Rollercoaster of Healing

- Deeksha Solanki

Intern, Mind Splatters, May-July 2024

Healing or the process of recovery is represented, quite often, as a very easy journey. In reality, however, it is way more complex. Therapy might guide them, but still, healing is a very personal and nonlinear process. It's an upward and onward journey and also about two steps forward and one step back.

It is perhaps vital to appreciate and accept the fact that for anyone who is in healing, such cataclysmic unpredictability may exist.

Linear Healing

The False Consensus many people, beginning their healing journey, believe that it will be a consistently ongoing straight line. Social stories and popular media have led the way in drawing a straight line from injury to recovery, and even further injury.  'Good Will Hunting' is one example that healed therapy people directly, which hid much of more final nature of genuine emotional healing.

The emotional wounds, likewise the physical, close on their own time and behavior. Just like a broken nose may hurt years after it has healed, so do emotional scars make their way back to haunt you if a corresponding situation occurs.

Therapy is a Roadway

Therapy is a good tool for healing, providing one with a safe place to talk about one's problems. But it isn't magic. Many people begin therapy with the expectation of immediate relief or a breakthrough. While therapy can provide insight and important strategies for coping, fluctuations at times are a reality of progress. A few steps back are often part of taking the journey forward. Knowing and embracing this can help people stay patient and committed to the process, as every session is a step toward better understanding and managing issues!

Accepting the Nonlinear Process

Realizing that the healing process is not a straight path is a change in demeanor. Setbacks shouldn't knock you down as a failure. They are a part of the journey. Each of these setbacks teaches one a lesson and gives a real insight—each of which helps one to move ahead. It builds resilience and patience toward long-term healing. Such as a client who has undergone a lot of trauma therapy and is doing well. Then a certain time of year comes, old memories pay a visit, and there is much discomfort. We have to remember that it is a practice of mindfulness and self-compassion—indispensable tools in the process of arising from ups and downs during healing. 

In focusing on the present moment during mindfulness practice, one is less likely to dwell on past setbacks or worry over problems that may arise in the future. Self-compassion is the act of being kind and understanding about oneself in times of hardship, rather than judgmental. 

Both practices have a lot in common in putting one in the right nurturing mindset that works as the very foundation for healing. Using mindfulness and self-compassion, one can steer their healing journey with a lot of patience and care.

Although the process of healing is personal, one does not have to walk the healing journey in solitude. Support from loved ones, friends, or groups can in themselves not only be encouraging but enlightening. Narrating and relating experiences and predicaments to people who understand the tears as well as the smiles of healing can be very comforting. For help, such a community reminds you at all times that you are not alone in your struggle.