Time Does Not Heal All Wounds
By Deborah Morris Coryell
Among the most frequently repeated phrases about suffering are that
“time heals all wounds” or “this too shall pass.” Time passes. It
does not heal. Healing is an active process, not a passive one. If
we have a cut and do nothing to clean it out or do not apply a
salve, it will probably form a scab. It might take longer and it
might develop an infection, but the wound will most likely close
and leave a scar.
When I was 5 years old, I ran away from home. I didn’t get very far: the downstairs vestibule. I waited what seemed like an eternity for someone to come looking for me. When no one did, I put my hand through a small decorative pane of glass in my attempt to open the door. A little sliver of glass was left in the soft fleshy part of my hand. It closed up with that glass inside.
When we experience woundings to our heart, soul and mind, it feels as if we have been torn open. Sometimes we are bleeding, figuratively, from every orifice of our bodies. Eventually the bleeding stops and the wound closes, but what has closed inside? Have we healed or just closed up with our anger, fear, resentment and doubt inside? Occasionally we develop a “weeping wound,” which doctors define as a wound that doesn’t heal because of noxious matter that continues to fester and ooze. How many “weeping wounds” can we sustain before our entire system becomes infected?
As we begin to explore the meaning of healing through loss, we discover the ancient spiritual roots of the healing arts. From prehistoric time, the healer or shaman was the most powerful teacher and wise one of the clan. In many languages, the phrase to heal comes from the expression “to be whole,” derived from the belief that when we become sick, we lose our wholeness. Something or someone has broken through our wholeness and caused dis-ease within our body. To heal is to come back into that lost wholeness and ease. Returning to wholeness often means that we must somehow integrate the disease so it is no longer identified as a threat. Once it becomes part of us, we have incorporated what was thought to be a threat into our hearts and souls and minds. This explains how it is possible for someone with an incurable illness to be healed—they can use the disease as a path into wholeness. My friend Philomena lived 21 months past the three-month life span doctors had given her. In those two years she reached out to find her healing and possibly her cure. She searched for all those places inside where she felt “not whole” and eventually became the person she always wanted to be. Her last words to me were: “If the price of this illness was learning all I’ve learned, I gladly pay with my life because I’ve become the person I always wanted to be.”
Healing and curing are two very different concepts. Healing is a spiritual idea and curing is a medical one. Healing is an active process. It doesn’t happen to us; we must participate in the process of our healing. Healing happens for us. It is a gift we give to ourselves in the moment we decide to stay “open” to that which has broken us.
In chronic pain management, we are taught not to tighten around the pain but to relax and allow the pain to be present. The idea is that when pain is resisted, it intensifies, When we breathe deeply and acknowledge the presence of pain, it has room to move and can flow through us more readily. Pain is there to tell us something, to warn us of possible danger. This is as true for emotional, spiritual, and mental pain as it is for physical pain. When pain speaks, we need to listen. All it takes is paying attention to our pain so that when it comes, we remember to breathe and get soft. We don’t want to fight with our pain. We want to learn from it.
Time does not heal. But healing does take time. Give yourself the gift of time. To become whole means that as we open to the pain, we open to the loss. We break open and, as a consequence, we get bigger and include more of life. We include what would have been “lost” to us if our hearts and minds had closed against the pain. We include what would have been lost if we had not taken the time to heal. As singer-songwriter Carly Simon tells us: “There’s more room in a broken heart.”
Excerpted from
Good Grief: Healing Through the Shadow of Loss
Related articles:
• Time Doesn't Heal - Actions Do
• The Little Things We Do Make Us Stronger
• Creating Inner Space Through Prayer or Meditation
• Creating a Caring Space Through Prayer
• Seasons of Grief
Also by Deborah Morris Coryell:
• Faith
• Simple Presence – Open Heart
• The Art of Losing
Deborah Morris Coryell has worked in the health field
developing wellness programs since 1974. She founded the Wellness
Education Department for Canyon Ranch Spa Resorts as well as for
the Pritkin Longevity Center. She is a visiting faculty member for
Dr. Andrew Weil’s program in Integrative Medicine and is cofounder
and executive director of the Shiva Foundation, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to the education and support of those
dealing with loss and death, located in San Luis Obispo,
California.
