We are not here to heal

Many purpose-driven leaders underestimate the importance of healing their emotional wounds. We fail to realize that understanding and integrating these wounds inherently bolsters our positive impact in the world by clearing and strengthening our life energy. And at the same time, such healing is a critical gateway to viscerally knowing and living our passions and values, and thus tapping into a deeper and richer sense of purpose.

However, I find that the opposite is also quite often true. Many, maybe especially those in healing, wellness, or medicine subcultures, can overly center the role of healing in their lives. It sometimes feels as if they believe the whole point of their life is to heal these emotional wounds, that healing is the end goal or the central journey in and of itself.

I'm here to tell you: It's not. Or at least, that's not what I choose to believe.

Healing is a lifelong journey...

Let me add some disclaimers: I do believe that healing is a lifelong journey. Perhaps we never truly, fully heal. We can diligently do the work over the course of months, years, and decades. We can perhaps even rid ourselves of 99% of the wounds 99% of the time. But they seem to have a way of continuously returning to us in new manifestations, calling us to go further and deeper than we have before, or perhaps to clear older wounds from our ancestry. Healing is an ongoing process. There is no ultimate destination or resolution.

I also believe that doing this healing work has a way of allowing our lives to fall into place. Once we get the shame and toxicity out of the way, we can much more easily tap into our genius and inner knowing. The universe conspires to clarify and support our path.

Sometimes, healing is the single most important thing we can do for our path. After we can get over that hump, it's downhill from there. It is often wise and necessary to make healing a primary focus for certain chapters of your life.

...But it doesn't have to be the primary focus forever

Think of an injured athlete. If they tear their ACL, much of their work for the next several months of their life will and should be focused on healing that injury. They put in the time and effort. They focus. But the point isn't to heal per se. The point is to heal so that they can get back out on the field. The juice is not in healing, but in enabling themselves to play and compete once again. Healing is just a necessary part of doing that.

The same goes for healing our emotional wounds. It is quite often an absolutely necessary part of our life's work. But it is not the destination. It is just one leg of the journey.

My friend Tucker Walsh delineates three stages in the healing journey. I'll paraphrase in my own language and framing.

In pre-healing, we unconsciously operate from our wounds, trauma, shame, shadow, etc. We are unaware that we even need to heal. Because of this, despite our likely good intentions, we project our shame onto others, hindering our relationships, careers, creative endeavors, and general enjoyment of life. Perhaps most in our society are operating in this stage.

In healing, we become aware of our need to heal and endeavor to do the work. We learn to grieve, surrender, forgive, let go, and be with. We seek out relationships with others who are healing. We yearn for conversations and engagements where people are open and vulnerable about their healing. Healing becomes a central focus of our lives.

However, in post-healing, while we do not stop the healing process altogether, it becomes much less central to our work and relationships. The healing process actually works, and all of a sudden, more healing work begins to lose its luster. We don't feel the need to go back to the well of our family of origin dynamics or trauma. We understand that we never really were our "issues." We become much more enlivened by living our essence as individuals and offering our gifts to the world from a clear, empowered place. We yearn for relationships not based on healing from trauma, but on who we truly are at our core and a shared vision for our lives and the world.

Has healing become boring?

For many of us, our deepest wisdom lets us know that healing should be the central focus of this chapter of our lives. That is wonderful and often quite necessary. I know it has been for me.

But I also suspect that for at least some of you reading this, you've already spent enough time on that chapter of your life. Maybe your deepest wisdom is trying to tell you that now is finally the time to turn the page. Maybe now is the time to let healing play a less central role in your life. Maybe now is the time to leave all the "issues" behind, and simply be who you really are and share your greatest gifts with the world.

How might you know when it's time to turn the page on healing? For me, it's not that the pain goes away or you don't ever get triggered anymore. It's not that there isn't more work to do. It's that you are already deeply familiar with the pain. You know it's lessons. And when it does arise, it no longer cuts so close to the bone. You don't identify with it in the same way. You catch yourself before projecting it on others (much more of the time). Amid the pain, you are cushioned by a sense of wholeness and fundamental OK-ness that wasn't available to you before.

Maybe more than anything, you might know it's time to turn the page when doing more healing work simply starts to sound boring. You've gone back to that well enough. You yearn for something new. You know your life is meant for something more. You know that you are not here to heal. You are here to know and express your unique genius and offer it as a gift to a world in need.

Peter Schulte Leadership coach Bellingham WA USA About | Instagram | Donate