Healing is a journey… maybe it’s a sentence you heard before, but what does it mean?
It’s about more than just time. For me, it has been about peeling layers, accepting setbacks, and recognizing that I couldn’t wait for “a perfect day” to be happy.
I was never a healthy kid, and in my twenties, I had to recover from a traumatic brain injury. It took me years to get back on my feet. But I always trusted my body and felt that recovery would happen. It didn’t matter how bad I was feeling.
When I was in my thirties, this changed. I got sick with so many different symptoms that it seemed all my systems were giving up. It all started with an infection and became a state of constant inflammation and pain. After a year, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and ME (CFS).
I felt trapped, nothing was working, and I didn’t understand why.
After years of personal development, spiritual practices, travels, and workshops, I felt like a failure.
Medicines, and alternative approaches, nothing worked.
I focused outside, looking for a “savior,” a magic weapon, a one-time solution to return to feeling well about myself.
There it is: I was not feeling well about myself, and it started long before my sickness.
I was always the giving hand: helping, taking care, and pleasing. People came to me for advice and to fill their cups.
But the truth was another. My cup was empty, and all my attention was on the outside. I was neglecting my emotions and needs.
I was numbed, and the sickness showed me how disconnected I was from my body.
For me, the steps of my healing process have been like the one of grieving, maybe because I was grieving the life I had and the person I was or thought I was.
When I realized that, I saw that I was in denial. I told myself that the sickness had taken my life and wellness from me, but it was just the mirror of my unhappiness. I was fighting to show everybody “I was enough,” but I never believed it myself.
First step: Denial.
Tip: Take time daily to journal about your feelings and inner world.
Second step: anger
I went to therapy and spoke about all the tragic events in my life with my usual calm, disconnected tone, like a movie I saw at the kino.
I was sure I had put the past behind me, but one night I woke up sweating, my heart in my throat, shaking. The door to the past was not closed, it was open, and there was no forgiveness in me, just anger. What happened to me was unfair, and I wanted to scream it out loud.
I did not want to be wise and kind. I was angry, and I wanted justice.
Anger was like wildfire.
I engaged in an inner dialogue with the past and the Universe. I was a victim, and no one ever cared enough to save me. It was not right.
Who was I trying to convince? Myself. To heal from the feeling that I was unworthy. Feeling that I carried around all my life, hidden under my smile.
Tip: Keep journaling! If your health allows it, go out in nature and connect with Mother Earth. Send down roots from your feet to the center of Mother Earth and give her your anger and resentment with the intention that they will not harm anyone anymore. Fill in with Light and Gratitude.
Third step: Bargaining
I started to make promises to myself and the Universe. If I could get better: I would appreciate my life, take care of my body, and embrace my talents. If I could stop being in pain: I would go out more, listen to my body’s messages, honor the healing and intuitive skills I inherited from my family lineage, and be at service.
I was desperately looking for a “why.”. Why did it happen to me?
Sometimes I went all day looking at my life to find the fault that resulted in the suffering.
I felt like a victim of my body that had betrayed me. The pain, the inflammation, and the tiredness felt like an unfair punishment.
I went deeper into the feeling of being not enough and in shame, hiding from people and friends because I did not want anyone to know I was sick.
I was projecting onto them the judgment I had for myself.
Tip: Find 3 reasons every day to be grateful for and let the feeling expand in your heart and body.
Fourth: Depression
I was angry and ashamed because of my anger, guilty for all my errors and behaviors, unworthy of salvation, and trapped.
The pain and the shame became my cape and my excuse to disconnect myself from the world.
Walking was hard, and headaches and loss of hearing because of tinnitus made conversations unpleasant. I was disturbed by people that were sorry for me and worried about what all the others were thinking.
My Editor said to me every day: “Why do you not speak with your Guides?”
The truth?
I did not believe that a solution existed, and at the same time, I felt I deserved what was happening to me.
I was disconnected from my family, friends, nature, Spirit, and myself.
Tip:
- Take time to connect with your Higher Hearth.
- Put a hand over your chest and breath in, counting 4, take a break and breath out, counting 4, take a break and inspire again.
- Go on breathing inner and out of your heart space, letting go of heaviness during the exhale and letting in Light and nourishment during the inhale.
Fifth: Acceptance
Something good I did. I went on to go to therapy and peel layers, facing my inner pain and feeling of unworthiness. I stopped to pretend to myself perfection and for a “perfect day” to be happy.
Initially, it felt unnatural to be kind, smile at me in the mirror, and recognize my gifts.
I opened to honesty about how much I needed approval, even more than food and water. I realized I needed to stop looking outside myself and connect with my inner Source of Love.
I accepted the pain and stopped to fight my body, waiting to be healthy to feel that I deserved happiness.
I decided to be happy without reason and found thousands of reasons to be grateful.
There are good days and tough ones, waves of emotions and inner cycles that, like seasons, present me with different experiences, old traumas surfing up to be relieved. But I learned to stay connected to my internal source of Joy, nature, and the people I love.
I learned to return to my center instead of getting trapped in my thoughts.
Thoughts rise, telling old stories about who I should be to deserve love and abundance. The feeling of unworthiness becomes tension in my body surface and brings pain and anxiety.
I breathe and feel my feet and the roots that connect me to Mother Earth. I let Her energy nourish my body, reach up through me to connect to the Universe, expanding my heart to be one with my Soul.
Here, now, I’m.
