A Look at Healing

I want to live where soul meets body and let the sun wrap its arms around me, and bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing, and feel what it’s like to be new.—Death Cab for Cutie

Though it has been said that time heals all wounds, that has not been my experience. However accepting myself along with the vicissitudes that emerge from living life completely helps me to feel whole and, in many respects, new.

Wounds leave their indelible marks on our bodies, our psyche, our soul.

Some are visible—ridged reminders felt in our touch. Other scars elude the observer. Invisible to the naked eye, they are felt at a visceral level from the inside out.

For me, healed, was not a destination.

I never expected to one day feel as if I were the way I was before—to wish that would be the equivalent of denying my past. My own recovery has been ongoing, more of a verb than a noun. In a state of healing, one has the ability to feel complete, despite the scars.

Throughout my journey forgiveness has played an enormous role in my achieving a sense of wholeness—forgiving first myself, and later my abuser for who he was, liberated me to end my victimhood.

Before forgiveness I stood on the back of my past abuse as if a martyr: What I had been through no one could understand– All my life choices that dead ended were the fault of my abuser—I could never trust another man because of the abuse I had suffered—the list of defenses was long. I had become a master at self-deception and the stories I told myself were perpetuating pain, anguish, blame and resulted in self-sabotage.

Love begins inside.

Until the time where I could truly feel love for the woman I had emerged as, I remained emotionally arrested in a state of perceived worthlessness.

Even the smallest fissure allows light in. Much like an internal beacon, the radiance that drew me out of the darkness that enveloped me began as a twinkle, a nearly imperceptible ray of brightness at the base of my core.

The further I walked from blame and shame the closer I was to home—home within myself, in my own skin, standing on my own feet, wrapped in the love for the woman I saw reflected back at me.

And when the cloak of darkness slips over my shoulders from time to time—I breathe in—how do I best honor what I am feeling?

Feel it, be with it. Let go of self-deprecation, have patience, dignity—breathe out.

Honoring my myriad emotions helps me to continue the warm embrace I have for the woman I am. The pain leaves me and slowly is replaced with a renewed sense of worthiness—what a gift.

What about you, what has your experience with healing been?

 

*this post has been recycled and other iterations of it exist.