The ways that we can emotionally heal are also the potential for growth. If we chase down a few small opportunities to heal, we also openly create pathways for exponentially more opportunities for growth and creativity in our lives.
Potential in healing.
We have talked at length this month about seeing the potential in your life, capturing it, chasing it, finding more of it, all those things. I want to talk a little bit about a hidden gem of potential. It's likely that you will dismiss it. It's also very likely you will avoid it entirely because just the phrase may deter you from wanting to engage. Those are normal reactions, but I want to encourage you to not turn it off, to not walk away, but to engage a little further and see if this is a potential goldmine for you.
Today, we are talking about healing. Healing is a secret weapon of growth and potential. As we heal we bring our own awareness to new pathways of potential learning, living, and loving. It sounds like it's hard, and I can't promise you that it's not, but I can tell you from many personal experiences, it is more than worth it. We can only build muscle by creating small tears in the muscle tissue, we can only grow our brains through continuous learning, we only learn to walk by falling down. Three things today. One, I want to pitch you on your healing and expansive potential. Two, I want to give you some tips of where to start. Three, I am going to tell you a story.
First. The places we avoid healing in our lives, or even just the little things we avoid addressing are areas of potential growth. Especially areas where we have been hurt by others or we are holding against ourselves (or in other words hurting ourselves). We are using our instinctive nature rather than our logic to do what we think will protect us. Remember brain has the hardwiring to keep us safe over all else, and to avoid those poisonous or dangerous things in our lives-- but our brain does not realize that our safety zones get too cushy and we don't have opportunities, as well as the avoidance of pain just creates less resilience to pain even if that pain is from good growth. Pain is pain to our brain. We outwit our brain by walking ourselves into risk zones that we logically know are not actually risky.
I want you to see the places in your life where you need to heal, and I want you to see the potential to make it a growth plate. Quick anatomy lesson that I learned recently, that I think applies here. A growth plate is a piece of cartilage attached to the long bones of the body that allow for new bone growth. As you are developing, if your plates are not injured or inhibited in any way, you grow to a certain point, at which time the growth plate hardens and becomes like the rest of the bone it has been attached to. The growth plate is weaker than the rest of the bone while soft however which means it can be more prone to being injured. Because it is a more sensitive spot, it us usually one of the first places that pediatric doctors will look if a bone is injured near a growth plate. There is the protective nature of wanting to ensure that an injury can heal properly to ensure proper growth in the future. Now let's say some of growth gets stunted because of a severe injury to growth plates. Sometimes that causes long-term pain. Sometimes that requires intervention using surgery. Sometimes there is nothing to be done but make the best of it. Once the growth plate is hardened, that's it. There's really no going back, softening the growth plate back up, and trying to get the bone to grow past it's time.
Here is where we make the switch to potential. Our potential is like a growth plate that never hardens, or at the very least is like a growth plate that could re-soften with work, and release the potential for growth. Places we like to harden, and shy away from moving, or thinking about are places where we harbor fear, or past hurt. Like a growth plate, eventually those places within us where fear and hurt are, we harden and absorb, and accept for what it is. We sometimes even forget that they were formed from hurt and pain. We just accept them for what they are. Some of those things in my life, have looked like being snubbed one too many times on the playground, all my close friends going to a different school and I transitioned on my own, being told no to many of my interests as a child and teenager, and the list continues on. Some of my more serious emotional and mental injuries have also included sexual trauma and abuse. Some day I will go into those, but at this point, I just want to demonstrate that there can be large variety in the ways we are injured and though they may be serious, or simple there are paths to more potential through healing these paths. This is why Therapy is so helpful for people to understand mental and emotional limitations of their experiences.
Okay, I think I pitched enough on the potential hidden in healing for you, but let's talk about our second item: where to start. Here's some initial thoughts:
-Meditate, feel your way through.
-Notice your extreme emotions. Especially when you are tired. Where do you think they stem from?
-Notice interactions where you feel especially left out or put down. Do you need new friends, or are you sensitive about social interactions that feel that way?
-If you feel insecure in an interaction, in a task, in a new place, ask yourself why? Have you felt similar feelings before?
