“Healing does not mean wallowing in or identifying with injury. Nor does it mean defensive inaction. It means having the courage to see, acknowledge, grieve, and repair the holes within ourselves (with, if we are fortunate, loving help from others). It means moving on, patches and all”. Jill Mellick
This quote for me is packed with important messages. I am so lucky to be in the position of being ‘loving help’ to my clients as they heal themselves, it is a role that continually humbles and teaches me. The uniqueness of each person as they navigate their own version of the universal experience of being human makes therapy a dynamic, living process as we together enable and witness their unfolding.
When we get caught up in identifying with our injuries and hurts, or we defend against them, there is a risk that we will become our story and wallow in what has passed. Either way it defines us and our behaviour, and our true self gets lost in the midst of this. Our narrative may provide comfort in some way, but it does not allow us to grow and learn from what has happened. It leaves us stuck in the same place, re-living and potentially re-enacting what has hurt us again and again.
There is a real need to see and acknowledge what we have and are experiencing. To look honestly into the darkness, and to explore our own role and that of others, the circumstances, the events, and the meaning we are making of them. In this process we will grieve our hurts and what has passed, and as we do so we open up to the potential for new and different energies and possibilities.
Grief is not a simple or linear experience, it is an ebb and flow, it intensifies and lessens, and each time it visits more of the stuck energy can be released. As we grieve the impact of our losses on us are more apparent, the quote uses the metaphor of holes for this. I wonder if they are not more like wrinkles and folds perhaps, because I believe we are each whole as we are. I know pain can feel like a cavernous hole, and yet it is from within that very darkness and emptiness that our true self emerges, made more whole by our enquiry.
I love the metaphor of patches, for me this brings to mind decorations, patches of colour and pattern that emerge from our soft spots and vulnerabilities; strengths and diversities that show our journey and our learning.
If you feel the courage to explore your inner experience, you may find psychotherapy a useful process to help you begin. Self-development is a lifelong endeavour, and psychotherapy can add impetus to it when this is needed.
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