The Art Of Healing: 4 Simple Habits Of People Who Go Easy On Themselves
These habits show how people who go easy on themselves learn to let go and grow without all the self-blame.
Tina Rischawy | Unsplash "I don't want to dive into any childhood stuff or rehash old things from my past. I want to know why I'm feeling so anxious and stuck."
I get it. I've heard this from many clients who "just want to figure out" why they are struggling to move forward. I'm often asked about how long the process of therapy will take. In my work with clients and on my own journey, I've developed a deep understanding of the process of healing, what it means to form a relationship with your inner child, and, more importantly, why it matters.
Holistic therapist and social worker Devon McLeod states, "When it comes to forming a relationship with your inner child, there's nothing more empowering than to give yourself the love, care, attention, and support that you needed growing up."
You have the capacity to shift your experiences, challenge your negative beliefs, and make the changes you desire to live an authentic life. There are key elements to the process of healing to remember, and going easy on yourself in the process. When you're mired in discomfort in the work to heal your soul and you're feeling a desire to stop therapy altogether, these four components can support your journey and help give yourself some grace.
Here are 4 simple habits of people who go easy on themselves as they heal:
1. They create awareness
The initial step to healing is to create awareness about your feelings. Once you become aware of your patterns and the behaviors attached to your emotions, you can then get curious.
People who heal well treat this awareness practice like a gentle check-in rather than harsh self-interrogation. Research stresses creating space for your emotions to exist and speak, with the knowledge that understanding comes before change, and acceptance comes before healing.
2. They stay open-minded
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Acknowledging your emotions creates movement and energetic shifts. In this practice, your feelings do not have power over you. Instead, you move through them. Responding to yourself from a curious place versus being critical allows for a deeper connection to yourself and others.
The shift from criticism to curiosity changes everything. One approach keeps you stuck in shame, the other opens a door to understanding, a 2016 study found. This same generous curiosity naturally extends outward, increasing your patience with others.
3. They have self-compassion
Connection serves you and offers the space to understand how your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors are serving you. Self-compassion is the salve that can keep you in the process. In her research, University of Texas associate professor Dr. Kristin Neff identifies three elements of self-compassion: Self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.
When you're kind to yourself versus being self-critical or ignoring your pain and difficult emotions, you enhance your tolerance to inevitable discomfort. Humans are imperfect and vulnerable. Practicing mindfulness — being present with what is without judgment- can foster your journey, transform your life, heal your pain, and create space to live with authenticity.
4. They allow for integration
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As a Gestalt therapist, my role isn't to support you in getting rid of the parts of you that you struggle with the most; it is to facilitate your integration, to become aware of the parts that need the most love and compassion.
The integration of new patterns of behaviors requires self-love, developing resilience, and practicing immeasurable patience. Once you have awareness, you can choose to shift your patterns through practice and integrate the lessons into new ways of living.
Cyclical in nature, your willingness to stay in the journey requires an understanding that healing involves expansion with greater awareness, and a knowing that you will collapse into old patterns.
This contraction is part of the process. Your body will seek comfort in what it knows. Healing involves the shake-up of energy and a process that shallows out old grooves of behaviors and defenses.
It's not easy, nor is it always profound. The process of healing is not driven by the ego, the need to be right or perfect.
Healing comes from within. It is a process and a practice that takes time, which is the most valuable gift you can offer yourself.
Christine Vargo is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, a certified Gestalt Therapist, a Certified Daring Way Facilitator (CDWF-Clinician), and the Co-founder of Full Expression: The Human Condition, currently in private practice.
