Have you ever found yourself thinking, “healing; that’s what I need.” It’s a word used a lot in the therapy world, and I think for many people it is elusive and difficult to know if or when you have reached it.

Healing defined:

As someone in a field that values evidence based approaches, I have been thinking a lot about how we talk about healing as a culture. Many times people come into therapy looking for healing, but if we struggle to define it, how do we know when we arrive at the destination? Merriam Webster would define it as, “to make free from injury or disease,” or, “to make well again.” An article from the National Institute of Health, called healing, “transcending suffering.” So even once we define it, what in the world does it actually look and feel like?

Suffering: everyone’s doing it!

Well, in order to describe healing, we have to look at what we’re healing from. Religions, politicians, parents and teachers, may all have different ways of looking at suffering, but I imagine most agree it is unavoidable. Some religions may say that suffering is a “gift,” or a “lesson.” Parents may tell you to “pick yourself up and keep going.”

The feeling is subjective, deeply personal, yet also universally understood.

It’s the reason we cry at movies, or why music and art move us. We know that though our pain isn’t felt in the same exact manner, we can relate to someone else. Pain is a powerful connector. We are not alone. Heartbreak, grief, confusion, rejection; we have words for these experiences because they are a part of a universal experience spanning millennia. There is beauty in knowing you’re not the first one to feel this way, and you won’t be the last. In that, I think many of us can find healing.

What now?

If you’ve made it this far, you might be able to tell, I am a person who spends a lot of time thinking about healing, thinking about personal growth, and the human experience. I also find myself concerned about people wanting to gain a felt sense of “healing” without knowing what it “should” or “will” feel like.

Practically speaking:

If we are to transcend suffering, how do we measure this? For some people it will look like the reduction of fear; for others it will look like a deeper felt experience. For one person who suffers with nightmares or flashbacks; to extinguish this fear is “healing.” For another, who’s held in pain for decades; in the flowing of tears, they may find true healing for the first time. For most, we’ll find ourselves on a journey filled with ups and downs; failures and successes. One week it’s a celebration that I cried less, and another week, it’s a celebration that I let myself cry. Is this Webster’s definition of healing, “made well again?”

I’m not always sure, but I know I’m on the right path, when I allow myself to truly feel.

To my fellow travelers on the journey: To the person feeling like they messed up again, I’m writing this to you. I’m writing this to you, the person feeling like they can’t seem to just “be happy.” I’m writing this to you, the mom who yelled today, no matter how hard she tried not to. I’m writing this to myself and others like me; The journey is long, and we won’t get it right all the time. But the journey IS the healing.

What would Nietzsche say?

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed a lot of life was meaningless. Now, stick with me – even he felt that suffering had purpose in personal development. So the guy who thought all of life really meant nothing much, still felt that getting through suffering meant something.

As a therapist, I don’t hold all of life’s answers, and I don’t always have a way to fix your pain. But what I do know is what pain feels like. I know how to sit with it, to allow it to run its course, and to allow it to develop me, and create meaning in my life. I believe that one day, you can wake up, and find you no longer judge yourself for your missteps or shortcomings, but you allow yourself to simply be.

Reach out

If these are topics you would like to explore, therapy is actually a great place to bring them up. You can reach out to set up a session with me, or just bring up these thoughts to your current therapist. Whether we take the journey together in therapy, or you continue down the path with your current community; know you’re not alone. No matter where you find yourself, the journey is the healing.

Consider getting started today on your journey of healing. You are not alone.