What Does it Mean to Heal?

It all starts with knowing what heal actually means. To heal means: to become healthy or whole again. But what if we’ve never consciously experienced what it means to be healthy or whole? How would we know our route back to it then? How can we expect ourselves to even know if we aren’t already whole or healthy?

For the sake of this topic, I’m going to reference the process of healing as ‘becoming healthy again’, not ‘whole’, because we can still be whole within our brokenness. Using the word ‘whole’ implies subjective thinking. There are clearer lines on what makes someone healthy versus what doesn’t. Who’s healthier: the guy who eats fast food everyday or the girl who cooks her own meals? Who’s healthier: the chick who self sabotages all her relationships through manipulation or the man who loves his wife and kids when the going gets tough? You see? A lot easier to state which one is healthier, but when you make it a matter of who is more whole? That’s another question.

What does it mean to ‘heal’ yourself?

For lots of us during our youth, ‘healthy’ could’ve been an elusive topic, escaping the minds and habits of our parents, family or childhood friends. How could we know ‘healthy’ if we grew up in a turbulent household that resulted in a chaotic divorce? How could we know ‘healthy’ when our grandparents preferred Arby’s over home cooked meals? How could we know ‘healthy’ if we think it’s normal to semi-hate your life but it could technically be a lot worse, so you settle for not so good but not so bad? How could we know the difference when the lines are so blurry?

Well lucky you, I’m a whole, healthy, and chipper young thing, here to make all your problems go away with the bop of my magic wand . . . not. I also have problems, issues, character flaws, and the whole shabang, but here I am, attempting to correct my wrongs because:

“People learn the most when teaching others.” - Peter F. Drucker

So here we are my friends, attempting to teach a lesson that I’ve not yet mastered myself. How dare I? But you’re curious, I know you are, that’s why you’re here. So am I. 

Healing Mediums:

Questions we ask ourselves about healing: How do I actually go about healing myself? Do I even need healing? Aren’t I already perfect? How could I get any better? Or… Is it already too late for me to heal? Where do I even start? I’m not one of those lucky people that gets to experience pure bliss, how did they get so lucky and I didn’t?

Healing Through Yoga

Here’s how Yoga can help you in the healing process:

Yoga is a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual discipline that takes intense focus and concentration to truly perform it. Yoga teaches us how to cut off distractions from the external world and move inward. Yoga teaches us to take note and observe the ebbs and flows of our thoughts and emotions of the mind, which come to express their representation on the physical body. This looks like: staring off into the distance instead of focusing on the posture due to a consuming thought or emotion, forgetting to breathe in a fluid rhythm with every posture because your mind is elsewhere, losing balance or getting frustrated with your body because your mind isn’t steady, therefore, neither is your body.

Steady mind, steady body. 

With knowing this, we can learn to train our minds to make their way back to the present moment by focusing the attention back on the breath. This is healthier than getting lost in the web of thoughts/emotions and not being able to track them back to the source.

Healing Through Relationships

The holy grail of healing because it’s the most nuanced, at least imo. If you don’t have a good representation of this in your most formative years (0-13), you’re f*cked. Ha, just kidding, but you do have more work to do than those you didn’t have to underlearn conditioned patterns from the first 13 years of their life. Healing through relationships doesn’t require new mates, it requires good old honesty, trust and respect. Not only with others, but with yourself too. 

Not being honest with yourself or others looks like this: lying about where you’ve been, denying logic, not taking accountability for your actions, blaming everything except yourself, withholding information/details of a story, justifying your actions, shying away from endeavors that excite you due to fear. 

Not being respectful with yourself or others looks like this: calling attention to your body, controlling people through sex, not listening/cutting people off mid convo, calling people out in front of others. 

The healthy counterparts of these demons is being openly honest about your day without needing it drawn out of you, accepting the reality of the situation, taking full accountability your actions, dressing how you feel comfortable but also doesn’t scream that you need attention to feel good about yourself, making eye contact and hearing the story before responding, and/or confronting someone in private. 

Healthy relationships don’t mean argue-free, they mean: remembering to remain calm and respond to the person with love, compassion, understanding, and patience.

Healing Through Finances

Oh how I’d love to say that money doesn't matter when it comes to the topic of healing, but lemme tell you the truth baby, it does. It matters. And it matters maybe more than you think, unless if you think it’s the only thing that matters, then, we have some healing to do in the other direction. 

Taking control of your finances and finding financial stability can do healing wonders for you mind, body and relationships. When you no longer have to count of others to provide for you, know that you got it like that, don’t feel anxiety when buying what you want, it’s like a weight lifting off your shoulders.

However, this freedom can also cause healing to be done if it becomes fueled by greed, status, or desires and veers off into the road of the next hot thing, whether that’s a new iphone, widget, outfit, car, house, vacation, retreat, course, etc. Losing focus of your finances and letting them take a jump off the deep end can put you in a bad spot of feeling like you’re constantly trying to paddle to the surface. 

Healing through finances feels like floating above the water with room to spare and looks like: knowing your limits and boundaries on what you can vs. what you should afford, living within your means, knowing how to make consistent money, growing in value each year, achieving success in something that lights your soul on fire (not drains your tank to empty within a year). 

Conclusion

Healing is a never ending process. It’s not an event that takes place in a weekend or even a month. It’s a transformation that requires challenges to be faced, hard questions to be answered, and a determination to get 1% better each day. Healing to become healthy in these three pillars is not a journey for the faint hearted. Like I said, most will only master one, but there’s plenty that will never grasp a hold of even one.  Be fierce enough to know you can have it all, but soft enough to feel your way through the process with grace and kindness (both for yourself and others). 

If this sounds all great and dandy to you, consider documenting your journey in any way, whether that be writing, video, audio, so that you can look back on your location in a few months or even years from now. Doing this can be inspirational and remind of how far you have come, which is particularly useful for those days when you feel like all hope is lost and confusion strikes your roots like lightning.

Remember: you are wonderful, unique, and meant to be here for a reason. Make this life the best one yet. Inspire others around you, challenge your beliefs, and watch the magic begin to unfold. You got this, I believe in you. 

~ Sam