On Healing
I, like many others, was raised in a way in which perfectionism was valued. Pair that with being in a gifted program in school for years and that only magnified the value placed on high achievement.
We were raised to value perfection over progress, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized we had it backwards — in the end, progress is ultimately more important than perfection. Perfect doesn’t leave room for progress; it doesn’t leave room for improvement. Perfect may get the answer right every time, but what are you really learning if you are not failing? Are you really, truly succeeding if you get it right every time?
I recently read It Didn’t Start with You, by Mark Wolynn — a memoir about trauma and healing, it explores how certain patterns of behaviour can be passed down between family members, and how it’s on us to become aware of this and try to break the cycle and change these patterns.
He speaks of how people “often attempt to distance themselves from their emotional pain by avoiding it. In this way, they think that they are protecting themselves […]. Ignoring the pain actually deepens it.” Avoidance is one of the worst things we can do here — all it does is block the road to healing and allow for the possibility that “the suffering will surface again at a later time” (in his own words).
For too long in my life, I had wrongly thought that compartmentalizing and being “OK” actually made things better — my thinking was that if I gave less energy to the negative, I could give more energy to what is positive and good. However, by doing so, we never really heal — we simply create a shaky bridge over the pain, one made of wood and ropes vs. concrete and steel.
This ties back to the idea of striving towards an unachievable standard of perfection. Perfection means you never heal — maintaining positive feelings only means you never heal. Acting in this way is only a façade, a bandaid, covering up the situation. But what happens when that temporary solution can’t hold up anymore? What happens when the old wound resurfaces?
I think it comes down to learning that having negative feelings is OK, just as having positive feelings is also OK. We need to try as best we can to experience the full range of emotions — suppressing doesn’t solve anything. This is something I am still working on. Naturally, positive emotions feel more “fun” and are more enjoyable to experience, but we truly need them all — the highs and lows, the ebbs and flows.
I think too there is a way to experience this full range of emotions, yet in an indifferent way — instead of letting them impact our moods and attitudes, we can instead choose to accept them as they are. In doing so, having a “good” day is OK, just as having a “bad” day is OK — it’s all a part of the process, all a part of the bigger picture.
Posted on Yung Pueblo’s Instagram page, he writes that: “You are the key to your healing, not time. Hurt, trauma and dense conditioning will continue sitting in your mind, impacting your emotions and behavior, until you go inward. What heals is self-love, learning to let go, self-awareness and building new habits.” It is our choice to make, deciding how we react to what happens to us.
And as much we work on ourselves and actively put work into the healing process, we need to be aware of the fact that “you cannot heal your way to a world where negativity doesn’t exist, because it always will” (from Ceremony).
In working on ourselves, it’s important not to compare ourselves to others. We need to keep in mind that we are all at different points of progress, different points of healing, different points of life. None of us are on an even playing field with each other, each with our own strengths and areas for improvement. The most you can do is to compare yourself to yourself — where you were yesterday, last month, last year. Have you actively tried to improve in the areas you wanted to since then? Are you happy with who you’ve become?
When you catch yourself feeling stressed, unhappy, bitter, etc., take a moment to pause — really think about what’s causing you to feel and react this way. There’s no need to feel ashamed of your negative feelings or to try to avoid them. Instead, focus on learning to look at them more objectively — notice it, name it, and if necessary, repair it by adjusting your thinking and/or behaviour. This will help your healing.
It’s OK not to be OK — if you need this reminder (and I do too), here it is.