I’ve been thinking a lot about healing this week. Between last Sunday’s class about attachment needs, and preparation for this Sunday’s teaching about economic justice, I’m noticing the ways our spiritual lives are influenced by language and analogies from our economic structures.
I hear these types of statements all the time:
“I went to a yoga class once. It just didn’t feel productive.”
“I tried a support group a couple times. I didn’t get anything out of it.”
“Art therapy? What’s that actually going to do for me?”
We give up too quickly because we don’t immediately see the result we were expecting. One outcome of our free-market economy is that we’re constantly being sold on quick fixes, believing there’s always a better option than what we’re experiencing.
Healing is not about productivity. It is already happening as quickly as it can. It happens at the speed of our bodies, not the speed of our expectations, or our technology.
We’re living in a culture that is centered around efficiency and maximum output from minimum input. There is tremendous pressure to constantly optimize our homes, our lifestyles, and ourselves.
These are mechanical ways of thinking - viewing ourselves as machines that need the right fuel and maintenance. But we’re organic creatures, living beings bound by our biology. Healing is an organic process, which means it happens on its own non-linear timeline.
If you’re looking for clues about how to better support your own healing, look to Nature for inspiration. Think about what helps your body, or what helps plants or animals. Let yourself rest. Practice patience. Be open to sticking with a healing practice long enough to see a pattern emerge. Don’t let concepts like “return on investment” discourage you from taking good care of yourself. You deserve healing.