“Time heals everything”, is one of the biggest lies we are taught to believe.
Not even in the realm of Hollywood-crafted superpowers of time travel, precognition, or time-freezing do we see time shooting healing powers out of a phoenix-feather-core wand.
Time is not a wizard or a sorcerer. Time is not an alchemist. Time is not a doctor or a psychologist.
Time is not a healer.
Last week I wrote about my war with the mirror. My hatred for the body that serves me has slashed a bone-deep flesh wound, festering with years of infection that forever gushes with burgundy pain.
I told myself, as many days as I’ve been alive, that this wound would heal with time.
My wound cries back in desperation as time only permits the once modest laceration to grow menacingly with torn edges stretching further to reveal raw, jagged tissue. I’ve allowed this wound to rot my body.
Then slowly and all at once, I stopped living with the pain - carrying it with me everywhere I go - and it became me. There was no me without my wound. It became a speckle among the speckles of my identity. I was taught that time would heal this wound. It did not.
Over the course of my quarter-century spent on this giant rock, I have watched this experience repeat itself. Over and over. One will carry the mountainous weight of unhealed traumas on their back.
Earlier this week I was sitting cross-legged with my shoes sitting next to me on the floor of my therapist's office — only five feet of room separate two grey-blue walls. The faint sound of cars whirring by outside filled the space between our silence. She sat across from me in the same cross-legged-barefoot fashion with a disposition gentle enough to cease wars. I pulled the cuticles on my pinky nail past the ouch zone as she dove into an illustrative metaphor.
Her eyes darted rapidly searching for an object in sight, landing on a small black trash can that sat at the foot of the couch. She picked it up and told me to imagine that the trash can held trauma from a period of my life. As time goes on, she continued, the trash can stays the exact same size. Time doesn’t change the size of the trash can, time simply permits individual growth to occur. We shouldn’t expect the size of the trauma to change, we should expect ourselves to grow big enough that our traumas feel small relative to who we grew to be.
This metaphor morphed into vivid imagery in my mind. Disney animation style, I imagined my cartoon self constantly tethered to trash cans of varying sizes. Everywhere I went the cans scratched pavement in my wake. Up and down city streets they banged. In the bathtub they bobbed. When I tried to relax they bombarded me. The cans felt heavy in my mind. Their presence was palpable.
I was not just me, I was me and the trauma I carried.
Some carry one small trash can, others carry one big trauma trash can the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. When we experience trauma, it becomes inextricably ours. It weaves itself into our existence and we remain ever-changed because of it.
No matter the size or quantity, our traumas don't dissipate into thin air as the hour hand runs laps around the clock. Nor do I believe - even if it was feasible - that we would be better because of it. As the clock hands race, we are called to opportunity by none other than ourselves. We are called to the opportunity to grow so big that our traumas feel relatively small in comparison. The opportunity asks that we accept responsibility for healing instead of expecting time to stand responsible. The opportunity asks of us to act intentionally to seek expansion. The opportunity asks of us to build conscious resilience. The duty asks of us to grow in empathy towards ourselves and others throughout our healing journey.
In a world absent of healing, one will eventually grow numb from carrying long-endured pain. Hardening from the inside out, the heart becomes impenetrable. The soul becomes lost in darkness. Numbness is a glacier of disconnect - disconnect to ourselves, disconnect to others, and the existence that fills the gaps in between. Resilience that is negligent of one’s well-being and the well-being of others is no sign of strength or courage. It is quite the opposite. Numb people are numb to others. Hurt people, hurt people.
To heal is to choose courage. To heal is to place faith in ourselves. Healed people, heal people.
We choose to heal not only for ourselves, but also for others. We choose to heal to honor this planet beaming with larger-than-life humans that are beings of trauma and joy, love and heartbreak, win and loss, and everything in between.
Agency rewrites our stories. Time merely permits progress to occur. Time needs agency as much as agency needs time. Their intradependence is the gateway to beauty. A beautiful life is one that happens for you, not to you.
To choose to heal, is to choose beauty.
I received an influx of love and support after publishing last week’s piece - big hugs to everyone that spent the time reading it, reflecting on it, and sharing their personal stories. My fear to publish was met with an openness which I am deeply grateful for.
I can’t thank
, , , and for the feedback and guidance that helped bring this piece to life.With love,
Haley
Damn, this is so good Haley! Trauma it seems is an invitation to numb out, but for those who choose the agency you so beautifully describe here (Time needs agency as much as agency needs time.) the result is the ability to feel with an even greater depth and range of exquisite rawness. And maybe this is the higher purpose of trauma, because it transforms our capacity for feeling by forcing us to consciously choose it. Perhaps we are never healed, but can always be healing. And fortunately people who are healing also heal people. I feel so served by you with what you've shared, which is the joy and magic of writing. You've just made me a little bit bigger as a person.
“Resilience that is negligent of one’s well-being and the well-being of others is no sign of strength or courage. It is quite the opposite. Numb people are numb to others. Hurt people, hurt people.” - This is so, so good. Very well written, Haley.