au·to·mat·ic
/ˌôdəˈmadik/
adjective
adjective: automatic
1. (of a device or process) working by itself with little or no direct human control."an automatic kettle that switches itself off when it boils"
2. done or occurring spontaneously, without conscious thought or intention. "automatic physical functions such as breathing”
...discomfort was followed by complete trust in my body to heal itself.
I got a cut on my hand today. I was playfully climbing a door jamb like I used to do 2 decades ago, and I fell. The pain was mild, but I did manage to scrape the 3 middle fingers on my left hand. I took a moment to look at the damage, saw that it wasn’t too deep, brushed a few pebbles out, and went about attempting to climb the jamb again having full faith that my fingers would eventually heal and that my body would figure out how. Of course, later on while washing hands or holding things I noticed that there indeed was a break in my skin. But again, the mild discomfort was followed by complete trust in my body to heal itself.
Just now, I was lying in bed feeling sad for myself (the day’s pervasive mood) about a bunch of things, including my confusion about how my healing heart (I experienced the biggest heartbreak of my life last summer) affects my relationships. On one hand, I know I have to take relationships slowly (not just romantic) because, well, my heart still hurts. And I also realize that sometimes I may not even know how/if a relationship is good for me because my abuse/trauma radar is a little off. Thoughts about whether I’m doing enough to heal came up. So I’m lying in bed pitifully thinking about this and I remembered my hand. I fully trust that it will heal in time... so much so that I tried climbing again immediately after. I wondered if I can think anything similar about my heart.
Of course, the severity of the damage has to be taken into account, but can I allow myself to relax a bit and trust that my body (earthly vessel) & Being (expansive soul) got this? When I think about the body, I realize that often there is something broken that it is intuitively healing; a scraped elbow, a torn cuticle, a stubbed toe... and that’s just the small stuff. For bigger stuff we may elect to intervene and relocate a broken bone, or stitch up a large gash. But even in these cases at some point we let the body do its thing. The cycle of break and heal is an inseparable part of all of our physical experiences. The hope is that the breaking doesn’t take up the majority of our existence. That we still have time to focus on going to work, playing, being with others. But even when the breaking seems to take up a huge per cent of our lives... is there any space to imagine that the healing will come?
Could it be that our souls, too, are in a constant cycle of breaking and healing? Could our souls also have automated processes of dealing with a rupture? Could I be keeping myself in an unnecessary state of worry because I've done enough and it's now time to just allow the soul to do what it does? I'm not sure if this is the way to go, but for tonight, I’m trusting that I’ve brushed enough pebbles out of the open wound to continue going about my day trusting that healing will come. My body and soul got this.