Healing fucking hurts

Healing fucking hurts. At some level we understand this. When wounds in our bodies are healing they need protection and so our body communicates pain—hurt—as a warning to back off, to rest, to love that wound gently. But for many of us it can be harder to accept it's the same if the wound is a rending of your heart.

I’m healing from relational trauma. Slowly, then suddenly, I have realized this: what hurts just as much as healing is trying to fight anything that is connected to the healing. Because things that are connected to the healing are often important ingredients to the healing. This is like pushing on a sore, or riding a bike with a broken leg. We get why that doesn’t make sense.

But with emotional wounds and their healing? We fight. I fight.

fight obsessive thoughts

fight pain

fight compassion

fight the need to understand

fight emotional overwhelm

fight the desire to read every goddamn book and take every goddamn webinar on trauma healing

fight the urge to numb out

fight the urge to fight

fight anger at perceived rate of healing

fight depression

fight a desire to reconnect

fight a desire to ghost

fight surrendering to the process

….fight surrender itself

This is where I landed. With a tiny bit more insight that it is surrender I am to surrender to. Stop fighting anything that seems hard, or too easy. Just. Stop. Fighting.

I’ll let you know how that turns out. Or just ask. I’m here because we’re all in this together and I’ll never forget that even if you do for a little while.