HEALING

" Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity" - Hippocrates

Healing is restoration to a state of wholeness and well-being. While healing is generally thought of in physical terms, it is no less essential in the emotional and spiritual realm. Healing is a lifelong process that endeavors to unearth the issues clouding your soul and to repair the metaphorical holes in your heart.

All people have healing as a required lesson at some point in their lives. Even those who appear to have perfect lives, devoid of issues, will not be able to bypass this lesson. Life presents too many obstacles and tests for anyone to sail through completely unscathed. Fortunately, we live in a culture that is tuned in to the importance of healing, so a wide range of resources are available. Whatever method you choose is irrelevant; what is important is that you take the time to nurture yourself toward wholeness.

The journey toward wholeness can be expedited if you are willing to use your outer experiences as tools to heal your own inner wounds. Every negative experience is a chance to heal something within yourself. A male friend once confided in me that he was suffering from impotence. He was deeply ashamed about this and filled with self-loathing. He knew his impotence resulted from feelings of unworthiness stemming from when his old girlfriend left him abruptly for another man, yet he was unable to repair his self-esteem.

Eventually, my friend met a wonderful woman named Andrea who loved him unconditionally. It took many months for my friend to finally allow Andrea's unconditional acceptance of him to reflect its healing properties onto his own damaged image of himself. He gradually allowed her to act as a mirror for his own self-acceptance and, through her love, learn to love himself again. Happily, his impotence vanished along with his other negative feelings.

It is entirely possible that other people's positive perception of us can heal any damage in our self-esteem. But healing through mirroring can occur another way, as well. We can learn to heal past wounds the moment they are triggered in the present moment. This is done by dealing with the feelings that surface in certain difficult situations once and for all. The people who act as mirrors in the present can give you the gift of healing wounds from the past.

Stephanie, wanted to leave her job at a publishing house to go into business for herself as a freelance editor. However, she and her boss/mentor had been locked in a dysfunctional working relationship for nearly seven years, and she was having a difficult time separating form him. He treated her like a child, rarely allowing her to make any decisions on her own without consulting him first and keeping her on an extremely short leash. Whenever Stephanie protested or tried to assert her independence, her boss would make her feel guilty by saying he had invested many years in her and that she owed him her career.

Stephanie was feeling frustrated, beaten down, and incapable of breaking free from this situation. She expressed deep disdain for her boss, yet contradicted her venomous remarks with loving, fatherly stories about him. It was clear to me that stephanie had some parent/child healing to do and that this situation was a perfect opportunity to mirror back to her what she needed.

When I asked Stephanie if this situation reminded her of anything or anyone, she immediately told me a story from when she was twenty-one years old. She was officially leaving home for the first time, moving out of her parents' house and in with her long-term boyfriend. Her mother took stephanie's leaving home as a personal betrayal, and verbally attacked Stephanie the night before she moved out. Sitting in her room amidst her packed bags late that night, Stephanie looked up and saw her mother swooping down the hallway toward her, her robe flying out behind her like a witch's cape. When her mother reached her, she hissed at Stephanie, "What you are doing is selfish. Just plain selfish. How dare you leave like this?" Stephanie cowered, and snuck out of the house early the next morning.

Stephanie and I agreed that the situation with her boss was mirroring an old wound of guilt and recollections of not being able to stand up for herself. We both knew she was being given an opportunity to heal this wound by leaving the right way this time, with her dignity and with honor. After many rehearsals, Stephanie eloquently, graciously and with unshakable confidence told her boss she was leaving to further her own growth. Thus, the old wound in her psyche was healed.

What wounds do you carry that need to be healed?