SHARING YOUR MESSAGE: THE “HOW” IS IN THE HEALING

If you remember, in last month’s issue I made the statement that I had once asked myself (and the Creator); “Why would anyone want to listen to me?” I even went as far as stating that I considered the idea of sharing my story in order to help others as ludicrous. I now believe that I better understand why the question of my ever having anything worthy of saying was so very challenging for me to comprehend. I now understand that the primary reason it was so very difficult for me to incorporate the sharing of my message with the world within my process, was due to the fact that I had not yet reached the point wherein I understood that it would not be simply a sharing of the many traumatic episodes I had lived to that point, inasmuch as it would be the layers of healing I had experienced.

Healing, let’s just take a moment and consider the true ramifications of what this word truly means. Webster’s dictionary defines healing as; “The process of making or becoming sound* or healthy again.”

When I process the complete definition of what healing means now in my life, I find myself literally staring at the word “sound” found within the definition. I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t believe that I have ever included the term “sound” within my perception of what true healing represents. Sure, I have always understood healing to mean the process of something repairing itself, or something becoming whole again…returning to the state it originally was, but never have I ever included the idea of something becoming “sound” within my healing mindset.

For me, when I think of something being sound; I think of solid, complete, or whole. It was not until I began to understand the true definition of healing that I was able to see that although I was indeed making progress (at least in my eyes) in moving past certain difficult situations from my past, I was in no way becoming a more sound being, I was merely “going through situations” and not truly “growing through situations”.

The healing of our bodies is quite different than the healing of our minds, our spirits. Whereas we can apply ointments, take prescribed or over-the-counter medications to promote the healing of bodily aliments, it is nowhere near as simplistic when it comes to the healing of our spirits from those “near death” emotional experiences we encounter along life’s highway.

*Emphasis mine

I will never forget when I was embarking upon what must have been the third or fourth journey with severe depression within my early adulthood, I attempted for the first time to obtain some outside professional help by visiting a psychiatrist. I entered the doctor’s office and watched him intently as he hurriedly jotted what I assumed were case notes for the patient I passed on my way into his office. “Please have a seat” the psychiatrist said; all without even looking up to acknowledge me.  I remember how horribly nervous I was about sharing my innermost secreted demons with a complete stranger, and the fact that already my presence felt like an unwelcomed intrusion did not help matters.

After only sharing my story for no more than 10 minutes or so, the psychiatrist finally glanced up and made contact with me saying; “Here, take this prescription, get it filled and make an appointment for a follow-up visit in 90 days.” I was stunned, especially since I had not even noticed that he had transitioned from writing in his binder notebook to a prescription pad, and I quickly asked as I took the prescription from his hand; “What’s this and what’s it for?” “It’s Lithium”, the doctor stated; “…and it’s to help with your depression.” When I asked how long I could expect to be taking this medication (which I knew nothing about, including any potential side effects), I nearly fell from my seat when I was forced to process the response of; “for life!”

I promptly threw the prescription back on the doctors’ desk and exited his office, and this time it was I who offered no eye contact! As I drove away from my appointment that day, I shall never forget how utterly alone and afraid I felt. I felt as if what little hope I maintained that I could one day be free of the enormous pain and regret I then embraced with all my might, had just been snatched from within my reach…forever! It felt as if I had just received news that I was afflicted with some terminal disease and that time for me was at best, running out…and quickly.

Here is where that spontaneous decision gets sticky, although it is obvious to me now that my decision to avoid a lifetime of prescription medications in order to deal with my trauma of the past was a wise choice; I still nonetheless was taking a huge misstep in life by doing so. After several weeks of attempting to locate an alternative route to prescription medications all with zero positive results, I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into my depression. Finally the day came when I turned the volume of the negative voice within me up to the maximum level, and began listening to the plan that sounded at the time like my only option available. This option was nearly the undoing of my purpose in life, the extinguishing of my passion for life, and my path to exiting this world leaving a legacy of shame and heartbreak. I decided to self-medicate and just like that, virtually overnight…I dove head first within an addiction to street drugs that would drag me spirit first over the rockiest terrain for the next 14 years.

