Healing: What If It's a Solo Journey?

Healing from things you can't talk about with other people. Are you in that process? Have you been in that process? How did it go?

I've done it myself and it can create an interesting conundrum depending on how you approach it. Let's talk about it a bit.

The issue with not being able to talk about things is that it can create an echo chamber in your head. You end up in your own feedback loop. The reason this happens is because you don't have control over your thinking yet. You're not applying awareness to your thoughts and so the mind just feeds itself what it wants to hear because you never question it.

When you're unable to put things out into the world and gain perspective from others it can make you feel really alone. The echo chamber in your head makes you feel like you're in solitary confinement even when you're surrounded by people. Does being unable to share really mean you're alone in the world? Is it possible there's a story that's being told here? What is the story we're telling?

The story here is one of victimization. We can't share for whatever reason and it's made us decide that we have to isolate ourselves. It's created the feeling of needing to protect ourselves from some unknown danger that we've made up. Not being able to share turns into a story about it not being safe to share. Those things are different and we have to separate them to find the truth.

You can't share this one thing but it doesn't mean you can't share anything nor does it mean there is any danger or real problem. That's all a story the mind makes up. The mind makes it up because it wants to keep you stuck in the problem. It's trying to protect you by lying to you.

I think I say this in almost every blog I write - your mind is not out to get you. Your mind is not your enemy. You just need to learn how to use it so that it doesn't have this much control over you. It controls you through these stories. It controls you because you let it. You don't consciously engage with your mind. You're too busy zoning out and watching Netflix. When you consciously engage with your mind it stops being an echo chamber.

The conscious engagement with your mind actually creates a two-way conversation instead of a one-sided argument. It allows you the ability to question your own thinking and find some truth for yourself. You can pop out of the echo chamber this way. It allows you access to your intuition and your guidance. You don't have to get stuck in thought loops and endless stories.

You can in fact heal yourself without ever sharing anything if you don't want to. You have to detach from the thoughts in your head. You have to allow yourself some perspective outside of the thought loops and bubbles you're caught in. It doesn't have to make healing harder.

I've shared this before. The truth of my own healing journey is that it was solo. Why was it solo? Because I had victimized myself so deeply in relationship with other people. I had rendered myself so completely powerless that I was unable to have healthy relationships and maintain any boundaries at all. Any slight feedback or criticism from another would either make me defend myself needlessly or it would cause me to change myself to meet their expectations. When it came to healing, both of those things would cause more harm than they would solve. If I had overridden my own authority while healing I would still be in a bunch of pain. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

All of that pain is perception. There is no blame to place in any of what I just wrote. It was all my own creation and it was up to me to undo it. I couldn't undo it publicly until I had my feet under me. That's why I didn't start writing until 5 years in; it's because I couldn't. Even when I did start sharing, I was still pretty defensive and argumentative about it. I was still telling the story that people were dangerous to me. It was all powerlessness. To drop the huge walls of defense I had created, I had to put myself in places that were seemingly scary. I had to think before I wrote replies to people on social media (Imagine that!) so that I didn't defend myself.

I got the opportunity through social media comments, to question my responses to other people. Is my habit of being defensive helpful? Are they actually attacking me? Is this response appropriate? I used social media as a way of checking myself so that I could see that I had the power to manage myself. I didn't have to be so defensive all the time. I carried that over into my in-person relationships. Slowly I've unwound the need to defend myself so viscously and I'm able to reply in a way that doesn't have me defending myself anymore. I fixed it.

Did I share it? Not really, but I don't create echo chambers for myself in my own head. I'm comfortable being aware of my thinking and questioning what the mind is making up. I'm comfortable in the process that I've created for myself to deal with things and find truth in them.

Could I talk to other people about what's happening? Yeah, probably. Would I override my authority? It's unlikely that I would do that again at this point. But now I don't need to share it. I taught myself how to not need that from others. But is that a problem?

That's also a question of perception. Am I intentionally blocking people out or am I simply okay under my own steam? How people feel about me not talking to them about all the problems in my life is up to them. If they choose to feel shut out that's their choice. Why would they choose to feel shut out? Because they've been taught that the way to manage relationships is to share all the things. If the relationship is such that they don't feel safe to share all the things then it's the relationship that's the problem. Notice the quirky thinking here.

We expect people to share with us and we actually unconsciously demand it from others because if it doesn't happen we threaten the relationship. We take their not sharing personally. That's an ego defense mechanism. Why is it there? To keep us from getting hurt by other people. What if they actually aren't sharing because we did something wrong? Look at all the stories we can make up about why people don't share!

Sharing is truly optional and a completely personal choice. The need to share because we feel isolated otherwise is created from pain. The need to not share to protect ourselves is also created from pain. There's a spectrum that we've identified here, but both of those things can also happen without pain.

I can trust my own ability to solve it within myself and not need to share. That doesn't have to be based on any pain at all. I can also decide that I prefer to share and not create any sense of isolation or disconnection and have that be okay too. I can do either one without attaching it to any sense of pain. Which one I choose to do is entirely up to me. Neither one is wrong. Neither one makes anybody better than anybody else. They are simply ways of being in the world and both are completely acceptable.

They do change the dynamic of the relationship, but the relationship can be healthy regardless of which dynamic is chosen. The trick is that we're respectful of each other's choices and we don't try to force people into our version of reality. What you do is up to you and what they do is up to them. We don't have to take everything personally. It's okay to leave people alone.

What happens when you are a person that likes to share and you run into something you can't share? How do you manage that? It's the opportunity to learn some new skills. It's a place of growth.

The reverse is also true by the way. Sometimes us solo folks will find something that we have to share because we can't figure it out by ourselves. That also creates the opportunity for growth in the other direction.

What are the real goals? Knowing what you need versus what you think you should do. Understanding the limitations that may be present in that moment and not victimizing yourself with them. Paying attention to your thinking. Not creating stories. Allowing things to be as they are without arguing with them. Being open to learning new skills based on what's happening in the moment. Acceptance.

Do you want to know something? I had to check my own perspective to finish writing this. Sometimes I run into things too. I've just gotten really okay at asking questions and finding answers that make sense and don't cause me to argue with myself or my reality. I started wanting to take on other people's stuff, but that's not true, so I had to check my perspective. There's nothing wrong with that. I can quickly find the clarity and share it back out so that it makes sense to both you and me.

Thanks for reading!

Love to all.

Della