Healing is not another deadline.
We are so used to measuring progress that we try to measure healing, too.
How many days has it been?
Shouldn’t I feel better by now?
Why am I still tired?
Why can’t I do what I used to do?
At some point, even healing becomes another task we think we are failing to complete on time.
But perhaps healing was never meant to work that way.
I have a habit of turning everything into a project.
There is always something to finish, something to improve, something I should already be better at.
Apparently, I do this with healing, too.
I noticed it recently because I kept thinking about when I would be back to normal. When would I have my old energy again? When would I stop needing so much rest? When could I go through a whole day without having to negotiate with my own body?
I was treating healing like another item on my list.
And I was getting annoyed because it was taking too long.
The funny thing is, I’m not even sure what too long means.
Too long according to whom?
We have different bodies, different demands, different lifestyles, different environments.
One’s timeline is not the same as mine.
There are mornings when I wake up and my body very clearly wants more sleep. But there is a clock beside me saying that I have slept enough.
So I get up.
Or at least, I used to.
Lately, I have been learning to listen to the other answer.
Sometimes I go back to sleep.
Sometimes I lie there doing absolutely nothing.
Sometimes I spend far longer than necessary under blankets and pillows and, apparently, an unreasonable population of plushies, like my son.
And I am beginning to think that this counts, too.
Gentle healing, for me, has become less about doing the right things to heal and more about giving myself permission to need what I need for as long as I need it.
Not only physically.
There are days when my mind feels tired before my body does. Days when I don’t want another conversation, another decision, another thing asking something from me.
So I retreat.
I make things. I play music. I wander around a mall. I write. I sleep. I sit quietly with people I love.
And sometimes I do nothing particularly useful at all.
That last one has probably been the hardest.
I am very good at giving rest a purpose.
I’ll rest now so I can work later.
That still makes rest part of the productivity machine.
I’m trying to learn another kind.
I’ll rest because I’m tired.
Full stop.
No promise that I will compensate for it later.
Maybe that is what I have been missing.
Healing does not have to hurry simply because I am impatient.
My body does not know about my schedule.
My heart certainly does not care about my deadlines.
And perhaps neither of them needs another person standing over them asking, Are we there yet?
So I am trying something gentler.
I am letting healing take the time it takes.
And if today requires another hour under the blankets?
The clock will survive.
Welcome to Issue 04: Gentle Healing
We will do things differently this time. Stay close.
—-
With elegance and quiet fire,
Lady E
Founder, Glow by Lady E
An editorial space for stories, art, and intentional living
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