Healing Is Not Linear Quotes

Healing from psychopathic abuse is a long journey. It is neither linear nor logical. You can expect to swing back and forth between stages, perhaps even inventing a few of your own along the way. It is unlike the traditional stages of grief, because you have not truly lost anything—instead, you have gained everything. You just don’t know it yet.

Babe - healing isn’t linear. And look how far you’ve come.

Grief isn’t linear, it isn’t logical. There’s no structure or civility to it. It grabs you when you least expect it and it digs in its nails until you succumb.

grief is not linear. It’s not a slow progression forward toward healing, it’s a zigzag, a terrible back-and-forth from devastated to okay until finally there are more okay patches and fewer devastated ones.

Progress isn't linear, though. If you plotted it onto a graph, it wouldn't be this straight line up towards happiness. It would wiggle backwards, then forwards, up and down. You might feel worse in a month from now than you did a few weeks after it happened. But that doesn't mean you're not healing. It just means that we all experience emotions at different times.

Healing doesn’t walk a linear line; it takes the messy route. I believe that healing comes during both the dark days and the bright ones. It’s not all rainbows. Sometimes healing means slicing open the scars that made you hurt so much before and examining them to fully understand yourself. Why did the cut hurt you in the past? How did it change you into who you are today? What can we learn from the pain of your yesterdays to better your tomorrows?

We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it's an impulse to return to what is felt by the body -- what is authentic, what is archaic -- and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling. And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That's what the world is. The world is not an unsolved problem for scientists or sociologists. The world is a living mystery: our birth, our death, our being in the moment -- these are mysteries. They are doorways opening on to unimaginable vistas of self-exploration, empowerment and hope for the human enterprise. And our culture has killed that, taken it away from us, made us consumers of shoddy products and shoddier ideals. We have to get away from that; and the way to get away from it is by a return to the authentic experience of the body -- and that means sexually empowering ourselves, and it means getting loaded, exploring the mind as a tool for personal and social transformation. The hour is late; the clock is ticking; we will be judged very harshly if we fumble the ball. We are the inheritors of millions and millions of years of successfully lived lives and successful adaptations to changing conditions in the natural world. Now the challenge passes to us, the living, that the yet-to-be-born may have a place to put their feet and a sky to walk under; and that's what the psychedelic experience is about, is caring for, empowering, and building a future that honours the past, honours the planet and honours the power of the human imagination. There is nothing as powerful, as capable of transforming itself and the planet, as the human imagination. Let's not sell it straight. Let's not whore ourselves to nitwit ideologies. Let's not give our control over to the least among us. Rather, you know, claim your place in the sun and go forward into the light. The tools are there; the path is known; you simply have to turn your back on a culture that has gone sterile and dead, and get with the programme of a living world and a re-empowerment of the imagination. Thank you very, very much.

Healing isn’t linear.

Healing is not linear. It's a like a waltz between you and the Divine weaving through time. When you join hands through the healing process, you transition to a beautiful rhythm for yourself and your life.

If there is anything certain in life, it is this. Time doesn't always heal. Not really. I know they say it does, but that is not true. What time does is to trick you into believing that you have healed, that the hurt of a great loss has lessened. But a single word, a note of a song, a fragrance, a knife point of dawn light across an empty room, any one of these things will take you back to that one moment you have never truly forgotten. These small things are the agents of memory. They are the sharp needle points piercing the living fabric of your life. Life, my children, isn't linear where the heart is concerned. It is filled with invisible threads that reach out from your past and into your future. These threads connect every second we have lived and breathed. As your own lives move forward and as the decades pass, the more of these threads are cast. Your task is to weave them into a tapestry, one that tells the story of the time we shared.

The path to healing is rarely linear, but it is always worth the trip.

You take each day as it comes. Healing isn’t linear, El. There’ll be days where the lightshine warms your face and others where you barely want to leave bed. But that is still moving forward. Don’t put expectations on yourself.

