HEALING

Yesterday's post forced me to take a fresh look at healing.
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Starting with the literal, here is what M-W has to say about the word "Heal": 1: to make sound or whole, 2 a : to cause (an undesirable condition) to be overcome, 3: to restore to original purity or integrity.
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HealING....it's an action word. It implies an ongoing process. Am I still healing? I guess the question to ask first would be "Am I still in pain?" Most of the time, no. I feel more like I'm growing as opposed to healing which makes me believe the healing is largely done for me. And then I have questions like yesterday....why would I be stuck with thoughts of something so foolish and potentially harmful if I was truly healed?
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The thing is, depending on the wound, healing can be finite or subjective. A physical wound has a beginning, middle and end. Let's take my finger, for example. Twelve years ago, I put my hand accidentally through a glass pane and cut my finger down to the bone:Beginning. ER visit, stitches, follow up visits, stitches out, butterfly bandages applied:Middle. Skin fuses back together, redness and scar tissue diminish over time, no more pain:End. Yes, there is a faded scar but it's healed. That scar is part of me but does not affect my life in any way.

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An emotional wound is impossible to quantify. Healed implies back to normal and we all know that "normal" loses all application in the life of a victim. Healed implies perfection and we as humans are inherently imperfect. So waiting to feel healed may, in fact, be setting us up to constantly feel like a failure or as if we're hopelessly, helplessly scarred. I think when the pain is largely gone we're about as healed as we can hope to be. It doesn't mean the experience is gone and it doesn't mean we don't still have growing to do. But when an instance that would have brought pain or panic instead brings reflection, conscious connection and growth, we are healed.
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I have long believed I am toward the end of my healing journey. But still on an exciting path of growth. I am often able to identify triggers and feelings though my struggle sometimes is expressing those feelings. This experience is shaking my confidence and I'm not sure what it all means. But I can tell you I don't like it.
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Maybe healing, for me, means learning to accept that I still have feelings, maybe will always have feelings, of loss when it comes to my family. And that's just how it is. I think it makes me feel weak that I'm not "over it."