The journey to healing is a process, no matter if it is physical, spiritual, mental, or emotional. As humans, we often want that process to go by faster. Many of us do more harm to ourselves than good. When a trauma happens, we want to get back to living life, the way we use to, as quickly as possible. It’s normal. Most humans do not want to be outside of their comfort zones for long periods of time or at all.
The area outside of our comfort zone is often referred to as the growth zone. The growth zone can feel painful, annoying, or scary. However, the longer we dwell within it, the more growth and healing comes.
FASTER, FASTER, FASTER!
If the key to the healing process is to live in the growth zone, how do we make this healing happen faster? It’s counter intuitive, but the key to recovering swiftly is to be patient.
Without patience, we can become a detriment to ourselves. Just take the person who breaks a limb, goes to physical therapy, becomes impatient with process, and then does something they weren’t yet ready for and makes their injury worse. COVID-19 cases reaching an all-time high in the nation serves as another example. As a society, we wanted things to go back to normal quickly. We were living outside of our comfort zones for months. It was excruciating. So, apparently we started to work our way back to “normal”, but in the process it seems we may have made things worse.
As they say, patience is a virtue.
How Long is Fast?
Healing takes as long as it needs to. That isn’t the answer that many of us want to hear. We want an exact time frame. But, one size does not fit all here. What is universal is that fact that when we are wounded internally or externally, we must do the work that comes along with healing. It’s the work that puts us in the growth zone; it’s usually what makes us feel uncomfortable. For example, doing physical therapy, going to therapy, digging up and facing the darkness inside of us…the situations are endless.
We recover as we toil and complete the labor necessary to heal. When we have patience, our healing journeys are quick. It’s simply because we do not do ourselves more harm and have to back track. Stay patient and remember things take time, but it is not time that heals us, it is what we do with that time.
By Mona Nyree Stephens, contributing author
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