It is so understandable to feel impatient with our healing. It always tugs on my heart when a client asks me “How long will this take? When will I feel better?” When we’re suffering, we want to feel better! Of course.

When some kind of trauma is involved, whether from childhood, ancestral patterning, or societal pressures, the suffering is a pattern in your nervous system. It’s in your body. This is why we often see health challenges of various types show up when we have unresolved wounding. In my practice I see a fairly wide range of chronic conditions, often autoimmune in nature, along with unmetabolized trauma. Digestive issues are common, too.

Sometimes the suffering shows itself more in emotional patterns. Relationships that always seem to end up the same way — badly. Anxiety that comes up in predictable ways, in response to a boss asking for a meeting, or a spouse making a fairly innocuous request. Even though there’s no particular reason you should think something bad is about to happen, your heart may start to pound. You might feel like running away, or arguing. That’s flight, or fight. It’s a nervous system response. And, it’s likely a nervous system response that is a memory that has nothing to do with what’s happening in the moment.

Sunset near my home at one of my happy places

Without going too much in depth into the mechanisms of healing, it’s important to know that for the healing of traumatic residues in the nervous system to go deeply and last, the process needs to go slowly. I’ll say that again. Healing trauma needs to go slowly, or the nervous system will be overwhelmed and we risk being retraumatized.

One of the descriptions of trauma is when something happens that’s “too much, too fast” for a person to handle. Healing happens when enough of the state of wounding is present so we can access it, but not so much that we lose awareness within it. We access these states a bit at a time, with support. Slowly enough to stay present with it. Like sticking our big toe in a bathtub full of scalding hot water. Can I handle it? Nope! Too hot! Not yet.

But, you stuck your toe in! That’s the first step. Next time you might feel like you could put… two toes in? With support. So, you’re not alone with the experience.

The main thing I’d like you to know right now is, it’s okay, important even! that you know how to stay resourced while you’re in a healing process.

You probably already know how to do this, you have ways to soothe yourself when you feel upset or anxious. Perhaps it’s watching your favorite show on a streaming service. Common soothing activities are eating, shopping, using alcohol or drugs… Some of which may have long term undesired effects.

While working towards using some soothing resources that are more beneficial long term, I want you to know that you have been doing a great job taking care of yourself in the ways you could figure out with the resources you could access. Most of us start needing to soothe ourselves when we’re children! You may not have had access to the kinds of tools you could use as an adult.

What are some other resources you might use now? Walking in nature. Meditation (for some). Yoga. Dance. Talking to a friend. Watching silly animal videos. Snuggling with your pet or partner. Imagining yourself in your favorite place. Deep breathing. Taking a hot bath. Journaling.

Once you have good resources in place, you’re likely to find that you feel safer and more able to access the wounded places that might have felt overwhelming before.

You need resources to heal safely. What are yours? I’d love to know.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2021 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Life on Life's Terms, Living with Health Challenges, Spiritual Practice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.