If we trust that our inner world knows what is needed next, one outcome isn't preferable to another. It is so easy for us to want healing to pursue a more linear path: Something arises and it would be best if we could stay with that. There can be a sense of disappointment in therapist, patient, or both if the sensation doesn't return. This might be perceived as a lack in our patient's ability to maintain contact, a reflection of our inadequacy of a therapist, or simply discomfort that the therapy feels stuck.

It’s about building my toolkit and having practices in place so that I can handle the lows better; it’s about understanding that experiencing those bad days doesn’t mean I’m reverting or losing progress, but simply that I’m human. It’s all a balance. Healing isn’t linear.

Forgiveness, as it turns out, is not a linear prospect. Neither is healing; both flare up and die down. So do my symptoms of schizoaffective disorder. I have tried to control these "oscillations" as my psychiatrist calls them. But what, if anything, can truly be controlled?

It’s crucial to emphasize that grief defies a linear path and cannot be confined to a predetermined timeline for “moving on” from a loss. Instead, grief becomes a lifelong journey, transforming and evolving in diverse ways as you integrate it into your life and carry it with you through time.

Some protectors do eventually dissolve in their current manifestation. Cutting or purging stops. Addition to alcohol or drugs abates. Suicide plans become ideation and finally depart, although none of this happens as linearly as I have stated it. Often, they are first replaced by less harmful protectors, and then those may be able to transform, bringing helpful gifts. Most important for us ... is to welcome these parts, listen to them and let them become our guides ... They will have a better sense of pacing than we do because they are so connected to the wounded ones inside. As the ones in distress have less hold on thoughts, feelings, behaviors and relationships, we can know that less vigilance over the inner world is needed.

The healing process from any kind of trauma is never linear. There will be days when you will feel virtually unstoppable, like a queen on top of the world. But there will also be days when you won’t even want to leave the house. Our souls are fickle and fragile things, but our bodies, our minds… they go the distance. I speak from experience here. It does get better. It always gets better.

It took me a while to realize ‘getting better’ isn’t about preventing myself from ever encountering negative emotions. It’s about building my toolkit and having practices in place so that I can handle the lows better; it’s about understanding that experiencing those bad days doesn’t mean I’m reverting or losing progress, but simply that I’m human. It’s all a balance. Healing isn’t linear.

Recent psychological research on grief favors meaning making over closure; accepts zigzagging paths, not just linear stages; recognizes ambiguity without pathology; and acknowledges continuing bonds between the living and the dead rather than commanding decathexis. But old ideas about grief as a linear march to closure still hold powerful sway. Many psychologists and grief counseling programs continue to consider “closure” a therapeutic goal. Sympathy cards, internet searches, and friendly advice often uphold a rigid division between healthy grief that the mourner “gets over” and unhealthy grief that persists. Forensic exhumation, too, continues to be informed by these deeply rooted ideas. The experiences of grief and exhumation related by families of the missing indicate something more complex and mysterious than “closure.” Exhumation heals and wounds, sometimes both at once, in the same gesture, in the same breath, as Dulce described feeling consoled and destroyed by the fragment of her brother’s bones. Exhumation can divide brothers and restore fathers, open old wounds and open the possibility of regeneration—of building something new with the “pile of broken mirrors” that is memory, loss, and mourning.

The Newtonian model of biology is based on linear events in which chemical reactions occur in a sequence of steps. But that’s not actually how biology works; you can no longer explain something even as simple as how a cut heals without the understanding of the interconnected coherent information pathways you just read about. Cells share an intercommunication of information in a nonlinear way. The universe and all the biological systems within it share an integration of independent, entangled energy fields that, in turn, share information beyond space and time on a moment-to-moment basis.

Our bodies are living ecosystems, and like the cycles of nature, we also ebb and flow, go backward and forward, contract and expand, and move through necessary phases of growth, death, and restoration. Contrary to what we might want to believe, healing is not a linear process but an ongoing spiral into subterranean spaces of darkness where we confront the unknown. Where we rest, regenerate, and eventually expand outward into bloom. We might resist the dark spaces inside us but the truth is, most of our healing and growth happens underground and under our skin. We need dark, protected spaces to let the most tender parts of ourselves form. Rest and retreat are just as necessary as the warmth and illumination of light.

