Often clients in therapy emphasise on making healing the top most priority and decide to put their lives on a standstill until healed. Decisions such as- I will try dating again/go to gym/go on that trip I have been wanting to/ enjoy, relax or even breathe only after getting healed! While I truly love and appreciate the clients and my younger self for such dedication to self and therapy, I would also want to share
that this can be massively counterintuitive! Here’s how- looking at healing as a task and necessary condition towards allowing ourselves to live life fully can set off a stress response and can lead to increased levels of cortisols (stress hormones) in our body thereby, obstructing the healing process itself! Therapy may become a daunting space and healing can be seen as a huge mountain which we may start avoiding or would take a break from. Additionally, having a mental timeline of healing milestones and a mental version of how our healed version of self would look may interfere with the reality of healing, thereby, leaving us frustrated!
Let's inquire into some ways in which we can approach healing-
1. Therapeutic Healing is in the here & now, its not a destination First and foremost, whether you believe it or not- we are inherently healed beings; not broken but whole and wise! For instance, when we cut our finger, somehow our cells exactly know how to organise themselves in a manner to miraculously heal the wound. Everything we need to know and become, our body and brain already carries the blueprint of it. Therapy then is a tool through which you can come back or tap into the already available intuitive wisdom in you. Healing doesn’t need a roadmap, rather, it needs a constant intention of attuning to self to access that wisdom. Therapy is a space to foster this attunement through different modalities/techniques and the therapist-client relationship! Thus, faith in the wholeness of self and the therapeutic process can be a good place to start from and continue!
2. Study the nature of healing Healing was never meant to be serious and disciplined! I always remind myself and my clients when we are ‘trying too hard to heal’ about this story I heard from a Buddhist professor. He related- a man enrolled for Kung Fu classes and on his first day he very enthusiastically asked his trainer,“by when will I master this art?” The trainer responded, “in ten years.” Then the man very dedicatedly asked, “what if I give my day and night and heart and soul to it and try very very hard, then how long should it take?” The trainer responded, “then twenty years, dear.” According to Biodynamic therapy, “Life heals itself given the proper conditions.” These proper conditions can be understood as the preparation of the soil to be fertile enough for the seed to use its innate intelligence to grow! And that growth is effortless! Similarly, conditions imperative to healing requires us to re-establish our connection to what we were already born with! Yes, observe a child and you will know, just like a seed, what does healing thrive in? These thriving conditions are play, childlike spirit, spontaneity, movement, laughter, joyful activities and plenty of rest! For example, enrolling for an art class to invite colours into our lives; enrolling for dance class to invite music and movement; keeping time aside for rest and rejuvenation; openness to experimentation and risks; ability laugh with others and on ourselves etc during the therapeutic healing process can become a huge aid!
3. Honor the trajectory of the healing process Since healing is not linear and unique for each individual, it requires us to expect and allow the occurrences of highs and lows and twirls and twists. The pathway that our healing will choose to take will be with the purpose of throwing flashlight on exactly all those parts of you that need to be seen, heard and attended to! For example, in my healing process I would encounter myself circling back to similar roadblocks of trusting too quickly and feeling betrayed. The cycle stopped when I started to take notice of the patterns and the parts of me involved in that pattern which in this case was betraying myself, in order to please others.
4. Go slow and gentle not only with the process of healing but also with what is being healed- yourself! When we meet those parts of us that are not getting the sunlight of the ever present wholeness and healing within us but are suffering in the shadows, we may want to discard those parts. For instance- the part of me which feels needy because it did not receive the affection and attention it deserved to or the part of me which is cynical because it did not receive trusting relationships. It is now that we take the responsibility of giving these parts the healing sunlight through our warmth of attention, compassion and tenderness! For example- when I met my anxious part whom I loathed for what it makes me go through, I decided not to judge or criticise it. I allowed myself to understand why the anxious part is always in anxiety and I learnt that it is here only with the intention to protect me! That realisation changed my relationship with anxiety. Today it is integrated as an important voice but not a voice that takes over me because it no longer needs to be loud in order to get my attention. I am able to compassionately co-exist with my anxious part!
To sum it up, lets reaffirm in the truth that- Healing is an ever present sense which keeps revealing itself only when we show up to live our lives fully! We don’t need to play hide and seek with life in order to heal when in therapy!
-Snehal Saraf
(Founder & Psychotherapist)
Category: Kintsugi with Compassion
Therapeutic work is often about Curiously & Compassionately saying, "Hi" to yourself again and again and again...until You and Your parts are Kintsugi-ed!