Image credit: andreyutzu/StockXchng
Among the most frequently repeated phrases about suffering are that
“time heals all wounds” or “this too shall pass.” Time passes. It
does not heal. Healing is an active process, not a passive one. If
we have a cut and do nothing to clean it out or do not apply a
salve, it will probably form a scab. It might take longer and it
might develop an infection, but the wound will most likely close
and leave a scar.When I was 5 years old, I ran away from home. I didn’t get very far: the downstairs vestibule. I waited what seemed like an eternity for someone to come looking for me. When no one did, I put my hand through a small decorative pane of glass in my attempt to open the door. A little sliver of glass was left in the soft fleshy part of my hand. It closed up with that glass inside.
When we experience woundings to our heart, soul and mind, it feels as if we have been torn open. Sometimes we are bleeding, figuratively, from every orifice of our bodies. Eventually the bleeding stops and the wound closes, but what has closed inside? Have we healed or just closed up with our anger, fear, resentment and doubt inside? Occasionally we develop a “weeping wound,” which doctors define as a wound that doesn’t heal because of noxious matter that continues to fester and ooze. How many “weeping wounds” can we sustain before our entire system becomes infected?
As we begin to explore the meaning of healing through loss, we discover the ancient spiritual roots of the healing arts. From prehistoric time, the healer or shaman was the most powerful teacher and wise one of the clan. In many languages, the phrase to heal comes from the expression “to be whole,” derived from the belief that when we become sick, we lose our wholeness. Something or someone has broken through our wholeness and caused dis-ease within our body. To heal is to come back into that lost wholeness and ease. Returning to wholeness often means that we must somehow integrate the disease so it is no longer identified as a threat. Once it becomes part of us, we have incorporated what was thought to be a threat into our hearts and souls and minds. This explains how it is possible for someone with an incurable illness to be healed—they can use the disease as a path into wholeness. My friend Philomena lived 21 months past the three-month life span doctors had given her. In those two years she reached out to find her healing and possibly her cure. She searched for all those places inside where she felt “not whole” and eventually became the person she always wanted to be. Her last words to me were: “If the price of this illness was learning all I’ve learned, I gladly pay with my life because I’ve become the person I always wanted to be.”
Healing and curing are two very different concepts. Healing is a spiritual idea and curing is a medical one. Healing is an active process. It doesn’t happen to us; we must participate in the process of our healing. Healing happens for us. It is a gift we give to ourselves in the moment we decide to stay “open” to that which has broken us.
In chronic pain management, we are taught not to tighten around the pain but to relax and allow the pain to be present. The idea is that when pain is resisted, it intensifies, When we breathe deeply and acknowledge the presence of pain, it has room to move and can flow through us more readily. Pain is there to tell us something, to warn us of possible danger. This is as true for emotional, spiritual, and mental pain as it is for physical pain. When pain speaks, we need to listen. All it takes is paying attention to our pain so that when it comes, we remember to breathe and get soft. We don’t want to fight with our pain. We want to learn from it.
Time does not heal. But healing does take time. Give yourself the gift of time. To become whole means that as we open to the pain, we open to the loss. We break open and, as a consequence, we get bigger and include more of life. We include what would have been “lost” to us if our hearts and minds had closed against the pain. We include what would have been lost if we had not taken the time to heal. As singer-songwriter Carly Simon tells us: “There’s more room in a broken heart.”
Related articles:
• Time Doesn't Heal - Actions Do
• The Little Things We Do Make Us Stronger
• Creating Inner Space Through Prayer or Meditation
• Creating a Caring Space Through Prayer
• Seasons of Grief
Also by Deborah Morris Coryell:
• Faith
• Simple Presence – Open Heart
• The Art of Losing
Deborah Morris Coryell has worked in the health field
developing wellness programs since 1974. She founded the Wellness
Education Department for Canyon Ranch Spa Resorts as well as for
the Pritkin Longevity Center. She is a visiting faculty member for
Dr. Andrew Weil’s program in Integrative Medicine and is cofounder
and executive director of the Shiva Foundation, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to the education and support of those
dealing with loss and death, located in San Luis Obispo,
California.Image credit: andreyutzu/StockXchng
Tagged: deborah morris coryell, good grief, healing through the shadow ..., living with loss, time, time doesn't heal, time heals all wounds, understanding grief
7 Comments
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Comment by Sandy on May 28, 2009 at 11:40pm - Time doesn't heal all wounds is very true. I lost my Dad to heart trouble when i was 38 & he was 71. I truly miss my Dad to this day & wish I could have him back for just a few minutes to ask his forgiveness for my stupidity in saying things that I shouldn't have said & would like to apologize for. Also , I would like to apologize for blaming him for things that were happening in the family that i have since learned he wasn't responsible for. Mostly I would like to have him back for a few minutes because I miss " Mr. Fix-it" He could fix just about anything & I miss calling to ask for his advise on how to fix something. I miss his beautiful blue eyes, his smile, the sound of his voice, the sound of his laughter & his dry sense of humour. He was indeed my hero, but I recognized that fact too late. He was a Capt. on the Fire Dept. & I have a tattoo , a congee for fire on my leg with Dad on it & the date he passed away. I have had many compliments on it & even though I know he wouldn't "approve" of my getting a tattoo , I hope he would be touched by the honour of it .... I miss you Dad !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Comment by Steve Cain on June 26, 2009 at 8:16am - My wife just died suddenly Sunday night and I can relate. I have had desires to dial her cell just to hear her voice. I would love to have her here right now just to finish some things we started. Now I'll never get that chance...
