Heal on Your Own Terms
How is it “grind culture” has entered into the healing industry?
Get better.
Do better.
Do more.
Do it faster.
Grind culture birthing from a conversational phrase of “back to the grind” as to connect two humans being stuck in a routine has turned into a baseline of exceeding expectations is the new meets expectations. And this culture has bled into the education system, workforce and even our personal development.
People are wanting things fast and quick. They don’t have the time to wait for betterment.
I have been involved in roles for 10+ years as a therapist, coach or their intuitive healer where people want to feel better now. I have also been a clinical supervisor and professor where most new students learning about therapy want the skills now. Most want the fish, the workflow; not taught how to fish, or to critically think.
Who can blame them? I sure don’t. Suffering, although happens in life, we don’t want it to happen to us. And when it does happen to us, we don’t want it to last. Human beings are built to evolve, change, transpire, aspire. The very things that make us phenomenal, also madden us.
I am still learning in my own journey and helping other in theirs what “healing” is and what it looks like.
So here is what I have come up with thus far re: healing.
We tell other people how to heal the way I, they, or we know works. I have adopted: Healing On Your Own Terms. It is your choice if that statement aligns with you today. Just today. That sentence may work one day or at one moment but not another. Follow what aligns with you, as long as it doesn’t do harm to yourself or others.
Some days I need to sit in my car with European Power Metal on blast in between clients and some days? I need square breathing. Some days I need to vent and get it out of my frontal lobe and other days? I need to go on autopilot to protect my frontal lobe because even venting feels like too much work. Some days I take my parents advice and it is exactly what I need and other times? I’ll call my sister.
I have been so pleasantly surprised how people have defined their own healing over the years. My point is sharing a snippet of this list is that healing is defined differently for all of us.
Here’s a list of things that helped a human on their healing journey:
Music
Exercise
Cooking
Therapy
Place of Worship
Their Pet
Writing
Grief
Work
Their Family
Stranger Who Opened the Door
Doctor
Time with Their Friends
Traumatic Event(s)
Medications
Spiritual Practitioner
Chiropractor
Masseuse
Mindfulness and Meditation
A Really Good Hug
Volunteering
TV or Movie
DnD or Roleplaying Games
The list goes on.
And there is no comparison, contract, or timeline attached. There are no conditions. Being we have spent a lot of time making healing conditional. A borderline unrealistic view of what it means to evolve and heal onward.
Do you know where my greatest lesson has been so far? Loss. Losing my brother to suicide in 2018. #8 on that list is from me. That and medical trauma in my last three years, I went from a scholar athlete to an arthritic where I need an assistive device if I have walk longer than 15 minutes. The loss, the pandemic, and my medical condition turned my life upside down. As a therapist, a coach, an educator, and a spiritualist - the way I healed was turned upside down. I fought it, I fought the change and grieved what I thought healing was.
I realized I had to move with, not compare, and heal on whatever way I knew how, at my own pace, at my own time.
Walking through the fire and sitting in the embers cannot be avoided. It also doesn’t have to be romanticized. Sit with, don’t submerge. Do what you need to do and be on your way. And the only one who knows what that looks like is you. You are the only person in your skin 24/7/365. And if anyone claims to “know you better than you do,” are doing you a disservice. Because this journey comes down to trusting ourselves in our own decisions, our own inner healing.
F&%# what everyone else says you NEED to be doing, or how to do it. That works when we’re kids. And it worked so well it followed us into adulthood where we look to others. We look outward instead of inward. My rule is if it is not harming myself or anyone else?
Heal on your own terms.
At your own pace.
Any way you know how.
Break that cycle. Start today.
Evolve and Heal On, My Friend.
Anne
