64 - The 4 Phases of Healing
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[00:00:00] Hello my friends, and welcome to another episode of Shining Through. You know those moments where you feel like you just can't give anymore, where you hit rock bottom so hard that there is no way to go except for up?
[00:00:20] Those are the moments that true healing really starts to happen. And as much as we wanna make those rock bottoms as shallow as possible, they're important transitional points in every healing journey—in your healing journey.
[00:00:37] And I wanna share two of the most profound of those moments for me in hopes that you can see yourself in what maybe is possible and feel hope for moving forward.
[00:00:49] Your healing journey is empowering, but there are certain phases that most of us go through. I know I did, and I know that the many women that I'm helping on their journeys, they go through these phases too. So today we're gonna talk about the four healing phases so that you can see what phase you might be on and get excited about what else might be next in your journey forward.
[00:01:14] So here's a little bit about my journey:
[00:01:16] My first true rock bottom was in 2012. I was days away from having my first son, weeks from graduating with my bachelor's degree and three months from starting my master's program. And I was also considering divorce. That big package all bundled up together really brought me to my knees and I knew that I could not do this alone.
[00:01:45] This first phase of the healing journey is called *recognize*. Your eyes are opened to the fact that things are not going well, that you can't control the things that you thought that you could, and your life is becoming unmanageable. (Like the 12 step programs say that first step things aren't okay.) And I know that that's the first step because in my own healing journey, addictive behavior, my own and my husband's had amplified every struggle. Struggles in my relationship with myself, with my husband, with God, with others. It just all blew up and I couldn't navigate it anymore. I had to stop pretending that I was okay. I knew I needed help.
[00:02:31] *Recognizing that and being willing to open up to help was the very first part of my true healing journey.*
[00:02:41] It led me to a year and a half intense therapy program that included group therapy at 5:30 in the morning every Friday for months, because that was the only time I could make it work with my brand new baby and my school schedule.
[00:02:55] But I recognized the need for that help, and so I made it a priority. I could see the past beliefs that had led me to where I was, the need to learn more from the people who knew what I didn't know, and the distortion in my life that I had shown up like a victim, thinking the people around me were persecuting me. Or like a rescuer who was gonna save my family members and my poor mother who had been taken advantage of and in so many terrible relationships, I was gonna rescue her. I was in this drama that I had painted myself to be a hero and seen so many people as victims of life.
[00:03:36] But all of that was distortion. And when I realized that this drama triangle of persecutor, victim and rescuer was actually keeping me stuck in unhealthy behavior patterns—man, it flipped my world on its head and I did not even know how to act anymore cuz I wasn't actually a hero after all. I was needing to heal from my trauma.
[00:04:02] Recognizing that helped me also recognize that in the center of my life, what so many things revolved around was the need for other people's love and their validation: that I was useful, that I was doing it right, that I was enough and when I recognized that distortion and invited God to be at the center of my life, I found that power that I had been searching for all my life: the one that I believed could be there, but didn't know how to tap into. I started to recognize the mess of my life and the need to really actually invite God in my life.
[00:04:45] Is this the phase that you are in? Where you're starting to take off your blinders and see what is. Recognizing that you've been trying to control things you can't control and your life is happening to you instead of being guided by God through you. Phase one of your healing journey is one of the most empowering phases because you finally let go and let God guide your life.
[00:05:13] When you do this, it guides you to the next phase of the healing journey: *redirect*.
[00:05:19] Redirect is the phase where we get a clearer vision of what you want in life*.* You gain those empowering tools like I did when I went to therapy. You see more clearly what is helpful and what is not. And you clean up all those messes around you, redirecting towards paths that will bring you forward.
[00:05:40] I found this phase after years of therapy.
[00:05:43] This is when I decided that I wanted to help the loved ones of those who were struggling with addiction. It was so fulfilling to watch not only my life transform and redirect forward, but these amazing women, over and over again, recognize what was going on and redirect their focus in their lives to things that were empowering to them.
[00:06:06] Such a beautiful process to watch. And when I was in this phase, I thought I had made it. I thought that this was the end, this was healing. This is what it looked like to be in recovery, to have a life that had mental and emotional wellness moving forward with faith.
[00:06:24] Are you in this phase of your healing journey? Where you feel like you've taken those first steps to recognize what is going on in your life, opening your eyes and redirecting forward, feeling that momentum that things can change, that you've seen that progress and you're wanting to move.
[00:06:44] That is a beautiful space. Recognizing and redirecting. But one of the things that I've seen over and over again in my life and the women that I've supported is that they get stuck in the redirect phase and they don't realize the third and most powerful phase of the healing journey: *refine.*
[00:07:08] I found this space when God took the snow globe of my life and shook it up and moved me across the country to Texas.
[00:07:16] Now, I had been really excited to do this move because I knew that in Texas they had similar nonprofit programs to the one that I had in Utah. And I thought that I was just gonna come over here and help the ones grow that were in Texas because they weren't quite as far along as the Utah branches. And I was so excited. I had had great conversations with God. I got a super good green light that we needed to move to Texas, and then we got here. And God said, "No. " I knew clear as day that I was not supposed to do work with those nonprofits. And, my friends, I had an identity crisis. I tanked hardcore. I lost my purpose. I went back into those old habits trying desperately to have someone around me validate me that I'm still okay and still valued, even though I wasn't helping people the way I wanted to.