-If you are an anxious person, is there a reason you feel you cannot slow down?
Maybe these options are your jam, maybe not, but I find that these methods pique my interest to why I feel this way. It's become a small habit, but I assure you it didn't start that way. In my early motherhood days, which means my early 20s, I felt like any little string I tried to pull would unravel me. I avoided conflict, I avoided addressing the cause of situations, I avoided discomfort on many levels. Fortunately, I have always been a deep thinker and wanted to think my way to being better--as an added bonus I married someone well schooled in talking out his line of thinking, and someone well schooled in good communication taking two partners. Little by little the ability to face small fears, find reasons why I felt ashamed of certain things-- all of those small fears began to be addressed and I found my own ability to handle things expand and create new opportunities. These paths looking for healing can be large, or small, and I would recommend starting with something very small. Like why you may not want to interact with a certain person. Maybe the person is nice, friendly, and a good conversationalist. Why do you want to avoid them? It may have little to do with them, but if it's something they are not able to change, this is not a hurt you are feeling. I am talking about avoiding making deeper friendships because you may not want to get attached, or you may have been hurt by a similar personality. Where are you pulling back, and why? If it is a healthy boundary you are pulling back for I support you, but if it has only to do with your past experience, can you heal in order to find out more about that potential friendship?
There are places we don't like to dig, because they hurt, or more likely we are afraid of what we will find. Now we get to our Number Three. I am going to tell you a story.
I come from a long line of can-do women. I come from farm-stock, plus city slickers who all were hard-working mothers developing a boatload of talents all while baking bread everyday and raising small herds of children, while serving and loving their communities at the same time. I also come from two long lines of women who struggle with depression and anxiety. When I got married, I was following a near identical path of my mother. I was married at nineteen and pregnant at nineteen and a quarter. My moms path was similar, but her own story. I married someone that cared about the happy outcome of my life, my mother, did not. Our trajectories are our own, and I am who I am because of the bravery, fortitude, faith, and strong-will of my mom. Both of us have struggled to find our place of happiness, and contentment. I personally have had a hard time with postpartum depression, and anxiety. I avoided conversations about my depression because I did not want it to be true. I let my anxiety rule because it was an easier escape than wondering why the mommy group made my heart race. I did not have any social support group to give language to my state of mind. Little by little, I began to see problems that I did not want to deal with begin to erode facets of my life that I didn't want to go away, but that I was not going to deal with because I was afraid of what I would find. I was afraid that my mothers path would become mine. Not that the path was bad, but, it was not the path I wanted to set intention for in my life. I began to see if I did not make a change, I would inevitably set the course on a path I already witnessed. But I still didn't change. I still hung on to my status quo. There was too much effort in coming up with a plan. There was too much fear in choosing wrong. I needed help. Between my first and my second baby, my help showed up in my angel husband, who took it upon himself to research, ask questions of my care provider, and come up with a solution plan, which the simplest solution was taking an herbal supplement meant to boost mood. I tried it. And for me, that was a pivotal turning point. It was not a solve all, it did not seem as easy as it sounds, and it unleashed a whole pantry load of other deep hurts that needed to be healed to broaden potential. But that one moment in time will stand as my moment of choosing to heal for the potential it would bring into my life. I have had a lot of setbacks, mess-ups, self-doubts, and moments of panic attacked fear. But without all those I would not know a lot about myself. And to be frank, without having the guts to look at those hurtful experiences and say, what am I learning about myself with this? I would not be the person I am proud to be today!
I want you to know that I KNOW, in each person there is potential to learn from your own healing. There is power in finding healing for yourself from generational trauma, from small slights, from large family issues.
We talked today about the potential hidden away in healing that must be done, then we talked about ideas of where you can start. And finally I told you one of my healing for potential stories. I hope you take away the fact that there is hope and potential, and exponentially more love and light coming for those willing to simply address where the pain is coming from. So, take it from me, I know that you can expand your own horizon by finding those little blockages of pain for your own potential. It's worth it.
Today, I want you to find something that makes you happy. For zero reasons. No justification necessary. Consider that your play assignment for the weekend. Have a good one!