Healing

Healing hurts. 

It’s tumultuous, it’s stormy and it’s uncomfortable. It’s unstable, not only because for days, weeks, months or years, you’re unlearning things you had learnt and normalized, meaning that for that period you have no real understanding of what’s healthy and what’s not, but because for that entire period, you’re being forced to think deeply about things you had buried deep into the deepest depths of your mind. There are tears, there are sleepless nights and for most of it, there’s no end in sight. 

It doesn’t seem worth it. 

And it’s confusing because for the most part, you don’t know whether or not you’re making progress – It feels like an eternity because healing involves taking apart, piece by piece, slowly and steadily, narratives that the mind has come to understand as being universally true. It involves backtracking and reprocessing trauma the right way. And it involves replacing learned, toxic narratives with healthy ones. Replacing the idea, instilled by the trauma of abuse, that physical closeness can never be healthy. Replacing the idea, inculcated by heartbreak, that we are unlovable. And that can be a very exhausting experience. One that simply can’t seem to take place fast enough – In fact, in most cases, it doesn’t take place quickly at all. And that annoys the living daylights out of us because in many ways, the alternative-suppression and normalisation-seems so much more comfortable. More appealing.  

But perhaps the most difficult part of it all is that it involves admitting that we were hurt. It involves understanding and compartmentalising our feelings, and that means feeling them all over again. 

It means reliving trauma again. Trauma we had told ourselves hadn’t affected us. 

It means admitting to ourselves that we lied to our brains. 

And that’s just about the most difficult thing in the world.

One day, however, it’ll hit you: As you’re walking down the road or brushing your teeth or tucking yourself into bed, you’ll be smacked in the face by the realization that you’ve grown. Thinking about that toxic ex won’t leave you hyperventilating anymore, thinking about previous trauma won’t throw you into the deep-end of a panic attack anymore and you’ll realize that maybe you’re ready to try and open yourself up more.  

You’ll have grown. 

And you’ll pat yourself on the back and buy yourself a hat because after all you’ve been through, nobody will deserve it more than you do. 

Because, you see, healing always produces growth. And growth is always good change because it is not intentional. It is not forced. It is necessary and it eases itself into our lives at a comfortable pace. Growth it is backed by experiences that will allow us to be more empathetic, more loving, more understanding, more caring – Experiences that allow us to be more. 

And more is just what the world needs right now. 

Sincerely, 

Muku