Words on The Healing Journey

‘For a Seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes.

To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction’ ~ By Cynthia Occelli.

This quote always moves me, and remains one of my favourites. It is probably one that many people may not even understand. I know if I had read it a few years ago I would have felt confused by the words, frowned at it and moved on. But now, it resonates on a profoundly deep level, as I’m sure it also does for many others who have experienced their world being turned upside down by illness, or anything else that requires digging deep and changing the way you live your life.

The experience of long term illness strips you back. Right back. Life as you once knew it, becomes a memory. Everything changes. My own journey has tested me, and continues to test me, in ways I can’t even begin to express fully.

Having to learn how to sit (or lay) in silence, because nothing else is bearable on a physical level, leaves you no choice other than to face all the internal ‘stuff’ that so many people distract from through their busy lives. That you once distracted from with your own busy life.

Living inside a body, with no stability, and continuous discomfort, tests your inner resolve daily.

Relapsing and crashing back down, after having those blissful better days or weeks that get your hopes up, the glimpses that tease you, break your heart. Having to pick yourself up again, again, and again, builds a determination and strength you didn’t know was even inside you.

Your life on hold, having no choice but to learn the art of patience, as you watch the lives of those around you move on in an external sense, whilst your own stays in a strange kind of limbo. It makes you see things differently. You notice more, you appreciate the little things more. But you also yearn to be a part of the world more fully and for your body to be able to catch up with the pace of the yearnings of your soul.

You unravel, you even fall apart completely at times, but eventually as time moves on, you begin to heal at a deeper level. You become more connected to ‘you’ than ever before. This is a precious part of the healing journey and one of the hidden gifts that will stay with you for years to come.

It takes connecting to your heart, your faith and the love from those around you, to keep going, to keep hoping, to keep taking baby steps forward. To stay focused on what’s important, on what you are thankful for and what lays ahead.

The healing journey, changes you, breaks you, connects you, grows you.

There is nothing else quite like it.

🌱🌷

Emma x

Photo by me, taken just as the first leaves were bursting out from their buds a few weeks ago in English Springtime. So bright and green and lovely.