A human life has seasons much as the earth has seasons, each time with its own particular beauty and power. And gift. By focusing on springtime and summer, we have turned the natural process of life into a process of loss rather than a process of celebration and appreciation. Life is neither linear nor is it stagnant. It is movement from mystery to mystery. Just as a year includes autumn and winter, life includes death, not as an opposite but as an integral part of the way life is made. The denial of death is the most common way we all edit life. Despite the power of technology to reveal to us the nature of this world, death remains the ultimate unknown, impervious to the prodding finger of science. We might well ask if anything which cannot be addressed in scientific terms is really worthy of our attention. Yet most of the things that give life its depth, meaning, and value are impervious to science.

Healing is like a twisty pretzel, it's never linear. The process of healing is not something we need to be seeing as a staircase (one step higher after the other); but we need to see it as a part of life, an element of life, which is exactly what it is. Today you'll be better, tomorrow you'll be out of control, the next day you might be worse than that, and after that you'll be on top all over again. Like a pretzel. And there's salt all over it, too! But that's just like all other processes we go through, because life is a dance all over the dance floor; it's not an elevator ride. It's not one floor after the other. I mean, if it were that way then it wouldn't be worth living, would it? So, the next time you feel like you're losing your battle, remember that it's all about the salty pretzel: and at the end of the day, the pretzel is gonna be good. And you're gonna have a coke to wash it down. And you're gonna be okay.

Conventional medicine, to date, has been definitively based on the linear and materialistic point of view of the upward causation model. This has resulted in a model of healing where the only legitimate therapies are pharmaceuticals, surgery,

[Narratives] serve as powerful tools for high-level neural network integration. The combination of linear storyline and visual imagery woven together with verbal and nonverbal expressions of emotion activates and utilizes dedicated circuitry of both left and right hemispheres, cortical and subcortical networks, the various regions of the frontal lobes, and the hippocampus and amygdala. The cooperative and interactive activation involved in stories may be precisely what is required for scultpting and maintaining neural network integration while allowing us to combine sensations, feelings, and behaviors with conscious awareness. Further, stories link individuals into families, tribes, and nations and into a group mind linking each individual brain. It is likely that our brains have been able to become as complex as they are precisely because of the power of narratives and the group to support neural integration

counseling. She said that grief is not linear. It’s not a slow progression forward toward healing, it’s a zigzag, a terrible back-and-forth from devastated to okay until finally there are more okay patches and fewer devastated ones.

Time does not need to be existent or nonexistent. Although from the Earth perspective it seems exclusive, the nature of time is actually inclusive. Time is both simultaneous and linear. It exists not only in time, but also in no time. Moreover, it exists in the space between the two—where the existence of time varies, depending on how you look at it. The point of view from which you observe events determines how you perceive the flow of those events in time. Time is a construct that

I often refer to the great mythologist and American author Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) in this book. He used the designation of „hero“ to describe individuals who embark on the monumental psychological task of expanding and evolving consciousness and famously charted this journey. This hero‘s journey begins in our inherent state of blindness, separation, and suffering and progresses on a circular (as opposed to linear) route made up of stages shared by myths and legends spanning all cultures and epochs. From Buddha to Christ, Arjuna to Alice in Wonderland, the hero‘s journey is one of passing through a set of trials and phases: seeking adventure, encountering mentors, slaying demons, finding treasure, and returning home to heal others. Tibetan Buddhism‘s and Campbell‘s descriptions of the hero both offer a travel-tested road map of a meaningful life, a path of becoming fully human – we don‘t have to wander blindly, like college kids misguidedly hazed by a fraternity, or spiritual seekers abused in the thrall of a cult leader. The hero archetype is relevant to each of us, irrespective of our background, gender, temperament, or challenges, because we each have a hero gene within us capable of following the path, facing trials, and awakening for the benefit of others. Becoming a hero is what the Lam Rim describes as taking full advantage of our precious human embodiment. It‘s what Campbell saw as answering the call to adventure and following our bliss – not the hedonic bliss of chasing a high or acquiring more stuff, but the bliss of the individual soul, which, like a mountain stream, reaches and merges with the ocean of universal reality. (p. 15)

Healing doesn’t walk a linear line; it takes the messy route. I believe that healing comes during both the dark days and the bright ones. It’s not all rainbows. Sometimes healing means slicing open the scars that made you hurt so much before and examining them to fully understand yourself. Why did the cut hurt you in the past?

