The other day, one of my coaching clients reflected to me: “This healing work is exhausting.”
I paused and gave space for these words to wash over him and me.
“It’s not like the rest of life lessens to make space for healing.”
Again, a quiet held between us.
“But maybe that’s the exhausting part. The pressures of my day to day. And the fear underneath it all.”
It’s a challenge to create and prioritize the inner work of healing, not because the work is hard but because it’s unsupported in our current society.
You and I both know time won’t magically appear on our calendars to do this work. I have to intentionally set time aside, block it off, make it matter for healing to happen.
And if I’m functioning “well enough?” It’s so easy to let those blocks on my calendar get gobbled up by the urgent tasks or the numbing escapes. Healing gets deferred.
My dear mentor, Lillian, used to say: “When where you are is harder than where you fear to go, you’ll move.”
Sometimes we can’t notice that the status quo is hard because at least it’s familiar and predictable. At least we know what to expect and we’ve even figured out tried and tested “coping strategies” to get through it.
I think facing the fear of what’s underneath, unattended, and unhealed is only hard until we are present enough to notice that not healing is harder.
Many of our “coping strategies” are all about not being present. These patterns keep us functioning (some of the times, enough of the times) but that’s not the same as being present.
With a decision to heal, with a practice for emotional well-being, we unnumb! We can touch outrage. We can feel indignant. We see the injustice in the present for what it is and take bolder and more effective action to interrupt it while staying in relationship with others. In other words, we are less prone to demonize or dehumanize others in our social justice work, and able to bring about change based in connection and love.
With sanctioned support to heal, we no longer misplace the leftover feelings from past hurts, from our early lives, onto the present moment. When we get listened to, deeply and without judgment, healing happens, numbness thaws, and fear is transformed.
Physician and author Lissa Rankin’s words speak to this: “The opposite of fear isn’t courage. The opposite of fear is joy.”
The inner work which supports us to face and feel our fears, transforms us. Fear, whether it’s fear of loss, inadequacy, failure, overwhelm, insecurity, loneliness, powerlessness, or injustice can be rooted out.
I have witnessed the impact of doing this inner work in community for over 30 years now. There is a lightness, a joy that rises to fill the space fear had so once comfortably occupied.
The outcomes are multifold…
- Being more present, relaxed and connected
- Having clearer, more flexible, and creative thinking
- Experiencing greater cooperation and ability to center relationships in addressing challenges and conflicts
- Taking thoughtful initiative to lead
- Accessing and demonstrating care and love
- Tapping into our imagination and belief in what’s possible!
…and also surprising!
We become less compelled or interested in resorting to the “coping strategies” that helped us be complicit with the status quo—or nostalgic for a past that never really was honest with us. We get more skilled at interrupting dominant and permissive patterns in ourselves and others. In fact, we become bolder and more effective in standing up for all forms of justice.
When we commit to an ongoing healing practice, joy rises in us.
