healing our hearts

What does it mean to heal what has been wounded? 

We often feel our emotional wounded-ness very physically – a pain in our belly at the image of a particular loss, or a tightness in the chest or throat.  The physical sensations holding the pain of a particular experience, words spoken to us or in our environment,  a betrayal, maybe how we have been treated, or have treated others.  Our body holds the memories and hurts of the past, and even science has confirmed this (see The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk).  

The mind tells us stories, and these stories connect with the body, and we can be trapped in the cycles of repeating these stories and the wound, felt in the body, arising as emotions, can feel freshly opened each time.  At times, we can feel as if we are in a cage of our pain and suffering. 

And we can go to therapists, friends, self help books, retreats, teachers, or on a spiritual quest to try and stop the pain, to find a way out of this feeling of wounded-ness and hurt.  Or we medicate, go to doctors, or “drugs” of all kinds (food, sex, substances, relationships, work, material things, Netflix, etc) to find a way out.

We want out, we want away from this.  And we can run for our whole lives, in small ways, and in big ways to get away from it. 

But what if the actual problem is the running, not the pain?

What if we fully allow ourselves to turn, face it, and see what happens?  To open to the potential for true healing?

How do we find the healing we so desperately need?

Well, paradoxically we must stop.  Yes, that’s right, just stop.

We turn and face the pain.  And we don’t only face it, we feel it completely.  We let it rise, and we find a way to fully allow it. 

Usually what happens at this point is that our mind will tell us (will scream at us) that we will be consumed by it.  And what if we never stop feeling it, we musn’t feel it, we need to get away.  And if we believe that, then we are then caught in the same cycle of running away.

And it’s ok to move away, sometimes we need to keep going back, checking out how much we can hold. We have to respect that scared part of us. So we can move towards it, feel it for a bit, then move away, getting used to that exquisite dance.

Try it out. Healing is available when we turn towards…

So I would suggest, the next time you hear that voice, or feel that urge to run from your pain, to move away, that you could just start by being curious about it. Be interested in what is happening. This is how the heart moves towards itself, and welcome in healing, even if its just a little interest, a little kindness. It can feel like such a balm.