“Healing is a choice, till you choose and then it turns into a commitment.”

Now that you turn your head to read this, let me state this clear. Healing is a choice, it’s a choice to work on yourself for yourself. In no way am I guaranteeing that it will work but I will guarantee that you will benefit from it.

Let’s first define healing shall we? You can heal a wound, but rarely can you heal a scar. You can heal from your past but that’s not a guarantee for the future. Even though you might not heal physically you can choose to heal mentally.

“Healing is the process of the restoration of health from an unbalanced, diseased, damaged or unvitalized organism. The result of healing can be to cure to a health challenge, but one can grow without being cured or heal without “a cure”. Wikipedia

The healing I talk about is the mental and spiritual aspect of healing. As someone with a Spinal Cord Injury I had my fair share of healing so let me spill my two cents. We might not be in control of our body, mind or spirit, but we can influence it in ways beyond imagination. Especially after a life altering moments when you just got shaken to your core and everything gets a little bit weak. We have the choice how we face our options, our demons and how we will transform. In no means am I saying that it’s easy. I am saying however that if you don’t face it, it becomes an unbearable weight and if you do face it, it could end up in a relentless fight. Whether it is that you have, a Spinal Cord Injury or that you lost a parent or your heart got beaten to pulp or that you lost sight of the future you set for yourself. You will need to face yourself and no one else. This can turn into a depression and can worsen your physical condition because your mental is suffering. It can lead to confusion because of spiritual disorder. What to believe in? And how will you come out? Your body, mind and spirit are connected and no medication can heal that. It can numb it, but only you can choose to heal it. And to heal it you must realign it.

Choosing to heal yourself is in no way easy. I’ve done it myself. Still am. It’s an ongoing process to choose to better myself. I have seen others do it and I have helped others get on the path of it. But it’s an ugly process with many ups and downs. Many confrontations with yourself and your past. Maybe with your family and maybe you will have to let some people out of your life. Maybe it will feel like breaking free after breaking down. You will have to believe in yourself and you will have to hold yourself accountable. If you are on the path of healing yourself, I would like to give you some tools to help you along the way. Do not give up! You might give in, but never give up. Battles are won and lost but wars lasts forever and the only way to come out of them as a winner is to be as honest as you can be about yourself.

Write it down

Write things down, the more you write to realer it gets. Once you write it down, you made a thought or a fantasy reality. You start a process. This you can do with getting over hurdles or realizing dreams or goals. It is your personal toolbox where you can tweak your mind(set.) Get yourself a journal, or use your phone. There are many apps out there that can help you along.

Choose possibility over difficulty

Ok, this is a difficult one. Your brain loves to make things difficult and you probably want to give up before you actually try. No shame in that, it’s actually your natural setting. One part of the brain wants growth and the other part wants you to shut up and sit down (this is the procrastination part). This is why you write it down. You made a thought valid, so your brain needs to work with it. As you read it you see this part of yourself that wants it. Do you want it more? Hang it on your mirror. On your wall or on your fridge. Trigger yourself with what you need and not with what your brain tells you what you want.

Ask yourself questions

Why do you want change? For who do you want change? What would that change look like? Go over the questions again. Make more questions. Question those questions. Write it down. See where I’m getting here? Read it. Read what you wrote, today, tomorrow, next year. And ask yourself the same questions again. Put your answers next to each other. Where do you see options? Where do you want help? Ask Google, Quora or YouTube and see who else had those questions. Form a new opinion about you.

Talk to yourself

Here comes the crazy! Sit or stand in front of the mirror, do it while you comb your hair, while you shave or pluck your eyebrows (don’t hurt yourself) or even when you’re brushing your teeth. Look at yourself, make weird faces and tell yourself the things you wish others would tell you. Tell yourself to be strong. Don’t look away. Be embarrassed but talk that courage into yourself. Are you doubting? Good! That’s survival instinct. Don’t push it away. If you don’t like to write, this is your moment of escape, get your phone out, (leave Facebook closed) record what you want to tell yourself with a voice note or video message so you can listen or watch it later.

Be honest

Your biggest sin isn’t so much that chocolate that you love, it is lying to yourself. Love that chocolate but also understand that too much isn’t good for you. That goes for all the “too’s” in your life. Take accountability for yourself and your actions. You can only do wrong if you don’t learn from past mistakes. You had that chocolate cake that you shouldn’t have? You lost your temper when you should’ve counted to ten? This is where you grow and heal. Accept yourself and forgive yourself. Don’t blame others, this is on you for you. Once you start to be painfully honest is when you start seeing you.

Choose to grow

With everything I wrote above, it only works if you chose to be you. For you. Not for me. I don’t see you when I look in the mirror. I don’t think of you when I go to sleep at night. Only you do. Your choice is to face these thoughts and to grow above them. You choose to forgive or to hate. Guess which one will heal you? You choose to smile through your tears. You choose to be honest when it’s easier to hide. What will benefit you further along the road? This is scary shit and as I said it can get very ugly, but if you choose your beauty you will outshine the darkness! This is the most solid advice I can give.

Seek help

This is scary and might take some time some effort and maybe even some of your hard earned funds. I’m not saying go to a psychologist, but seek help. We live in the coaching era. There are more coaches than ever and more people go to counseling than ever. Why is that? Because we get more information than we can process. We “need” to perform on a higher level than ever before. We are emotionally disconnected while we are more connected than ever by a device in our pockets that tells us how to feel and why instead of you listening to yourself. With a coach, peer counselor or a therapist you get to discuss what’s going on in your life and you can get what you want to work on in your visor so you can write it down…

Once you choose healing, you choose yourself. You start seeing the world from your own eyes and not the media’s or the sitcoms. You start to understand your emotions and maybe eventually choose which ones you want to keep and which not. You have an enormous amount of healing power inside you once you make your choice and commit to yourself. This does not mean that you have to abandon the world, but you might need some time to reprogram yourself. I hope you find this hidden talent in you and that when we shake hands we can extend our healing to each other and heal the world a little bit more by starting with ourselves.