Wellspring Wednesdays|Week 17: Quantity v. Quality

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I love math. I am a human who just loves math. I get it; I can work with it. I like to solve equations. An algebra workbook would be what a coloring book is for others. I like figuring out problems; I love solving for X. There’s an actual true solution to every equation. There is an exact calculation once you understand the problem and know the formula. Oh, how I love formulas! To me, math just makes sense.

I digress because this show/blog isn’t about math. It’s about trauma recovery. The beauty of healing is that there is no finite solution. There is a lot of system creating, formula following, and problem solving — sure. Yet, with healing, you can’t know those things in advance. You are making them up as you go. Healing isn’t a math equation; it’s an art. It’s creative. It’s a dance. It’s a poem, a prose, an essay. It’s getting up every morning and trying to find joy while drudging through miles of pain. It’s exploratory, unpredictable. There are no X and Y to solve for or anything you can punch into a calculator to get an answer. Healing is the answer. The art of healing is the solution. The mitigation of the aftereffects of your trauma is the result. The calculation is whittled down to how much relief you find in your day-to-day life. The secret sauce is finding peace within yourself as you loop around in wild fanciful circles, small pivots, and untamed brush strokes. You are recreating your authentic self; you are putting together puzzle pieces and making something beautiful.

There are no rules, no way to quantify your experience. What works for you may indeed trigger another. What your best picture looks like today may feel like a 4-year-old’s drawing the next. You rip it up, and you start over — over and over again. You take hours learning the choreography of this healing dance, only to discover you hate dancing. Then you walk away for a year or more. You come back, and healing is waiting for you to pick back up wherever you left off. There is not a magic equal sign that means you’ve completed the work. There’s just a fresh canvas every morning waiting for you to design something from scratch. The hope comes from knowing the blank canvas is waiting and knowing that you are the only one who can create this thing.

We’ve talked about how the healing road is dizzying with curves and bumps and twists. You can’t find an end because the end is not the goal. Learning to love the journey is the goal. Would it be easier to have a specific gauge to check in on how much healing you’ve accomplished? Sure. Would it be lovely to have a meter to see how much farther you’ve got to go? Of course. (Although, depending on the person, both of those may be devastatingly pessimistic measurements, so let’s be thankful that they don’t exist.) So if you are like me and really like to find solutions and fix things, how can you value your healing if not by ranking it in size, shape, and distance? That assessment can only come from your soul. Once you’ve hit one plateau of healing, you can relish in that for a while, only to be assured that even deeper healing is around the corner. How is the journey going? How do you feel day to day? Can you give a quality to your current mood and mental state? Can you feel the internal changing happening? Can you be okay with the small wins and build momentum on those?

That qualitative condition in your heart, mind, spirit, lifestyle, emotional state, mental health, and overall well-being — that is measurable. You can do much more; you could do way less. None of that matters if something isn’t working. Also, nothing can compare to finding that thing that serves you really well — a creative outlet, a new friendship, a coach you connect with, the replacement of an old coping skill, or a good night’s sleep. You don’t judge that with ounces, weeks, or inches. You compute it with your feelings, your instinct, your true self.

If you need support along the journey — maybe you aren’t happy with your current quality assessment or you’ve hit a plateau and are hungry for more — feel free to send me a message or schedule your free consult today. A road trip is always better with a friend to support you; I’ll even chip in a little for gas. Either way, never give up on yourself. You never know when the next level of healing is around the corner. No calculators needed.