Healing is not Linear
By: Debra Brent
There is no time table to healing
Healing is definitely not linear.
The way I tend to compare healing is to an onion. It has many layers and you can't uncover the next until the previous one has been fully stripped away - and unfortunately, every layer will bring tears to your eyes 🥺 (but tears are also healing 🥰).
When I began coaching with BeatAnxiety.Me, and even with my previous therapists and counselors, I thought it was the physical and sexual abuse that needed to be dealt with and then I would be "good to go".
Little did I realize at the time the complexities and layers that would need to be unearthed in my own journey to get to the roots of the real internal and external struggles.
And as with any external manifestations, such as those unhealthy ways of coping, there are underlying reasons for these and those are what needed to addressed.
As my Emotional Coach used to always tell me, not only can you not heal what you refuse to acknowledge and reveal, but you also can't heal what you refuse to accept.
I became "stuck" in between acknowledgement and acceptance for years due to one simple reason:
I couldn't accept the truth
They say that the truth hurts and more often than not it does, and usually it hurts like a bitch!!
It hurt me to realize I had been abandoned and neglected.
It hurt me to accept I was a people pleaser.
It hurt me to accept how many others I hurt because of my own lack of acknowledgement and acceptance.
It hurt me to accept the way I acted/reacted.
And the biggest hurt of all?
It hurt to look in the mirror & realize how much I truly hated myself because of it all.
This is where forgiveness comes in - something I was never taught and knew little of how the concept actually worked.
Not only through coaching, but through the Bible, I learned that forgiveness is about you and NOT the perpetrator; forgiveness is not a "one time" thing; forgiveness is a process which involves not only acceptance, but letting go.
And that forgiveness is not about forgetting, but about freedom.
Healing has an "ing" on the back of it for a reason. It's an ongoing process. You're going to have times where you take 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. You are going to get "stuck". You are going to want to wave your white flag and just be done with it. You are going to explode with anger or sink back into depression and isolation.
The thing is, THAT'S OK!!
It's OK not to be OK, as long as you don't remain there. If the same things keep coming back up, there's a reason for it. What you don't repair, will repeat. So, in those times, you need to dig deep and introspect, asking not "Why is this happening to me?", but instead, "What is this trying to teach me?"
You know how when you do a connect the dots puzzle, and there's like 10,000 dots and no matter how many times you search, you just can't seem to find the next one in sequence?
Keep searching!!
Keep searching, because IT IS THERE! Just as with your healing, all of the answers you need, all of the tools and strength you are looking for, they ARE all right there inside of you,
If you just realize that you are WORTH the effort to never give up on fighting for yourself and your freedom!
Remember, you are not in this alone and we can learn to not only heal, but silence our shame….. together 💞
Sending you love, hugzz and prayers,
Debra
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