Healing
Sometimes, when we think we need purpose, what we’re really in need of is healing.
Just as our physical muscles require strain and exertion to develop, every aspect of our being encounters hardships that function as opportunities for growth. These trials, encountered on physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual planes, might initially masquerade as hindrances, but they constitute the foundation of our strength and resilience.
Continually battling the various aspects of ourselves – whether in the form of our physical limitations, emotional scars, mental burdens, or wavering faith – can result in exhaustion. We all aspire to reach the optimal version of ourselves that we believe is possible. Yet, attaining this goal requires confronting the wounds of our former selves.
Similar to our muscles, every aspect of our existence needs periods of rest and rejuvenation after intervals of strenuous use. Physical healing demands rest, providing a period to rejuvenate and rebuild the body’s strength. Emotional healing necessitates patience and self-compassion, allowing us to process and recover from life’s emotional pains. Mental healing involves forgiveness for ourselves and others as we release the burdens of past regrets and resentments. While spiritual healing calls for faith, entrusting in the unfolding of a greater purpose or connection beyond our immediate comprehension.
Healing is the bridge that carries us from our past into our future, equipping us with a relieved heart, mind, and soul. Before we can transform ourselves, we must first tend to our well-being. To be well, we must be made whole.
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Etymological explanation for Heal:
From Old English hælan, “make whole, sound and well.”
“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself… The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”
Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., The Body Keeps the Score
“‘I’ve been through all this before,’ he says to his heart.
‘Yes, you have been through all this before,’ replies his heart. ‘But you have never been beyond it.’”
Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan
“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
John Green, Looking for Alaska
There is no such thing as a “normal” person. “Normal” is a setting on a washing machine.
Unknown
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women
“What drains your spirit drains your body. What fuels your spirit fuels your body.”
Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit
You will always find peace in doing the right thing. Don’t spoil it by worrying about the results, if you can help it. It’s not your business to succeed, but to do right…
Adapted from C.S. Lewis’s letter to Arthur Greeves
Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.
Lao Tzu
“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
George Orwell, 1984
“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it. Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield but to my own strength.”
Rabindranath Tagore, Prayer for Strength
Anything in life that we don’t accept will simply make trouble for us until we make peace with it.
Shakti Gawain
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Reinhold Niebuhr, Serenity Prayer
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.”
Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
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A commonly attributed quote to Gandhi suggests, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” However, this attribution is merely a paraphrased (and diluted) rendition of the profound words he originally expressed in the above quote.
Why should one be the change they wish to see in the world? Because the world will change for you, too.
A wise individual should recognize that good health is the most valuable human asset. Through their own reflection, they may find ways to gain wisdom and personal growth from their experiences with illness.
Based on the teachings of Hippocrates
“You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.”
Elizabeth Gilbert (in a note to herself)
You have the power to heal your life, and you need to know that. We think so often that we are helpless, but we’re not. We always have the power of our minds… Claim and consciously use your power.
Louise Hay
“One man’s calamity is another’s opportunity. Yet sometimes one man’s calamity is his own opportunity.”
From Current Comment (The Illustrated American Publishing Co.)
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw
The qualities or behaviors in others that irritate us are often reflections of aspects within ourselves that we struggle to acknowledge or accept.
Based on the teachings of Carl Jung
“I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert, Dune
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.
Chinese proverb
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
Jack Kornfield, Buddha’s Little Instruction Book
I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
Arthur Rubinstein
Without self-love, it is impossible to truly love others or to bear seeing others loved.
Based on the teachings of Gary Zukav
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Ian Maclaren (the pen name of John Watson)
“Addiction, self-sabotage, procrastination, laziness, rage, chronic fatigue, and depression are all ways that we withhold our full participation in the program of life we are offered.”
Charles Eisenstein, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
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Jen Hitze 