Recently I was asked to set intentions for what I wanted to achieve at the end of my healing journey. This question somehow did not sit right with me. There was an unease to it. Is there an end to my healing journey? A destination? Somehow this seemed unachievable, like I was setting myself up for failure. Isn’t a journey exactly that, a journey. Life has no destination, and if it did, is the end destination not death? So, setting an intention for the end of my healing journey somehow seemed too far to reach, so dark. Yes, one can assume that at the end of my life I would have wanted to reach total healing, peace, capacity, space, joy, laughter, that I would have lived and loved. If that was the intention to say at the end of my life’s journey this is what I would have accomplished, then the intention setting would be correct. But this is not what the question was. What the question should have been was “at the end of this treatment journey, what do you want to achieve?”.
The problem with this is that healing is not linear, it’s not pretty, it’s not quick. So, setting an intention must be realistic, achievable, the timeline that you place to it must be reachable.
It occurred to me that the healing journey and building capacity for healing can be ugly. My intention is to grow, to heal, to create space and capacity to be a better version of me. I must leave space for the ugly. A rose is beautiful, but it still has thorns. There is no beauty on earth without the ugly, without the growth pains of life. A butterfly cannot exist if the caterpillar wasn’t brave enough to turn into “mush” and become nothing, to become something beautiful. The caterpillar must break down itself and rest and regrow before it can fly.
To heal we need to deal with our own ugliness and hurt. With the dark and pretty. With the chaos of life and glimmers in between. Life can throw so much at us. While we grow and heal, life happens. So don’t lose sight of the glimmers. The blossoms of a peach tree, while the winter cold is ripping at your bones. The beautiful rose and scent when you smell, even though your house is flooding, and life seems like one endless disaster after another.
The world around us seems like its constantly burning with wars, floods, earthquakes, illness…the ugly is endless. But so is the beauty, so is the healing, the laughter, the grace. Look for the glimmers. The circle (halo) around the moon. The little buds of spring, the chirping of birds, the silliness of a toddler, the kisses from your spouse, the wagging of a dog tail, light snow in unexpected places.
Savour these moments, these glimmers. Try not to be focused on the destination. Healing is a journey and it’s not pretty. But in between the ugly, stop and find the beauty. Hold on to the glimmers of life.
Until next time…
