How to start a self healing journey
Self healing sounds great but where do you begin? Self healing will look different for everyone but regardless if you’re healing from something physical, mental, or emotional, a self healing journey will have some basic principles that carry through no matter what you are working on.
Before we get into this post, I just want to remind you that a self healing journey does not mean that you disregard modern medicine, it just means that you’re going to take an active role in your healing process. Things like going to the doctor, going to therapy, and sometimes taking medication are all still important. The journey of self healing is in addition to these types of things. I say this because I think sometimes when people get into self healing, some may start to disregard modern medicine etc. and this is not what we should be doing. So just keep this in mind as we dive into the topic of self healing.
4 Tips For Getting Started On Your Self Healing Journey
1. Become an active participant in your healing.
It’s common these days to be presented with a problem and to let other people or “things” fix it without being an active participant. So although things like going to the doctor and maybe taking medicine are important for you, it’s also important for you to take active steps in your health and healing in your everyday life.
For example, if you go to therapy every week but then just go back to your regular patterns when not in therapy, how much progress are you going to make? If you take medication to fix a health issue but then eat like crap, how much are you going to improve? In both cases, maybe you would make some improvements without doing anything additional, but imagine how much more you could improve if you were an active participant in the process. If you really worked on changing your thought patterns when outside of therapy or if you started eating a healthy and balanced diet, I bet you would be further along in your healing process than if you sat on the sidelines.
When you’re an active participant in your healing, you can make much greater strides. So first thing in a self healing journey is to take an active role. This is your body and your mind so it’s important that you are there to work on your healing.
2. Be open to heal.
Be open to heal…sounds simple but is something that many people struggle with. Sometimes we actually get comfortable having issues or challenges and we don’t want to open up to change. When we take on a self healing journey, we really have to be open and ready to heal. You have to want to heal and you have to believe that it can happen.
And being open to heal is going to look different for everyone. Maybe it means you’re totally “cured” of whatever ails you or maybe your symptoms are lessened or your quality of life is better. There’s no one end goal when it comes to self healing.
I’ll use myself as an example. I have OCD and have had it since I was a child. A lot of my own self healing journey has been about my OCD, which back to my previous point, I still go to therapy for in addition to working on self healing…just a reminder! Anyway, my goal for self healing is not to “get rid of” my OCD as research has shown that people who have OCD do have differences in their brain chemistry. My brain is just naturally wired in a different way. Based on this fact, most likely I will always “have” OCD but just because I have it doesn’t mean it needs to control my life. Through my own self healing journey, I’m working on being able to live my life without my OCD constantly gripping at me. Between therapy and my own personal healing work, I’ve been achieving this goal and have seen incredible improvements in terms of my mental health. I share this with you so that you can make a goal that fits for you and so that you don’t feel like there has to be a specific outcome.
In working with people with chronic pain, I often teach people to start with a smaller goal first in regards to self healing and then later on maybe create a larger goal of being pain free if that is where they want to go. Self healing is fluid so your goals will change.
So after that long tangent, tip number two recap is to be open to healing and improving your quality of life. If you don’t think you can get better, self healing will be a real challenge. If you’re in the mindset of feeling like you’ll never be better, trust me I’ve been there too, then that’s your first step in your self healing journey, opening your mind to the possibility of improvement.
3. Start to look past just the mind and body.
Yes the mind and body are important but we are more than just these two things. I look at the mind and body as tools for us to interact in this world we know. If you want to find true healing, you have to start to look deeper than these two parts of you.
Self healing is the type of healing where you start to look deeper within yourself. You’re not just working on the physical body, you’re not just working on the mind, you’re working on a deeper part of your being, be it your spirit, your soul, your energy etc. We’re not disregarding the physical body or mind, but we are looking past these two parts of us at something deeper.
In your journey, you need to begin to explore how the mind, body, and soul interact because the three are connected. What impacts your mind will impact your body and what impacts your body will impact your mind. The soul connects to both the mind and body so getting in touch with your soul, your spirit, your energy (whatever you want to call it) is vital to self healing. There isn’t one set way to do this and it will be an exploration to see what “ignites” your soul connection, but this is such an important part of self healing and this is the part that’s game changing.
4. Remember that a journey is rarely linear.
It’s unlikely that your self healing journey is going to be a smooth ride up. You’ll probably experience set backs or times of challenge, that is to be expected. The goal isn’t to constantly be feeling better 100% of the time. The goal is more about when you do dip down a little, you come back a little bit higher each time. Over time, the dip downs start to decrease and you don’t dip down as far or as often. So remember this on your journey.
Something else to remember on your journey, we all experience obstacles and challenges in our lives. It doesn’t matter how “big” or “small” your specific challenge is, this is just a perception. If you feel something is a challenge or issue or obstacle, then it doesn’t matter if someone else may “have it worse” than you etc. This doesn’t make your problem any less important. Minimizing your struggles is of no use, your struggles are valid. I know the feeling of saying, “it could be so much worse,” which it probably could be and maybe this thought does help some people but in my experience, it just pushes you further away from healing because you’re disregarding how YOU feel. It doesn’t matter what others say or think, this is a SELF healing journey.
There is no doubt that a self healing journey is going to look different for everyone. The common theme is that we’re looking deeper within the self and starting to see things differently. And this takes work and can be challenging! You have to put the work in to see the results, you have to challenge yourself and your typical behaviors or thought patterns. Self healing is making a change and we know change is not easy. This is why a self healing journey is so life changing.
Self healing is of one of those terms that I don’t think you can fully understand until you go through it. It’s also a continuing journey because there are always going to be improvements we can make but I’ll tell you, it’s totally worth it.
I know in this post I didn’t lay out for you exactly what to do, but that’s because this journey is so personal. Find what helps you connect deeper within yourself be it meditation, yoga, journaling, reading books on self improvement, whatever it is, there isn’t one set way. If you do like yoga though, I’ll link below a yoga flow for self healing that I’ve created. Remember to enjoy the journey!
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