This entry was posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 8:55 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I was challenged by this post. Barbara at TherExtras, the consummate intellectual who’s blog I read because it makes me think, asked her readers to post about healing. Fairly broad topic, don’t you think?
It turned out to be a very interesting exercise for me. I thought about it. First on a surface level, then much more deeply. I arrived at the conclusion that healing is perpetual. It is not so much a destination as it is a journey (this sentence was lifted from my “100 Greatest American Cliches” handbook).
Each and every one of us deals with healing in our own way. In order to attempt to narrow my focus, I must apply the concept to a two basic categories within my life:
Surface. The human body is always healing. Be it a skinned knee, a bad back, a bad haircut or a night of heavy drinking, our poor old bodies try with all their might to correct the physical atrocities we put them though on a daily basis. An amazing machine, the body is.
Emotional. A much more difficult and drawn out process. I believe that all of us, from day one, spend most of our lives and effort trying to process and justify those events in our pasts that have, for one reason or another, left a bruise on our egos. I challenge anyone out there to contest the theory that occurrences in our lives that have in some way lessened our opinions of ourselves do not haunt us forever and shape the very way we live our lives from said event forward.
Since The Playpen is a site about parenting, children and family, I choose to focus on the latter category, and how it relates to the birth of my daughter. As many readers know, she was born almost two moths prematurely, and her early arrival put not only her own health in jeopardy, but my wife’s as well. If one were to view a timeline of my life to this date, they would clearly see a large red dot, circled in Sharpie with exclamation points around this time.
Looking back, I realize that the unexpected nature of her birth left deep emotional scars on my wife and me. And, honestly, we have only truly begun to heal from this event. Many, many decisions we have made are significantly influenced by this unexpected event.
We have only one child. This is an absolute result of her early delivery. Had we gone through a normal pregnancy, we would probably have another by now.
We spoiled her. At some point we should have been more strict with her. We should have laid down the law. I believe that because of hyper-concern for her health, we allowed her to get away with too much for too long. We are all doing much better with this now, but it was a problem for a while.
To this day, we overreact to a common cold. Not as much as we used to, granted, but our daughter knows the ins and outs of an ER, she knows the name of the equipment, how to lay on the examination table and sometimes refers to a bracelet as “what she wears at the doctor’s”.
I do not wish to paint a picture of my family as suffering from hypochondria, in and out of doctors offices on a daily basis. We are all healthy and happy. I am merely pointing out that past experiences have influenced our behavior, and the awareness of this particular issue and the desire to overcome it defines “healing” for me personally.
Healing is awareness. It is overcoming the fear of facing adversity in ones past and standing up to it. Healing is relinquishing the control that we though we had and turning our attention to strengthening our resolve and character. Healing is overcoming our demons. Facing what frightens us. Healing is courage and the willingness to improve oneself as a human being. If we are unwilling to put forth the effort to heal, we doom ourselves to a life of fear, and perpetual regret.
Matt
October 5th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
This is an excellent contribution, Matt! It will be tough for me to tease-out some way to tease you about such an intelligent post…many, many thanks!
Barbaras last blog post..Missing My Sensory Mowing
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October 5th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Great post.
The fact that you’re able to share your healing process with your readers shows that your healing is in full swing.
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October 6th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Found your blog through the healing carnival. I do agree that emotional healing is much more difficult than physical healing. Great post!
julie L.s last blog post..Healing: A Poem and a Personal Note
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October 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Thank you for sharing. Your comment on overcoming our own demons really strikes a chord with me.
Good luck to you and yours on the journey.
Frans last blog post..No matter what
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October 7th, 2008 at 5:36 am
I found you through the Healing Carnival. I liked your post on emotional healing. My daughter was born a year ago with Down Syndrome and she was also 3 weeks early. That doesn’t sound like much, but the two weeks in the NICU and three at home with O2 was a bit unverving. Your comments on healing is courage reminded me of a quote (I don’t know by who, sorry) about Courage is going on in spite of fear, not without fear. Healing is similar.
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October 7th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
nice post. loved it. i would agree with another poster – emotional healing is the toughest of all for sure but so so important.
rainos last blog post..Fricken Disaster!
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October 7th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Hi Matt,
I’m just wondering if you are currently in possession of my travelling t-shirt. Just trying to keep up with where it is and keep it moving as quickly as possible to ensure as many bloggers as possible get the chance to host it.
Lightenings last blog post..Smiley Saturday – Talk Amongst Yourselves
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October 9th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I can relate to so much in this post. When Kyle came home from the hospital, we felt bad about all that he had to endure during his 4 months in the hospital…as a result we spoiled him rotten! Also, any little ailment that Kyle has we totally take notice of. At 18 months of age, he has already been to the doctors MANY more times than my eight year old daughter.
But like you said, healing begins with awareness…and at least I am aware of my neurosis!
Blessings From Aboves last blog post..A Letter from "TF"
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