Healing Isn't Linear Quotes

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.

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 isn’t linear.

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.

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.

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.

Healing isn’t linear. It’s fluid, choppy, messy, and complicated. It’s liberating, expansive, transformative, and intuitive.

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.

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.

healing isn't linear.