The problem with "time heals all" statements

In a recent podcast (episode #558), I talked about the problem with the phrase “time heals all”. ??

There are so many phrases that we use without really thinking of their impact,?until they hit us—until we are in a place where we experience first-hand the pain that a blithe statement, meant as comfort, can cause, even something as simple as “time heals all”.

The Greek poet, Menander, who lived around 300 B.C.E, is apparently the source of this phrase, the original being something like “time is the healer of all necessary evils”. Of course, time is passing and certain things do heal (such as physical wounds), and things do change. (Every moment of every day, we are having new experiences, and this means our mind, brain, and body are changing all the time.)But then why does the phrase “time heals all wounds” feel so frustrating and untrue at certain times in our lives?

A big part of the research I do is looking at how we as humans change over time, and how long it takes to stabilize that change so that we can feel different and function differently.?From our research, my team and I have found that change tends to occur in 9-week cycles, with distinct phases and specific experiences within those phases, confirming what has been found in other research: it truly does take time to change!

So yes, we are all changing all the time, but that doesn’t just mean that “time heals all wounds.” A crucial element is missing: what the direction of the change is, and what control we have over this change.

We are always changing, but that doesn’t mean we are always managing the direction of this change. It requires time and effort and can be a challenging but rewarding process. Managing these changes is the source of true healing, not just time alone. It means, for example, that the darkness from a painful experience or a trauma will always remain, but how we choose to face it and manage it can change, and this is how we find healing. Without managing the change, the darkness doesn't just go away—time doesn’t make it disappear. In fact, it can grow in the wrong direction and consume us. However, managing the change over time by entering into a struggle with the darkness will help us heal, enabling us to eventually?focus on the good—the things that fill us with peace, love, and hope.

Allowing time to pass without working on what is affecting us means the pain may lessen or become less intense, but this is really only like pressing “pause” on the problem, which can come back when reactivated through a trigger. This is why it is so important to “do the work”.?The phrase “time heals all wounds” is essentially an oversimplification of the complex process of healing. Healing takes a lot of work, not just time, and is an incredibly individualized journey, requiring active effort and support to address emotional wounds.?

To do this, I recommend using the Neurocycle mind management method I have developed and studied over the past three decades, which I discuss in detail in my book?Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess?and my app?Neurocycle. The Neurocycle is a way to harness your thinking power that I have developed and researched over the past three decades. It has 5 steps. The first step is to?1.?gather awareness?of how we feel mentally and physically and our perspective when we are dealing with a past wound. The second step is to?2. reflect on how we feel. Then we 3.?write?down our reflections to help organize our thinking.?The fourth step is to?4.?recheck: think about what our thoughts and feelings are trying to tell us. What does it say about what happened to us? What is our “antidote”— how will we work through how our thoughts are affecting us??Lastly, do the 5.?active reach. This is a thought or action we need to practice daily to help us reconceptualize what we thought about in the previous step. What we are going to do each day to give ourselves the time and mental space needed to deal with what is bothering us and turn our destructive thoughts into a constructive future??

To heal, we have to take an inventory of ourselves, our experiences, and our pain and begin finding new ways to accept what we have been through as something that may always be a part of our lives but that does not have to control our lives. We can’t change our story, but, over time, we can learn how to direct the change of how our past plays out in our future.