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Comment by joni turk on July 6, 2009 at 11:34pm - I have lost all of my sons in the past nine years. One of my twins, age 24 in 2000, his twin brother aged 30 in 2006 and our youngest boy age 30 on thanksgiving day 2008. the first death was suicide. to this day i have no idea why. the second twin was a horrific head on collision. now, our youngest son, i blame on iraq. he had come back and was terribly lost. we have four daughters left and i pray every day for their lives. i am not even sure if i have totally grieved for each child as i feel like i am in a whirlwind. my husband has been a wreck and had to be put on prozac just to deal with it. i am trying to hold the pieces together. we have moved far away from our home in order to try and heal. it is a peaceful place and we are slowly healing one day at a time. we miss you sons and part of our hearts will always be missing.
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Comment by Kevin on July 24, 2009 at 7:04pm -
After reading some of the messages on this site, I felt compelled to post this message and share my story. I lost my father to cancer and that was one of the most difficult times in my life. Watching my father battle cancer, endure the treatments and take his last breath was not easy although it has made me stronger and become a better man. Please take a few moments of your time to read an article that was published about me, my father and my fight against cancer through song. This is truly touching so many people’s lives and I just want to continue to share it with the world. If my story helps at least one person deal with their loss of a loved one, then I feel like I’m doing my part.
Link to article http://www.2theadvocate.com/entertainment/50264372.html
Kevin “K-V” Stanford
www.bewithyouagain.com
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Comment by Doreen Johnson on August 17, 2009 at 4:05pm -
God Bless all of you and help you through each day. Losing a loved one, in my case it was a favorite aunt followed by my husband, is so devastatingly painful words can't express it. I'm touched by the posts that you all have shared....I really haven't expressed any feelings much as many of my family members would rather not talk about it. I don't know if it's because they don't know what to say, or if their pain is too much, or if they all think it's time I get over it.
Thanks to each of you for sharing your feelings and experiences. At least I know I'm not "crazy" thinking or feeling the way I do. Trying to deal with loss by doing little more than working and sleeping isn't working too well but not sure how to do anything else. You'd think with my husband's death being over 4 years ago, I'd be "used" to it by now. I sure am no where near used to it and often wonder if I will have a life again rather than just existing.
Doreen
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Comment by Wendy on September 21, 2009 at 9:02pm - Thank you all for sharing, no, I agree, time does not heal the broken hearts that looses loved ones, I lost my son at the hands of others and the investgation is still in process now 2 years later. it keeps the wound open, I miss my son so much, we were very close, a day does not go by that I don't think of him and periodically cry. the pain is deep, and I still feel and pray everyday, his death is justified. I know one day I will see Matthew again in heaven, but his life was cut short at only 30 years old. I can't go into details at this time because of how things are at the moment. but it helps to write about it. It's my theropy. thank you for sharing.
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Comment by Georgia on September 21, 2009 at 9:31pm - You all have such fresh wounds. I have been grieving all day for my loved ones and I lost mine on June 6, 07 my husband who I miss terribly, and my 31 year old daughter who's life was taken just 9 months later on March 22,08 by her X-boy friend. The trial is still pending. He's in jail but little that does to ease the pain. she left a 10 1/2 year old daughter by beautiful granddaughter, who lives with her Aunt. I am 68 and never though I would lose one of my daughters before me. I Pray each day for my other daughters to be safe and healthy. Sometimes when the pain (lonelness) gets so great I go for a walk or get on the treadmill, sometimes it helps. My heart goes out to all of you who are dealing with this horrible grief. May God Bless you all.
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