Every Step Counts
Why Healing Takes As Long As It Takes
I've been wrestling with something that keeps me up at night.
Something that disturbs my conscious and sense of peace.
It’s the haunting and frustrating reality of how long it takes to change the patterns that are slowly killing me.
Growing up, everything was black and white. Good boys and bad boys. Winners and losers. You're either crushing it or you're failing. No middle ground. No grace for the messy in-between. You knew right from wrong, but if anything happened outside of this dualistic thinking, it got ignored, minimized or avoided.
This is a normal developmental stage. We all tend to start in this more overly simplistic way of seeing the world. We need time to experience varieties of life expressions, suffering and processing it all as we mature.
As time goes on, we come to learn life is not what we thought it was.
We get hurt, we lose people and we make decisions that go against who we are. Instead of normalizing this and adapting to the complexities and pains of this life, we keep our survival skills sharp by continuing to ignore, minimize and avoid it.
“The only way we can do anything right is by doing it wrong first” - Richard Rohr
Survival skills are we got by, though. We have to thank them for doing that but learn to let them go as we’re no longer simply surviving.
“Meeting life on life’s terms” as Richard Rohr says, is hard.
Most of us carry this weight. The pressure to look like we've got our shit together while our inner world is falling apart. We slap band-aids on bullet wounds and call it progress.
Last year, someone shared an AA quote that broke something open in me: "As long as it takes to walk into the forest is as long as it takes to walk out."
Think about that for a second. Every moment that conditioned you for destruction needs a moment to recondition you for wholeness. Every lie you believed about yourself needs time to be replaced with truth. Every pattern that served you in childhood but destroys you as a man needs space to transform.
But we want the microwave version of healing. We want to pop our trauma in for 30 seconds and come out fixed. When it doesn't work that way, we beat ourselves up. We add shame to pain and wonder why we're drowning.
Big pharma, social media, travel and now even psychedelics and AI offer a flashy, empty promise to give us what we want, when we want and how we want it.
Instead of seeing our wounds for what they are, we chose to return to our survival skills because God forbid, we admit we need help and actually receive the help.
Here's what I'm learning: We're all addicted to something. Maybe it's not substances. Maybe it's being the "good guy," the "provider," the "strong one." We become slaves to these identities because they got us love once upon a time. Even when they're slowly suffocating our souls.
The moment we start naming what's got us in bondage, everything shifts. We stop seeing ourselves as victims of our circumstances and start seeing ourselves as men on a journey. Warriors walking out of the forest, one step at a time.
Every piece of rubble that's buried our true selves can be reclaimed. Every step that led us into the darkness can be redeemed as we walk toward the light.
Steps to healing
Take time to name your hurts and pains of the past. What feels unresolved and in need of care and attention?
Admit to yourself you need help and that you are worth receiving that help. Shame tells you you’re nothing more than what’s happened to you or what you’ve done wrong. Challenge that script by admitting.
Find a safe person in your life to admit you need help. Start with a family member or friend but try to get professional help like a therapist for more serious matters in need of care.
Commit to taking steps towards healing in every hurt you’ve experienced. You’ll never fully arrive but the goal is not to stay where you are. Every step counts.
“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” — Benjamin Franklin
This work can feel daunting, pointless and never ending. It’s hard and not for the faint of heart. It takes every bit of courage in us to see and sit with our shadows, shortcomings and sins. We ask ourselves, “will it ever be enough?” and “how much more must I do?”
These are honest questions that need to be asked. We must reframe the hard work of healing not as a burden but as an invitation to become who we were meant to be.
I often say that healing from trauma is changing our mindset from seeing it as a life sentence to a sentence in life. If we were present enough to the hurt that happens we need to be equally as present to the healing. While we must address these wounds, we can address them and therefore, heal from them.
That requires a daily devotion to becoming whole. To asking yourself the tough questions and sitting with them long enough to get clarity and answers. To not take the easy way out through a victim mindset. To take a deep breath (or 10) and start to walk out of the forest, step by step.
It will always be difficult and take everything in you to do so but the question is,
Is the cost of staying where you are greater than the cost of where you could be?
The goal isn't to sprint out of the forest. It's to start walking. To believe life can be more than living as shell of a human. That you were made to life in freedom, wholeness and peace. To give yourself love, compassion, patience and grace as you turn the tide of your life.
Walking out of the forest isn’t regression, it’s redemption.
It’s breaking the bonds of perfection and fear of rejection through admission and adventure.
Take your steps. With each step you take, the light gets brighter, the load gets easier and the truth gets clearer.
When you feel like giving up or forget to offer yourself the ways out, just remind yourself : As long as it takes to walk into the forest is as long as it takes to walk out.
Questions
Where are you in the forest right now?
What's the first step you need to take to start walking out?
How can you show yourself the same compassion you'd show your best friend?
Quote
"Without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually means less." — Mother Teresa