Healing = Happy?
There’s a common misconception that healing means we’ve “arrived” at a place where everything is puppy dogs and rainbows. I have to tell you, I see these healers and practitioners online and criticize the heck out of myself.
Look at how peaceful they live their life.
How do they feel so happy all of the time?
Why are they constantly calm and have all of this perfect, sacred wisdom?
It’s like I think that once I’ve done enough therapy, yoga, journaling, breathwork, studying, retreats, and shadow work, I will graduate into permanent happiness. Then I go online and convince myself they’ve arrived.
Yeah…that’s not a thing. At least I am pretty sure it isn’t.
Healing isn’t a straight line toward bliss. It’s the ability to stay with ourselves in all of our experiences (but even when you check out and check back in, that is healing too).
It’s about learning to meet sadness without drowning, to sit with anger without letting it consume us, and to honor our uncomfortable feelings without believing we are broken. It’s in remembering that pain is not the enemy – it’s the messenger.
A couple of weeks ago, something really pissed me off. I don’t know about you, but I always feel like I am doing something wrong or bad when I feel angry, and I am so resistant to express it. I want to be the peaceful, yoga chick, remember? Surrender and let it go?
Yes. But first, I must speak it. I must honor it. I must be with it. I must express it how my body needs to, in a structured and safe way.
That day, I said out loud to my husband, “I am really angry about this.”
Wow. The power I felt in owning my experience…in honoring my truth. And I did it with heart, with respect, and with a strong desire to not abandon myself.
When I own my experience, I expand my capacity. I hold space for it all, the joy and the sorrow, the clarity and the confusion.
Maybe instead of thinking that healing = happy, we can see that healing = wholeness. It can be the integration of all of our parts, as we grow into humans that are more present, more awake, more alive.
So, if you find yourself still feeling waves of sadness, anger, or fear. If you act in impulse, cause harm, or doubt yourself – know this: there is nothing wrong with you. This IS the work. Healing means creating enough safety within ourselves that even when pain shows up, we can meet it with compassion.
Because happiness is a moment, a state of being. Healing is a practice, a journey.
All of it serves its incredible purpose for us to remember who we are…a beautiful bright light as God created us to be.
If no one has told you today, I believe in you. I love you. And I respect your journey.
Love & light,
JJ
