Slow healing...it evolves, it requires patience, and breathing, letting go of what we think we know, how we think it *should* go, and allowing the stops and starts to play out without throwing in the towel and deciding that "they," "we," "I," must not really want to get healthy." Through the years I've been given several opportunities to walk out the journey with others. I have watched as people have been given a place to live that is safe, a place where one can lay down their fight or flight response that they have relied on in order to survive, and take a breath. A place where they can peel back the layers and begin the process of healing. Where there are no time limits or expectations for performance...a place where one can just be and let their nervous system regulate. Food and shelter, love and care, affirmation with plenty of time and space to let their thoughts and feelings catch up to their body, so that they can get their bearings. Until eventually the recipient feels strong enough and ready to participate. The inbetween is a place of grace. Its a place of slow healing where there is no condemnation for not getting it right every time. We just get up and start again.
We live in a world of instant gratification, we receive what we think we need instantaneously. Instant food, communication, information, affirmation, wealth, pain relief...both physical and emotional. We receive ravenously, in a frenzy, hoarding our instant interactions and social media "likes" that affirm that we have a voice and someone heard it. We live in a state of chronic over stimulation.
What if slow healing required one to step out of the frenzy? What if we are simply being asked to show up and hold space for one another? To give of ourselves? We have lost the ability to slowly and quietly show up. To do the work to build the life we want to live, to create our environment, to open our door and welcome someone inside out of the elements, out of the chaos, away from the danger, so that they can heal.
What if we were called to open our door and provide the space for that holy work to take place for another? Despite all of the reasons we are told we "shouldn't" sometimes we do....and its beautiful. So beautiful, more than we could have ever seen coming. It definitely requires something of us....our time, our money, our space, letting go of things being "my way" and learning how to scoot over and make room for "our way."
More more more to come....stories, experiences, I'm hoping to have some guest writers share their stories, more sharing the ways that my own life has been changed from the inside out through the process of my own slow healing and then being able to offer a safe place for others to find their way. I never saw it coming....but here we are.
My new mantra is "resist less....trust more."
With so much love.....
Annette
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