect my every day. But there are certain activities that make it flare up, that aggravate it. And so I just pay attention to my body and lay off when it starts to be too much. And I do ibuprofen and ice until it calms back down. And it will probably always be like that. I have an old shoulder injury the same way. Like it's fine except for when it gets aggravated by certain activities and then it's back to icing and resting until it's ready to go again. And this is just how it is. I don't have drama about it. I just listen to my body and take care of it and give it what it needs. And my life is fine with this. And emotional healing is really the same way. We might move past something but then find that certain situations aggravate those old wounds, and we might need to attend them a little again. And that doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong. It's the emotional equivalent of ice and ibuprofen. Alright my friends, just some things to consider this week as you move through the world and consider your own healing journey. Until next time, be well