Challenges during Healing Healing is for the brave and for those ready to face what lies within. There is so much inside of us, depending on our personal emotional history, that at times it can feel overwhelming. What your journey looks like in the beginning will be sharply different from what it looks like once you are deep in the emotional trenches of inner discovery. The popular understanding that healing is not linear is totally correct. The deepest parts of healing come in waves and between the waves there are periods of integration so you can connect with the new you. Along the way the challenges will be unique to your conditioning and related to the method(s) you have picked to aid you in your quest of developing greater happiness. If letting go was easy, no one would be hurting. So it is no surprise that the process of letting go will be filled with ups and downs. But if you can handle them with awareness, openness, and a keen mind that is ready to learn more, the ups and downs will help fill you with new wisdom.

You take each day as it comes. Healing isn’t linear, El. There’ll be days where the lightshine warms your face and others where you barely want to leave bed. But that is still moving forward. Don’t put expectations on yourself.” “You’re very wise, you know.” Enzo winked. “Not just a pretty face, am I? I’ve known much grief in my life, El. You are not alone in this, I promise.” “My mother always told me it was a curse to feel as deeply as I do. I loved her very much, but I think she was only capable of loving me in her own way, rather than as I needed to be.” “People can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.” Elara nodded. “So I locked all these emotions behind a wall. They still bubble around under the surface. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to skim over the surface of life, to never have known pain and sorrow, to not be so attached.” Enzo pulled her away roughly and tilted her chin. “Don’t you ever let anyone tell you that feeling too much is a weakness. Do you know how much strength it takes to feel every ebb and flow of life? To keep your heart open? You treasure it, Elara. There aren’t many who possess such a gift.” Her eyes brightened slightly. “Sometimes it just feels like such a burden.” He looked at her, his eyes so open and trusting that she ached. “Then let me help carry it.

understand that it can seem that way, but healing is not linear. She will have good days and bad days. Sometimes, it’ll seem like she takes leaps and bounds ahead. Other times, it will be as bad as when she first returned home.

Research in resonance and sound shows that if living beings operate or resonate on similar vibrations, one can affect the other. Yet another set of studies hints that there is sharing of energy and intention through the upper range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Replicated studies indicate a significant decrease in gamma rays from patients during alternative healing practices. This suggests that the body’s gamma emitter, a form of potassium, regulates the surrounding electromagnetic field.93 Gamma rays materialize when matter (such as an electron) and its antimatter counterpart (a positron) annihilate on impact. As we have seen, antimatter has the opposite charge and spin of matter. When electrons and positrons collide, they release specific types of gamma rays. Years ago, Nikola Tesla suggested that the gamma rays found on earth emanate from the zero-point field.94 Though it appears as a vacuum, this field is actually quite full, serving as a crossroads for virtual and subatomic particles and fields. When we perform healing, it is possible that we are actually tapping into this zero-point or universal field, shifting its power through intention. Still another theory is that we are accessing torsion fields, fields that travel at 109 times the speed of light. These fields are hypothesized as conveying information without transmitting energy and with no time lapse.95 Part of this suggested effect is based on the definition of time as a vector of the magnetic field. When torsion and gravitational fields function in opposing directions, the torsion field can conceivably alter the magnetic functions, and therefore the vector of time. When superimposed on a specific area in a gravitational field, it might also reduce the effect of gravity in that spot.96 These torsion fields have been researched by Peter Gariaev and Vladimir Poponin, Russian scientists who discovered that photons travel along the DNA molecule in spirals rather than along a linear pathway, which shows that DNA has the ability to bend light around itself. Some physicists believe that this twisting or “torsion-shaped” energy is an intelligent light, emanating from higher dimensions and different from electromagnetic radiation, giving rise to DNA. Many researchers now believe that these torsion waves are consciousness, composing the soul and serving as the precursor to DNA.97

Healing takes time, patience, and self-compassion. Each step you take towards healing is significant, and progress may not always be linear. Trust your instincts, prioritize self-care, and surround yourself with a support system that uplifts and empowers you.

