The Tea on “Healing”.
MAY 24 2022Are You or Your Inner Critic Running Your Wellness?
As we set out into any new wellness practice—meditation, therapy, cleanses—it’s natural to fantasize how we’ll be on the other side. Even now you may be conjuring an image of you “healed” or you “well”. What’s it like? What parts of you look or feel different than they are now? What do you imagine will be possible once you have achieved this change? It’s beautiful how our places of pain brilliantly guide us toward exactly what we need.
Unfortunately when we start attaching conditions to the results and become rigid in our routines, we risk turning really good medicine into poison. For instance, what happens inside you when you miss a day of your regimen? Whether it’s your meditation, exercise, herbs, and supplements--what’s it like when you skip a day, either on purpose or by accident? Do you get agitated? Do you mentally chew over how and when you’ll get back to your routine? Do you give up on it entirely?
In my therapy practice, some clients show up to their first session with an eerily specific picture of what their life will be like when they are “healthy”. There’s an urgent, gripping quality to their voice. Yet others shrug through the first session, lost for words or hope that they’ll ever feel different than they do in this moment. Inside pressured speech or cavernous quiet, I hear the same lurking whisper. An insidious hiss of feared brokenness.
Are You Chasing Validation?
When we fear or believe that we are broken, the temptation to fix ourselves will consume all possibilities of real healing. Within the false belief of being broken, we can swing from obsessive fantasies of the future into hopeless resignation that anything will ever change. In pursuit of a perfected version of ourselves, we get hooked on external remedies for our perceived flaws and lapse into despair when they don’t work.
Even the most “healing” modality will make you feel like a failure if you’re caught in a habit of seeking validation from outside yourself. Fixing transforms into healing when we acknowledge the unkind commentary of our inner critic and respond differently.
Is it Self-Fixing Hiding as “Healing” ?
Here are some key ways to catch if you’re drifting into self-fixing:
You get agitated if you miss a day of your wellness routines.
{And/Or!} You give up easily on your routines.
You often think about what you’ll look like or what you’ll have if you do your health rituals. {Outside-in thinking}
Your self-care has started to feel like a burden.
THE STAKES FEEL TOO HIGH TO PAUSE.
Ready to Heal, for Real?
Healing means FEELING THE discomfort of RIGHT where we’re at; not avoidING it.
Healing catalyzes change from inside ourselves ; not outside.
Healing IS A PROCESS ; it is neither a destination nor a solution.
Healing is a great and glorious experiment ; you can’t fail at it!
The Garden of Keaton ~ 8702 Santa Monica Blvd. West Hollywood 90069