If you’ve ever been on a healing journey you’ll know what I mean when I say you really have to feel your way along. There are a thousand ways through the maze and I don’t even know yet if there’s an exit.
Last year I ran my first 5k road race. At the end, even though I was very much at the back of the pack, everyone cheered me through the last hundred meters, and I ran through the inflatable arch, celebrating my personal achievement and trying to resist laying flat on the pavement right there in the middle of milling groups of runners who had finished 25 minutes earlier! I like to think that’s what the finish of this “healing maze” will be like. I’ll be overcome with both celebratory joy and sheer gratefulness it’s over. I’ll get the same participation medal as everyone else, but it will hold meaning and value for me that has nothing to do with the medal itself. There couldn’t be a talisman precious enough to represent the kind of accomplishment I’ll feel if I ever make it through the brutal obstacle course that is my healing journey.
In reality, I’m guessing at the path forward. I really don’t know what it is I need, most of the time. I’ve learned some hacks and some rules of engagement. I’ve found tools that I tote around in an invisible backpack. I pull them out, like I’m Super Mario or Zelda, to see if they’ll unlock the latest barrier. But I’m just trying things. Sometimes, though, I manage to give myself some clues. I find whenever I get really obsessed with something – a song, an idea, a book – it usually contains a clue to my hidden feelings. Once I listened to a song on repeat for over 30 minutes while I was driving, multiple times in one week. I probably listened to that one song for a couple of hours over the week. That might not be so rare for some, but it is for me. I need variety. I crave new things, change, fresh input. I consume music, books, podcasts; and then move on. This obsessive behaviour became a clue for me. I listened to the song with new ears – trying to understand what part of it was speaking to me on such a deep level. It turned out to be the melody (often it is the words or ideas, but this time it was that tune.) It was sad. The notes of the song came in such a progression that they became tangible grief. And I realized I needed to actively grieve some things I had been carrying.
Like many of us, I am much better at analyzing or dissecting my feelings than feeling them. I often need external help to tap into the part of me that feels. I shut her down for so long. This is why poetry or a good story are so wonderful for me. They prepare me to feel in the same way that a hot bath or dim lighting might help prepare one for sleepiness.
Recently I’ve been excitedly devouring a new podcast. It’s a history podcast that briefly tells the important details of events, people, places, or ideas from the past. I’ve listened to everything from Queen Victoria to the French Revolution to Easter Island. If I’m driving by myself, that’s what I’m listening to. I didn’t think much of this new obsession, because I have loved both podcasts and history for a long time. But when I didn’t want to slow down on these episodes even to listen to the latest episodes of my all-time favourite podcast, (Cautionary Tales,) I started to wonder if all this listening was trying to tell me something.
History is peculiar because we can look back and see things that weren’t obvious at the time. We can judge the villains and appreciate those who got it right – even if their ideas weren’t popular at the time. Of course, we can take this too far – ballooning our sense of superiority as we judge those who were living according to the “rules” of their day, not ours. We can do what we often do with atrocities, and distance ourselves by pointing out the terrible deeds of the “other.” We say, “Those people were bad.” Instead of naming the evil itself, and exploring the ways of thinking that might protect us from repeating history, we like to imagine we are good, while those people were bad.
However, as I obsessively listened to episode after episode, I began to wonder what tiny thing my healing-self was feeding on. While listening to these podcast episodes as they detailed historic events and the lives of historic figures, I noticed my body relax as the narrator clearly named the evil as evil. He stated very clearly each time a historic “bad guy” (or good guy with bad habits) engaged in tyranny.
When I think back to little-me, trying to navigate a very confusing world, I have so much compassion. She was just trying to make things make sense. Someone who did bad things was treated with love and respect. The bad things made her feel bad and terrified, but also good and special. Nothing added up. Evil was not named as evil.
But in these history podcast episodes, evil is named. The narrator isn’t making sweeping judgments, or laying blame to gain something for himself. He just names the bad things as bad, while outlining the historic context in which they happened. There’s room in there for compassion and understanding. There’s space to recognize the key players in each story had limited knowledge and ability to think outside of their own time. But the bad things are still named as bad. This gave me peace. It has been teaching me, I think, how to name the bad things in my life. I can take time to sort by “intentional” and “unintentional” later, but clarity is essential. And the autonomy to be the one to name what has harmed me is healthy. It’s not up for debate. It is my lived experience. I will refrain from sweeping judgements about the overall harmfulness of ambiguous evil. But I get to say what hurt me.
I know we all have unique stories. Our motivations and reactions come from different places. But I imagine there are many of us who have felt incapable of naming the harm that has happened in our own lives. We could be hampered by fear or perhaps we simply don’t see the point in going back over it all. And it might not be necessary, or even helpful for everyone. But little-me and I are becoming great friends as I venture back in time to hold her hand. She just needs to be heard. I bet little-you has some things they need to get off their chest too. Take care, my friends.
Something Deeper 
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