Coping VS Healing - A snippet of food for thought

No walks along the lagoon or the beach this morning… nope it is pouring with rain for the next few days so, indoors it is and working in a rocking chair whilst tending to the fire so we don’t freeze to death, lol. I know I have mentioned this (probably a few times) before, but I love this weather – rain, that is! I find I am exceptionally productive… not that I am not usually so, but when it is cold and rainy, for whatever reason it seems to bring out the worker bee in me, yet simultaneously everything seems slower, calmer and more “intentional” if you will… thus stimulating a more contemplative state of mind. I simply love the “mood” and “energy” which this type of day creates… at least for me anyway! Besides – any day which I can sport a pair of boots is a good day!

Speaking of contemplation, I was listening to a snippet from a talk the other day which I found really interesting. The focal point of the message was about anxieties etc. I will quote the clip below:

The majority of people, whether it is doctors or psychologists, or even self-help experts – we do the opposite with triggers, so if somebody gets super upset, they start to have that emotional flashback – what we usually do, is teach them how NOT to feel it. “Let’s take you OUT of the anxiety”, “Let’s have you do some breathing exercises” – and those tools, they don’t serve us if we want to HEAL, they serve us if we want to COPE. Coping and healing are on two opposite sides of the spectrum.”

Listening to that really pricked my ears because it makes complete sense and is something that I strongly relate to, especially after my little Hiatus taken from all things “21st century” in the last two months. There were many moments during that time when I literally begged the question internally “why can I not just make it go away this time?!” or “Why am I not ABLE to calm myself down or remove myself from these excessive emotions now, when I have been able to do that all my life?”

Not having an answer to those questions became infuriating to me and in some ways it made my emotional state of being feel even worse – until I realised that THIS TIME was different because a completely new outcome was around the corner. I was not going to “sweep anything under the rug” and carry on as if nothing had happened and I was perfectly fine… no, this time was about the healing, not coping which is why it was so much harder to work my way through it all and why it took that much longer. This was a very powerful realisation which I thought I would share here with all of you.

Perhaps you feel overwhelmed and unable to cope anymore or process the emotions you are feeling – I thought that perhaps this little insight would lighten the load a little, in the realisation and knowing that you may just need to exercise a little more patience with yourself and you continue moving forward on the road to becoming the best possible version of yourself.

“For love to flourish, the light of your presence needs to be strong enough so that you no longer get taken over by the thinker or the pain-body and mistake them for who you are. To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.”
― Eckhart Tolle