The Wisdom of Returning: A Post-Trip Reflection on the Cyclical Nature of Healing
It’s been so long since I’ve sat down and flowed in my own writing and in reflection to the work I do. Coming back from some time away, I was reflecting on all the ways I encourage wellbeing in the work like slowing down, time for self-connection and curiosity, allowing self to be versus do, leaning into humanness such as play, being in nature, or being silly, even writing, and yet, when I am faced with my own practices and supports, how easy they can fall away, become distant, even when encouraging others to do the same. I often hear the challenge between knowing what is needed, or once the shadows clear of what may be obscuring our views/ needs, still being unable to meet self in that, and that interplay creating another unique challenge in and of itself, perhaps what I imagine could be a sadness or judgement of self that we can’t just “do it”. Here, once again, I witness something akin to what my clients often describe as guilt and then shame that we are not doing well enough, because if we know something we must be capable of doing it. Yet, even in knowing that is not how motivation or desires play out, I can see even in self how this forms another highly impossible expectation amidst the other impossible standards we face, we impose another standard of wellness. And of course, we want that for ourselves, so the tension may feel even louder.
Something I witnessed in myself was my own judgement of this, both in the encouragement of others yet not practicing in self, as well as the predicament of wanting something and knowing it to be helpful yet not practicing it. The reasons of why we may behave in this way are vast, many rooted in science-based evidence in how our brains work and respond, and some in my own learnings and reflections, yet knowing this even to my extent and the automatic judgement on self revealed to me the depth of what myself included struggle with when wanting to live an embodied, present, and attuned life, yet working through the humanness and soul challenges we face, one being high internal pressure leading to self-criticism/ judgement, another being the systemic pressures, and the final being what healing or wellness may even be. Some musings to these thoughts as I sprinkle in some pictures from my recent journey…
Even with all my knowledge and learnings, albeit I don’t believe higher than any client in front of me, maybe just deeper in what we choose to align with in the Western world for mental health and wellness information, I still turn the dagger back on myself. I want to acknowledge that stopping and pausing to explore what this may be is privilege in itself, but also allowing self to do so despite the pull away from self is a resistance to the greater systems asking us to keep going, pushing, producing, turning away from self and others in pursuit of something outside of self to satisfy, usually money or external materials. If I stop to reflect and pause, perhaps I may better learn myself, but perhaps it may hurt as well. What have I been intentionally or unintentionally hiding from, and if I unearth it, am I ready to meet what's underneath? I imagine that may be what hinders us occasionally, yet we turn toward that very act, even in micro-ways, through rituals like therapy. That opens a door to what is behind keeping our inner experiences perfectly “tilled”, such as showing up at work tomorrow without being distracted, but that may be a different direction than I intended originally. Either way, when we pause we can begin to ask not only what is coming up, but is that rooted in me or elsewhere, either in previous hurt, trauma, experiencing, or conditioning. And from there, a choice is not just how we want to behave next, but what I make of that. I can choose to explore it with curiosity, welcoming my own voice to the room, without pressure to change anything urgently. Here, as I did so myself, I wonder how many of us experience this pressure to “just be able to do it” as social conditioning to be “okay”, moral imperatives sometimes stemming from religion or other powers beyond self, a false belief that we lack conviction or intentionality, and that we are solely responsible for our own healing. Even in the work I do, we often talk about contentment, reducing discomfort, and seeing improvement, so of course that would become a measure of success, as well as a standard to hold ourselves to, nevermind living in a individualised world where “happiness” is often sold as the end goal alongside productivity. So if we are not meeting this standard, we are taught we are the problem and we are the ones failing, so we must be the ones to fix it, and have to do so solely on our own, it is a problem within ourselves.
It was here I needed to remind myself, as I encourage others, that a lot of these false beliefs, high pressures, and even symptoms, often stem from systemic forces, as well as trauma which is experienced in relation and can only be truly worked with in relationship, both with self and others. I am showing up for myself and others, both in the work I do, and in my personal self. There are times I will be pulled away or not practice as I wish, but the noticing of that and dropping my own weapons against self to welcome grace, kindness, and understanding in what may be in the way while consciously returning to what I know is not only a radical act of self love, but resistance. And so are you, all the choices you make to turn toward self, love, goodness in this world, rest, and just being. Of course it will be hard, if it was easy to just do it we would, yet I wonder if believing we are different or have some faulty defect protects us from fully accepting the humanness in knowing yet not acting, or in other words, embracing that we are all experiencing this very challenge, even if not spoken about in common spaces, and the fullness of our human selves is to consistently experiencing that. I wonder if the alchemical reaction of what we want or desire and still have yet to act on is what contributes to motivation, or is what is meant to be experienced, as is much of our collective non-oppressive struggles, and what it may be asking of us aside from shame or guilt. I do believe this to perhaps be softness and self-understanding, acknowledging the struggle to be human and show up for the self amidst the current climates and reinforcements to turn away, and that we are often doing our best, even if we feel otherwise.
I wonder about how our internal expectations have been heavily influenced by the linear models that have benefited us in a lot of work cultures, scientific data, and general ways to quantify information, something our minds love to experience, a start and end to everything, a pathway from one point to another. Yet time and time again, nature reflects this to be something we may have created, and then we hold ourselves to this conception, which inevitably will lead to challenge and perhaps perceived "failure". The days change from morning to night and return back again, seasons are cyclical, the moon moves through phases time and time again, ocean currents ebb and flow and redistribute as they move through hot and cooling phases, even tree bark flows in a more circular pattern! When positioning this against areas such as mental wellness I wonder how considering this to be true for how we move through our internal challenges, struggles, mental health or whatever we may call it, alleviates our struggle of "knowing better" or feeling as though we should just be able to do what is right for us, and then the consequence of judging self when falling back into familiar habits. The ocean doesn’t judge itself for receding, just as seasons don’t judge themselves from changing and returning each year. Of course, if something is destructive to self, just as we would put more forces to, aspects of nature work to restore balance within the means of its ecosystem. It is in the more the normative functioning of self that we put blame or shame where nature doesn’t get caught up with.
And so with this, for both myself and others in this area, I wonder if coming back to these familiar areas, for what I believe to be true for many of us in the realm of self-criticism or high expectations, is not to judge, but welcome with both kindness and compassion, as well as an invite curiosity. What may this be asking of me now? Perhaps my roots have thickened and my branches changed, or my wisdom and life experience will allow a different perspective, understanding, or ask of me with this current challenge. Could it be an invitation to explore this part of me, the human self, from a different vantage point. What might it be drawing my attention to? Here, for me, this return allowed me to become clearer in offering this message of encouragement and validation beyond self in my work and beyond. Sometimes I want to reach out and “fix” the hurt, move quickly to solutions as of lately, with such well intentions, yet feeling something fall flat, not quite land in the space between my helper self and the person in front of me seeking guidance. This feeling may be information for me to slow down, listen and witness what is coming through, not rush to solutions but move to understand or explore the meaning being made individually and between us while validating the humanness of even the heavy emotions such as suffering, withdrawal, and shame while offering solutions cautiously without reinforcing the narratives I’ve explored.
For myself, it may be an ask to remind and encourage myself with softness to offer myself the same kindness I provide others in self discovery, that I will make mistakes and perhaps return back to familiar patterns even in the work I do while trusting it is part of my own process with commitment to examine self when resourced enough in my own ecosystem, and that forgetting sometimes is also part of our human soul journey, and to draw ourselves back to awareness and truth is a constant, cyclical process.
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