Healing was the path to freedom for me.

I learned later in life that healing is not a straight line. It doesn’t happen in a flash, it is never really done.

I worked hard to get better and suddenly I would feel as if I had lost all that I had gained, or as if the gains were not real. I could never and can never escape myself. But I could heal.

We all live with ghosts of pain and trauma, and healing does not erase their scars or voices, it  only pushes them aside with louder and more affirming and healthier voices. They pop up at will, especially when there are setbacks and  transgressions.

Those of who were wounded along the line are often doubtful of our ability to heal, to get better, to be better. So many people want help and need help. So few people get help. We are so vulnerable to the judgements and anger of others.

I learned that I could not be around people who refused to heal, I couldn’t be friends with them, it is true that healthy people cannot be close to unhealthy people. If it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right, and I stopped blaming myself, I just got away, people who wanted pieces of me, people to whom I gave pieces of myself away.

I was so empty and needed that I nearly gave all of myself away, and that was one of life’s most terrifying and scarring experiences.

I had a lot of healing to do. I did a lot of healing.

The path to freedom is lined with setbacks – exhaustion, a cruel remark, an inability to be heard by people who ought to hear you, real or imagined rejection, the surprises and disappointments and intrusions of life.

When these things happened to me, I always felt that I was right back where I started, where I deserved to be, where I ought to be. But over time I learned that if I got back on the road, I started out at the place where I left it, not the place where I began. One step at a time, one day at a time. I put many of the pieces back slowly, as if building a very personal kind of foundation.

Some of us seem to get our souls and hearts broken when we are young, our egos shattered. People who mean no harm can do as much harm as people who mean to hurt. And they can do plenty of harm. We have a lot of work to do.

What I learned and will pass along is this. Not to dwell or get stuck on the small moments of hurt and doubt and fear. Not to let other people wound or define me.

I found that there was a quiet and solid place at the center of me, somewhere below my heart, above my stomach, and near my soul.

I found people who loved and believed in me, and I loved and believed in them.

Nobody could reach me in this safe and sold place, I constructed this place bit by bit, day by day. There is a bright light in there, it shines day and night.

I trust it now, I know it is there when I need it, it is like an ego in some ways, bloody but unbowed, scarred but strong. Outside of my center, these painful moments find other painful moments, together they are powerful, they often pushed me right off the road.

Mostly, what I learned is to trust and respect myself, no matter what the outside world might say or think of me, I have discovered many companions on my hero journey, i came to understand that healing is not a straight line, it had so many curves bumps and hills and holes and turns in it.

All of my life, the people around me told me not to be me, but to be someone else, something else. I have learned to just be me.

I never gave up on healing myself, I never stopped getting help until I got help that helped, I always saw healing as the road to freedom, a road I kept returning to and never really got off. I will always have work to do, I am flawed in so many ways.

But then, one day, I was free. I was not without pain or suffering, I was not perfect and did not have a perfect life. But I leaned that the path to freedom leads to freedom, and that is a precious gift beyond words.