imagine helping someone else heal

 

If you have been toying with the idea of writing about your personal experience with illness or injury, but you haven't made time for it, or you can't find the words to get you started, you should probably consider starting small. Not with your open heart surgery or your traumatic brain injury, but the time you twisted your ankle in the backyard, or sliced your finger with the kitchen knife. You remember it, right? How much it hurt. How you had to call in sick that day, and trek over to ER for an Xray or stitches.

You worried about missing work. You dreaded seeing your bill. You berated yourself for having been so careless, or lazy, or stupid (not that lack of intelligence had anything to do with it). You apologized profusely for inconveniencing your spouse and coworkers. Perhaps you missed your child's soccer game or dance recital that day. You felt so helpless. You swore you'd never let it happen again. 

Not a healing thought among them.

"An injury is not just a process of recovery.

It's a process of discovery."

~Conor McGregor~

The severity of the injury wasn't the issue. The trouble started when you surrendered to anxiety, frustration, and anger. You blamed yourself, and went on to punish yourself for it. You sent discouraging and judgmental messages to your body when it was doing its best to heal...

...which, if you had been paying attention, would have amazed you. While you were carrying on about how stupid and careless you were, your blood stream rushed coagulation factors to the site of your cut and stopped the bleeding. Fibroblasts made their way to the ligaments in your ankle, and went to work repairing them. Naturally occurring chemicals flooded your system to reduce the pain. 

"Your body's ability to heal

is greater than anyone 

has permitted you to believe."

~HEAL Documentary~

Instead of chastising yourself for causing the injury, you could have been cheering yourself on. You might have rested instead of pushing yourself to carry on as usual despite the pain. You could have redirected the energy you wasted on self-reproach, bitterness, and embarrassment to self-care and self-acceptance. You could have been an advocate for your own healing, if only you had known you had the ability, and the power to do it.

If, as many of us now believe, you can participate in your own healing, or hamper it, imagine the role attitude, intention, optimism, and hope play in healing after a heart attack, a paralyzing injury, even a bout of severe depression. Imagine loving and tending to the needs of your broken body. Your ailing spirit. Your elusive dreams. 

Now, imagine helping someone else heal.

"We are stronger in the places

we have been broken."

~Ernest Hemingway~

jan