Choose Healing

 

“Trauma creates change you don't choose; healing creates change you do choose."    

Michele Rosenthal

I appreciate this quote so much! It is good to be reminded that healing is a choice. No one would choose trauma to be a part of their life if they had that choice. The work of healing from trauma is not easy or fun. It requires great persistence, strength and determination. It is exhausting on all levels; emotionally, physically and relationally. But the reward of healing is enormous and valuable beyond description.

Change takes time. One thing I’ve learned about trauma is that there is no time limit, no expiration date. Trauma can happen in a short time; a second even… but then there is reoccurring or sustained trauma.  Regardless of how long the time span of the traumatic event(s), the changes caused by that trauma can stretch over a significant amount of time.

Think of a small stone thrown into the still water of a small pond. You can watch the stone hit the water and it disappears. But then you watch the ripples of that stone go out from that point in endlessly repeating circles until they reach the shore. I think trauma is like that.  There is the trauma itself, an injury and injustice. But then, there are the “ripple effects”, all the changes that are caused over time. Some show up right away, others take time.  For many who have experienced trauma, these ripple effects feel constant, overwhelming and endless.

The good news is that healing is also like a stone thrown in still water!  Healing in one area of life will impact other areas as well.  The positive changes brought on by learning to trust and love after pain, loss or abuse causes ripple effects throughout all of a person’s life as well as in the lives of those who are close to them.  Healing has no expiration date either!  No matter how old or hidden a trauma is, it can still be healed and brought to a place of wholeness.

The most traumatic events of my life happened more than 30 years ago. The “ripple effects” of rape and physical abuse have reached every area of my life. I have experienced so much healing and I enjoy a tremendous amount of freedom from many ways my past trauma changed me. But still, even after all these years, there are new ways I discover that I was changed by the events of my high school years. I still have to choose healing in those areas of woundedness.  They have been buried or have lain dormant…but now as I become aware of them, I am again confronted with the choices I have and those I do not.

I wish I could remove the trauma – erase it from my past! I cannot, nor can I choose not to experience the effects of it in my life.  But I can choose to heal. I can determine again, that I am worth my own best effort. I have survived some horrific things, but I can be more than a survivor…I can thrive!  I am much more than a sum of what has happened to me, and so are you! 

The choice to invest in your own healing is a courageous and powerful choice. We cannot always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond. It is a choice we make again and again. But just like the stone, thrown into still water….those choices have ripple effects that change the landscape of our lives.

Trauma has been and will always be part of my story, but I will be defined more by my healing.  That too, is my choice!  I am and will continue to be more than I have survived.  I will choose again today to thrive and heal.