Looking back in retrospect, it is now of course much easier for me to understand, clearer for me to see and share with others just what a potentially fatal decision this truly was, my self-medicating to avoid the pain, but nonetheless does not in any way discount how I was actually feeling at the time.

When feeling as if we have gone as far as one can go, have done all that one can do…the search for freedom from pain can lead to some very unhealthy decisions, which for various reasons will make all the sense in the world at the time. The healing of emotional wounds is in my opinion the most difficult healing process of all to initiate. After all, unlike a physical wound which is either apparent to the naked eye or if internal, obvious due to warning signals that something is just not right…our emotional wounds are extremely difficult to access, let alone diagnose.

Had I been aware at the time of the actual definition of healing, and had I considered whether or not my decision to self-medicate would eventually led me to a form of healing based in “soundness of spirit”, things just may have taken a turn for the better within my life, but that was not to be my journey.

When growing our messages for the masses, it is imperative from day one that we seek out whatever courage is necessary in order to “cut and paste” those life lessons which we have already mastered, those hard times that we have already lived through. The cutting and pasting of those most difficult seasons of one’s life is not as easy as many would have you believe, it requires a level of self-honesty that many survivors of trauma are not aware even exists. For many years I was the sole saboteur of my own emotional healing, simply due to my inability to forgive the past and other’s from the past, as well as my insistence on continuing to blame everything and everyone else for whatever I was unhappy or uncomfortable with within my life.

Just as a physical wound requires some form of a dressing to protect the wound from unwanted bacteria and germs, so does the human spirit. Unfortunately, most of us reach for denial, self-blame, regret, and retaliation to dress our emotional wounds with, and of course these remedies eventually prove themselves to not be remedies at all, inasmuch as the spirit-eating, dream-killing, mass weapons of destructions they truly are.

So how does one know which emotional medicine cabinet to reach within when so desperately in need of an emotional bandage? Well the first thing you should understand is that emotional wounds require stages of healing in exactly the same manner as burns to our skin. Severe burns to the human skin are not capable of healing simply by forming a blister which contains healing fluids, as minor burns can. Severe burns cause damage in varying degrees which represent the layers of skin that were effected during the injury, they require a thorough cleaning first to assure that the wound does not become infected, and in many cases require a daily scrubbing process that is considered one of the most painful processes the human body can endure. The healing process for burns to the human body can take often times months and months to heal, and even after the skin has healed there is pain, discomfort and excruciating itching that can last for years and in some cases…for life. Burn victims upon physical healing must then decide how they plan on dealing with the aftermath of their injuries, for some this means skin grafting or perhaps plastic surgery. There is also the matter of disfiguring that burn victims must deal with, and the realization of what a truly cruel and judgmental world we live in, and the after effects just go on and on. 

The healing of emotional injuries is very similar to what I have just described regarding the healing of burns to the human body; there will be varying degrees of injury, some of our injuries will heal over with the assistance of a simple blister and the healing fluids held within, others will be much more painful, burn through many additional layers of our emotional skin, require many months or perhaps years of healing. There will be the obvious outward scaring, but in many cases even deeper scars that only you will see. And yes… we too, just as burn victims must, will find that we must now fight even harder to understand and survive within a world that can be cruel and judgmental of our scars.

My advice to you is thus, remember…there is a reason we are taught throughout life to develop a “thick skin” wherein it pertains to our emotions. Our emotional skin thickens with each battle we conquer, with each time we are burned by life or those within our lives, with each bandage changing we endure, and with each battle scar we wear with pride. In order to grow through the trials and hardships that we must all endure while on our journey toward sharing our messages with the masses, we must be willing and accepting of the many challenges that offer up the questions which derail and dismantle so many dreams for so many people. Why me? When will my turn come? What will my story be? Where to now? And then there is the question of all questions…How can I change the world for better? How can I share my message with the masses….How? Begin today the changing of the bandages from having been burned in life, begin moving through the pain of having been burned by others and false opportunities, begin by simply asking yourself; “How badly do I want to make a difference in this world?” Ask how and there will always be only one answer; How far am I willing to go to reach my healing? For the “How” is in the healing, I promise.