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There is a cliche in self-help or trauma or healing or mental health when it comes to hardship or rock bottom or heartache. We like to say, “something broke inside of me that…” day, week, month, year, etc. 

But what if, instead, we said “something healed inside of me that day”? Sure, sure - ignoring the pain sounds like suppression or invalidation or compartmentalization or just plain ole denial, but the fact of the matter is that really sharp, sharp, brutal pain is often the wound that forces healing. We take a shiv to the kidneys in life and think, My God, I can’t go on like this. And the change we fancied or imagined for ourselves someday becomes immediate, it becomes dire, it becomes essential for our survival. We have to. We must. 

We can’t possibly walk around with the shiv sticking out of our lower back as if it’s no big deal. And we also can’t possibly keep spending time in the place and with the people that brought us to such excruciating pain anymore, can we?

We have to the withdraw the shiv. We have to cause even more pain just by removing that sharp blade designed to cause us harm. We have to pull it out, patch ourselves up, and create conditions for healing. We might have to apply a balm or wrap the wound in gauze. We might have to sew it up. All of this causes pain, even if it is part of the process. We have to suffer a little more as part of the recovery, but even the suffering is different on the path to healing and change. 

And hopefully, we learned our lesson. Hopefully, we plan to keep an eye out for all the conditions that lead us to the circumstances in which we were injured, grievously, in the first place. Some of us go back for a third or fourth stabbing, shocked by the same treatment over and over again. 

I recently experienced pain so acute, I don’t think I feel pain at all anymore. Something, it feels, has healed inside of me. It’s like a wound long left open and festering finally had to be treated and sewn shut. I feel relieved of that hallucinatory stupor that goes along with an infection and fever. I am healed. I am revived. I am… not quite reborn, but almost. Like the high that comes from walking through fire or being baptized, the calm beyond the pain is glorious. A relief. 

It’s like waking up in a hospital bed, sutures removed, a faint, puffy scar all that’s left to show of a lost love or life or someone else’s dream. It was all so awful that something finally healed within me and I have to say I thank God (or Good) for all of it.