Self-Judgment On The Healing Journey
“The healing journey” is a term many people use to describe a path distinct from mainstream people’s lives, which usually is focused entirely on the external.
For many, the healing journey can initially seem to offer a wonderful promise of hope and restoration. They can look at it like enrolling in a university, The University Of Healing, and imagine they will graduate (heal) within a couple years.
When years go by and they still don’t feel healed, though, they can feel like they are failing. They may harbor beliefs such as:
“Why am I not healed yet?”
“Why am I still dealing with these same issues?”
“I know this intellectually, but emotionally I just don’t seem to get it.”
“I know healing is a spiral and not linear, but I feel so stuck.”
“It seems like I will be on this healing journey forever.”
“I must be stupid for not ‘getting’ this already.”
And so on and so forth.
While these beliefs may seem like objective evaluations of one’s healing progress, they are actually disempowering self-judgments and, interestingly, they keeps us feeling stagnated longer.
But, first, I want to address what healing is, because I think this is fundamental to why people hold onto these attitudes.
Many people think healing is about “fixing” yourself and it is easy to understand why: A person on the healing journey is, after all, striving to heal their wounds, aren’t they?
The problem is, this is only a part of the picture.
A person on a healing journey is striving to heal their wounds, yes, but their wounds are not the only thing that defines them.
We are all multifaceted individuals and healing our trauma is only one aspect of ourselves.
The truth is, healing is not about FIXING yourself because of your trauma. Healing is about growing closer to your true self, which is a continual and exciting journey.
When we see the “healing journey” as a “fixing” journey, then our self-concept is that we are defective. When we see the healing journey as an evolutionary journey, then our self-concept is that we are simply growing.
Don’t get me wrong: this is not about spiritual bypassing or denying that one needs to heal in certain areas.
Part of the reason we heal is so that we remove falsities from us and become more of our true selves.
Instead, this is about shifting from seeing ourselves as fundamentally “Defective” to “Someone With Trauma.”
Why this matters is that when you see yourself as someone with trauma as opposed to trauma as your identity, then you can put distance between you and your traumas.
You can be much more neutral about what any lower energy patterns mean about you and not judge yourself for them.
This inner attitude (of non-judgmentalism and compassion) is absolutely necessary since most trauma survivors struggle with shame, one of the biggest things they are trying to heal.
It is tricky because, while our private self (which may have a lot of trauma-based dysfunctions others don’t see) is our unmasked self in respect to our public self, it is not our true self. The true, highest version of ourselves, which is connected to God, is not weighed down by all of our traumas. It is confident, open, and pure.
The reason why harboring judgment towards yourself for not having “healed” yet is that this reinforces the energy of trauma, much of which developed due to unloving experiences with our caregivers and/or authority figures.
Rather than negative self-evaluation, what we actually need is for our inner witness to hold us with deep presence and compassion. To understand us in the light of our traumas instead of judge ourselves for them.
It is these supportive energies that give us a greater sense of self-love and self-acceptance, not criticism or unsolicited advice.
And when you can embrace the fact that you will continually grow without having such a judgment about your healing progress, you stop seeing yourself only through the lens of trauma. You see yourself as you really are.
