Making Space for Healing

Healing is often less about the action we take + more about the space we create.

There’s a place for action, of course -- but in my experience, doing (+ the idea that doing is the only way I fix things + make progress) can often get in the way, blocking the energy that needs to move through me in weird, wild, and unpredictable ways.

Earlier this week, I talked to my therapist about the insurrection, and the session was mostly my incoherent rambling.

I acknowledged at one point in our conversation that my all-over-the-place ranting reflected the jumbled + not-at-all-put-together state of my psyche at the moment.

And he simply responded by saying that my jumbled psyche was exactly what we were there to explore + make room for.

So I kept talking + shaking + feeling + ranting -- and it helped. It created flow + cleared space.

And space + flow were what I needed.

In my experience, an action plan -- especially in situations like these -- is often my attempt to control + repress my primal energies + embodied instincts that actually need to move + unfold in ways that aren’t at all linear or rational.

Because what’s alive inside of us carries deep, healing power -- especially when we let it do its work + magic in us.

How might you trust + make space for what’s real + alive within you? How might you welcome the healing powers of your deepest, truest energies?

The Honest, Gritty Truth about Change

Our capacity as human creatures to change, shift, and transform – to upend a life, identity, or trajectory to create a new one – is one of the most awe-inspiring marvels of life, in my experience.

We all possess this power, and that’s a beautiful truth.

But I don’t often see a lot of honest conversations about what change actually is and what it requires.

Change is wonderful – it’s also often hard and weird. It’s dangerous alchemy and volatile combustion. This is true whether the changes are good or bad, chosen or not, external or internal.

Because when we undergo a change that cracks or shatters our sense of reality or asks parts of us to die to be reborn, there are moments of empty (and perhaps terrifying) uncertainty, moments when we are confronted with the questions: who am I, and what is real? – and don’t know the answers.

And this unknowingness is destabilizing and catalytic – and certainly not as safe as the status quo.

I was reminded of this recently. I was having a hard mental health day and feeling confused about it, until I remembered I was in my own process of transformation. And since those changes were internal (and invisible) rather than obvious in my external world, I had overlooked the care I needed to navigate the process.

Because often, the actual, lived experience of transforming is one of our whole system being wobbly, out of alignment, and in an uneven, jumbled mess as parts of us deepen, grow, and expand, while others are left behind and trying to catch up.

I try to remember to expect all of this so that I can be intentional in creating space for my body and spirit to integrate, rest, and heal. Because there will probably be hard days, and things will probably get broken along the way. And when I can expect this and (sort of) prepare for it, I can more easily let the current carry me along and invite care and grace into the process.