Healing is beautifully ugly..

I have changed, I can see it, feel it and experience it on the daily as a result of the move. I can see now that all the time I had invested in healing has resulted in a version of me evolving that is different to who I was at the beginning of this journey. I wish I could tell you that somehow she’s better off, that she doesn’t struggle anymore and or that she’s made it to the other side. But I would be lying if I painted that picture and I don’t want to be dishonest about how hard it is to go through a healing journey. Of course, for everyone this path is different and so I can’t speak to everyone’s experience. But I can share with you what mine has looked like and felt like so that you can feel a little less lonely through whatever you are experiencing.

It goes like this, at the beginning I had high hopes, I was optimistic about arriving at a point where I could suddenly let go of the hang ups and mental health challenges that held me back. Perhaps one day I will arrive at that destination, who knows, but now that I’ve been walking this path for a few years I realise that healing isn’t about wiping away what has been or about creating a new white canvas to restart from. Healing is about learning to accept all the pieces of you, the good, the bad and the ugly and know that they’re all loveable. That no matter how flawed, cracked or broken you are, you are enough. It’s about knowing that you can get through the hardship and still build a life that is beautiful. Healing is beautifully ugly, it’s the type of ugly that you can admire when you stand back from it and see it for what it is. When you go through trauma, grief, loss and or betrayal you can’t just go about life pretending that everything is ok. But you can go through life with a sense of reassurance that you are still here, taking each day as it comes and doing the best that you can.

We have socially created a false sense of reality where perfection is the compass that is driving our efforts; where being happy is about being perfect. The perfect routine, relationship, job, experiences, family dynamics, friends and perhaps the biggest lie of all the perfect self. But there is no such thing and it’s dangerous creating expectations of such a life that simply cannot ever be real. Being fulfilled or content is not the same as having a perfect life. Being fulfilled and content is just as much a state of mind and attitude towards life then it is an indication that the external world is perfect. The difference is your attitude towards the cards you’ve been dealt with and whether you choose to live in delight or if you decide that you want to focus on the gaps. Life has a simple rule and that is that we all experience a set of adverse events that will either make us or break us. The choice is ours.

The healing journey has taught me that it’s possible for contradictions to live alongside each other. I am both grateful and dissatisfied, I am both hurt and healed, I am both happy and sad. It’s showed me that life isn’t as black and white as I would have liked it to be. It’s also showed me that I need to have help and how critical it is to equip myself with tools that will support me. Tools like therapy, journalling, yoga, exercise, nature and having a good support network around me. I still have moments where it’s all doom and gloom but I’m choosing curiosity instead of surrender; staying curious about what else I need to understand about myself? Is it circumstances that is causing the hiccup? The body not having its needs met? My lifestyle and the decisions I’m making on a daily? Or something else? I now have the wisdom to know that there is nothing I can do to stop these moments of downfall, but I have the ability to either choose them as teaching moments or as moments of despair. I’ve tried both paths and it goes without saying that being present for the lesson is always the better option.

I don’t have a clean slate, I don’t have a new canvas to start from. The scars they’re all over my body and mind. They will always be there, but I have planted many seeds that will eventually grow into beautiful gardens that will help make the scars beautiful. I am no longer interested in pretending that my past wasn’t my past, that I am not hurt, that I am not struggling. I am no longer interested in hiding my story, my journey and or rationalising it. This is all part of my story, my journey and I am the writer who gets to decide what to do with it. I get to choose what lens to look out with and how to experience my day to day. When the pain and grief come knocking I will invite them in for a cup of tea and hold them in my compassionate heart because I now know that love is the only way that you can get through pain. You have to be open to it all. You have to love yourself and work towards letting go of the shame, guilt, blame and any critical thoughts that pull you down.

So, dear ones the journey ahead of you is not smooth or linear. It’s not easy nor beautiful. It’s full of highs and lows, full of contradictions, full of discomfort. But, you get to choose how to make sense of it all and how to open yourself up for accepting what is there so that you can move through it. Be kind to yourself whatever you find there and please make sure you get the help that you need. You don’t have to go through your Soul Journey alone and you don’t have to struggle at every corner.

Love Always,

M