Healing is Hard Work

It’s not difficult to see that patients in a physical therapy office aren’t having the time of their lives. Instead, they are doing hard, painful work because they know the fruit of that action is health and healing.

However, this framework is often distorted when we carry it over to the mental side.

Many think training the mind will be a cakewalk filled with positivity and bliss. While those aspects are possible, they are often not the case for most people, especially if they are confronting themselves for the first time after years, probably decades, of conditioning.

When you decide to heal psychologically, you are going to walk into a storm. But know this: It’s not personal. It is simply the result of an untrained mind.

Much like physical therapy, you will identify where you are broken, hurt, or suffering, and rather than avoiding it, you will actually lean into it.

You will do exercises that help you recognize, accept, investigate, and non-identify with psychological injuries, delusions, and ignorance.

You will repeat these exercises and drills over and over again.

There will be times when it feels useless.

There will be times when major breakthroughs occur.

There will be times when you are bored.

Whatever comes, just let it exist and trust the practice.

With constancy, you will wake one day with a mind that has reclaimed its capacity for openness, courage, and resilience.

By doing the reps of re-training your mind, you will feel internally resourced and capable of taking on life with quiet confidence, knowing that your mind can handle whatever comes your way.