The journey of ego-Self separation and reunion is not a strictly linear process with a clear beginning and end. Similar to the heroic journey, it is a spiralling path that we navigate throughout our lives. We separate and reunite multiple times, at different depths and levels of consciousness. With each revolution of the spiral, we reconnect with deeper and vaster expanses of our authentic Self, without negating the role of the ego or our humanity. This lifelong journey is a continual unfolding and balancing of the paradox of the human and divine within us.

a child experiences abuse, their brain may make an association between the features of the abuser or the circumstances of the abuse—hair color, tone of voice, the music playing in the background—and a sense of fear. The complex and confusing associations can influence behaviors for years; later in life, for example, being served in a restaurant by a brown-haired man who hovers over you while he takes your order may elicit a panic attack. But because there is no firmly embedded cognitive recollection—no linear narrative memory—the panic is often experienced and interpreted as random, independent of any previous experience.

Now we have common ground: Joy and grief both produce intense linear motion toward a destination, though we do not yet know the destination.

The weight of our losses might feel heavy one day and markedly lighter the next, but the memory remains. If it does, it does. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Neither is indicative of being more or less "healed" or "healthy". Neither is right or wrong. There's not necessarily a linear path that leads us out of our discomfort and into an unaffected state. We might also compassionately absolve ourselves of the inclination to search for a silver lining. There might not actually be one, and that's okay. We need not feel pressured into finding bright spots when we just landed in the dark ones, and we mustn't succumb to this binary vision of adversity. Sometimes things don't "happen for a reason" and sometimes there isn't a cheerful way to look at a horrific or heartbreaking situation. Sometimes when we try to make sense of why bad things happen to good people, we find ourselves searching for meaning where there is none, getting caught in a manufactured duality. We can hold both. There is room and necessity for nuance, complexity, and gradation. We can be hurt and healing simultaneously. We can be grateful for what we have and angry about what we don't at the exact same time. We can dive deep into the pit of our pain and not forget the beauty our life maintains. We can hold both. We can grieve and laugh at precisely the same moment. We can make love and mourn in the same week. Be crestfallen and hopeful. We can hold both. And so it goes. We grievers might stumble upon these notions the hard way (I'm not so sure there's any other way to come face-to-face with them), but nevertheless, we work to integrate them and, in time, deftly tuck them in to our pockets as hard-won wisdom we might just get the chance to impart someday.

In a young child, the cortex is not yet fully developed; in children younger than three, the neural networks are not mature enough to create what’s called linear narrative memory (in other words, a who, what, when, and where memory). However, in lower areas of the brain, other neural networks are processing—and changing as a result of—our earliest experiences. Associations, or memories, are being created in these lower networks, and this has a huge impact on how trauma is stored in the brains of the very young.

I realized that time doesn’t move in a linear fashion unless we’re using the filter of our physical bodies and minds. Once we’re no longer limited by our earthly senses, every moment exists simultaneously. I’ve come to think that the concept of reincarnation is really just an interpretation, a way for our intellect to make sense of all existence happening at once.

It’s just healing again, and you need to give it a little patience. You’ll be stronger for it. Recovery is not a linear path. These setbacks are necessary for progress.” With his words, he reminded me I could do this, that it was hard for a reason, and that I was strong enough to meet it head-on.

Gentleness, humor and abundant support are wonderful resources on this ever-unfolding, stubbornly non-linear journey from control to receptivity.

Moving forward requires us to reframe our basic assumptions about life. Moving forward” does not mean that we heal in a linear, sequential way.

Moving forward” does not mean that we heal in a linear, sequential way.

Healing is not linear. Remember that, okay?