How Do You Heal?

Here’s a secret you are your own healer. Healing is an inside job and something only you can do for yourself, by choosing to do so consciously and intentionally, there is no magical pill and it doesn’t happen over night.

How do you heal? Recently, I had multiple people ask me the same question in a short span of time. Most people claim that they know what their ‘trauma’ is, however they don’t know how to overcome it. I want to point out that in some cases we may think we know what our ‘trauma’ is but sometimes we’re living so unconsciously we’re not even aware there is a deeper rooted cause to our pain. In my case I thought I knew, but at the age of 31 I came to realize a lot of things I was completely unaware of. In the end I came to accept that my journey was created for me to come on this path of healing and help others, which makes me grateful knowing that there was purpose in my pain.

I was listening to a podcast from Jay Shetty and Russel Brand when it dawned on me how to explain to someone else in a simple way how to heal. In life we have 2 programs, our first programming ‘Unconscious Program’ begins from birth and throughout our childhood. We are molded and shaped by our external environment and circumstances to have certain thoughts, feelings and beliefs about ourselves as well as life. In psychology it is said that by the time we reach the age of 7 majority of a child's personality has already been developed. We generally end up being programmed to live ‘fear based’ that external circumstances of life define our internal world, we then live life in pursuit of external validation of who we are. Neuroscientists have proven that we only have conscious access to 5% of our brain, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions and behaviors come from the remaining 95% of our subconscious mind. This 95% is based on our ‘Unconscious Programming’ created during our childhood. 

As we continue on our journey as adults completely unaware of this, life will continue to mirror back scenarios that continue to trigger these same thoughts and feelings. Here’s the thing, the truth is your internal world creates your external reality so long as we continue living ‘unconsciously’ unaware of ourselves we will continue to repeat the same patterns in life, feeling stuck, unhappy, and unfulfilled no matter what we change in our external environment. The moment you take the rains on your life and choose to live more consciously, become self-aware and create an intentional journey that’s the moment you begin to create your second programming. Your second programming ‘Conscious Program’ is created on your healing journey. The deeper you go into understanding yourself, where your limiting beliefs derived from, you become more self-aware and get to make a conscious choice to change what’s registered in your subconscious mind. You basically work on reprogramming your own internal world to what you desire for it to be, no one else can do that for you besides you.  

You can imagine the process of rewiring a program that was created over many years doesn’t happen overnight.  It’s a process where you have to be kind, loving and patient with yourself. Life will continue to throw obstacles your way to give you opportunity for growth, to give you a chance to take on a new approach. You will have triggers and you may fall back but the time span it takes to recollect yourself will become shorter and shorter. The journey is about reparenting yourself, loving everything about you unconditionally and only changing and letting go of thoughts, feelings and beliefs that no longer serve your growth. 

The journey is an internal one, and can be messy but it’s one that’s so worth it. For years, I heard so many people tell me of how much they admired me and my capabilities, it never mattered what anyone else said cause I never thought it or saw it for myself. I kept living for the next accomplishment or to reach the next goal to feel successful, or worthy. I was constantly in pursuit of defining my worth from external gratification, once I’d reach there I’d still not feel fulfilled. A year ago on my healing journey, I finally started seeing myself the way others saw me, without anything in my external environment changing, for the first time the change was from within. 

Here’s a link to the podcast mentioned for those interested in listening; On Purpose with Jay Shetty. This is a great podcast to expand your awareness and I highly recommend diving into his book, Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty.