I’ve always been a person to learn from nature and life experiences. Since my injury, one of the biggest life lessons that I have learned is centered around healing. More specifically, the process of healing and how it impacts every area of life.
The need for healing can come from many things. Grief, betrayal, loss, emotional trauma, physical exertion or in my case, injury. Whatever the cause, it’s important to realize that healing is a process, one that often times cannot and should not be rushed.
So, I have to put myself on blast here. After suffering a broken right arm, I spent a lot of time focusing on the end product of the healing rather than the process of the healing itself. In my physical therapy sessions, I often became frustrated from not seeing the progress I felt I should have been seeing. I always asked the same questions: how much longer, when will it be totally healed, why do I still have so much pain, when will the swelling go down? Thankfully my amazing medical team was so patient in answering the same questions over and over which basically summed up to: “It will take time.”
Another key point one of my physicians mentioned is that superficial healing takes place on the outside, however more complex healing is taking place deep into the muscle fibers, even down to the bone marrow. Wow, if that isn’t the truth! This is what makes healing so misleading. When we have an experience that requires healing, its normal to have that first superficial level take place, and we think we’re all good. We go back to normal activities, we are anxious to get back to the day-to-day. Then something else happens and we realize there are some complex areas that are still mending.
So what is the normal course of action at this point? Well, most people, myself included, will tend to brush it off and keep moving. This works for a moment, until we are agitated again and are faced with having to do that one thing: give it time.
In my case, it wasn’t until I stopped pressuring myself to heal, that my body actually made a huge milestone in healing. It was like one morning I woke up, and the areas that pained me the week prior were fine. The aches and pains that kept me up at night were literally gone. I had regained movement that I had been struggling with. It happened in its own time, naturally, and there was nothing I could have done to rush that process.
So where is all this going? It’s okay to have some areas that still need mending. Whether it is emotional or physical, don’t rush the process, trust the process. Allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling. Let that be a catalyst to take you to the next level. Don’t allow anyone to rush you along and certainly don’t open yourself up to words that make you feel inferior for being where you are. Listen to what your body and emotions are telling you. Allow the process to do what it’s designed to do!
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