[00:08:09] I kept having thoughts like, "Are you serious? Why are we here again? I'm not in trauma anymore. Do I need to go back to therapy? What do I do with all of these triggers? Do I still need to heal? "
[00:08:25] And then I would dig and dig and dig through every little thing, worried that that was what needed to still be healed. Looking outside of myself, looking in my past, looking, searching, scanning for anything that could tell me why I was still stuck. Why I didn't feel that healing that I had in the other two phases.
[00:08:48] And that was the moment that I found coaching.
[00:08:53] Coaching opened my eyes with the empowering truth that changed everything. The truth that my thoughts created my feelings, and that my feelings were driving every action that I was doing. All of that searching, all of that, scrubbing the past, all of that worry that outside polling for other things to make me feel better, they were coming from the feelings that were generated by my thoughts. I was trying so hard to change my actions, but they wouldn't change because it wasn't the cause, it wasn't the root problem. And when I realized this, I felt so free, so empowered to do something different that I had never done in my therapy or in my support groups.
[00:09:48] I had never seen the power, the influence, and the ability to change my everyday life simply by recognizing my thoughts and my feelings.
[00:10:03] All of the big cloud of everything that seemed so confusing about whether I had healthy boundaries or doing the self-care right (that it was not just indulgent, it was actually helping), all of that mental confusion of just desperately wanting to know if I was truly healing, it all started to just float away. Recognizing my feelings and refining the process of what to do with them—that set me free.
[00:10:33] And I spent a year doing that for myself and I actually found that there were miniature versions of the healing journey pattern going on over and over in my life. I would recognize something felt off, I would redirect to the truth, and I would refine my thoughts and feelings along the way to help me be able to move forward.
[00:10:57] It was a beautiful and freeing, simplified version of what I had been trying to do unsuccessfully for years.
[00:11:05] *The reason why it hadn't worked is because I had recognized what was wrong around me and redirected with new tools and a purpose, but I hadn't refined my inner vessel.*
[00:11:19] The scriptures say that your body is a temple, and that includes your mind. I needed to clear out the lies and sanctify my mind with truth filtering to only let the things come in the added light to my life, not darkness, not disbelief or fear or anxiety —to let go and process those and amplify the light from within.
[00:11:49] That year that I spent doing that was transformational for me and I still work on that in my everyday life refining over and over. There's a scripture that I love about refining. It's Zechariah 13:9 and it says, "I will bring the third part. " I love that it says third because this is the third phase, right? It's not referencing that, but I just love that. Anyway, it says, "I will bring the third part through the fire and will refine them as silver is refined. And I will try them as gold is tried, they shall call on my name and I will hear them. I will say, it is my people, and they shall say the Lord is my God. "
[00:12:39] *The refining phase of your healing journey is when you truly feel refined by God inside you. Not just what you're doing, but what you're thinking and feeling.*
[00:12:55] That transition leads you to the fourth phase of your healing journey And that phase is *ripple*.
[00:13:04] I want you to picture a calm glass-like lake where you walk up to the edge and drop a pebble. You see that ripple go out from that pebble and it goes and goes affecting a larger and larger area. But over time, that ripple fades and it's gone. What do you have to do to create a new ripple? You have to drop another pebble.
[00:13:34] This is the fourth phase of your healing journey that when you start going through the other phases—recognize, redirect, refine—you can't expect to be done. You have to create a ripple rhythm: that pattern in your life, that continues to add the growth, the healing, the forward movement that will ripple throughout all the areas of your life.
[00:14:02] *You never stop healing.*
[00:14:05] And it's a beautiful thing because honestly, when we embrace that truth, we're free of trying to find that formula of, "If I would just do it right then I could heal and move on. " No, my friend. We are on this earth as a healing journey. The whole point of being here was to come to this earth, recognize good from evil, redirect towards the good, and have God refine us along that path back to Him. The process is ingrained in our everyday life, in our spirits, in the purpose of why you are here. You are here to go through the healing journey, and it's okay that there are different cycles of that.
[00:14:52] I used to think, "Ugh, I'm just on this cycle over and over again, going through the merry-go-round where it never stops. " But what I realized was I wasn't circling in the same sphere. Yes, I was doing these four different phases, and so it felt like circles over and over again. But they were new lessons, new versions of old lessons that were on a deeper level. I wasn't in the same place or going backwards. I was just learning things in new ways, applying them on deeper levels, getting closer and closer to God along the way.
[00:15:30] This fourth phase of healing, this is where you truly connect with yourself, with God and with others. You start having space for the people that you cut out because they were toxic when you recognize that in the first phase. You start having space to actually love them where they're at and really truly forgive them.
[00:15:53] You also have more space to love yourself through whatever triggers come up in this phase because you know how to process them, let go of them, and even find meaning in them. You don't make it mean something huge about yourself because you still might be affected by that trigger.
[00:16:12] You are never gonna get somewhere where you're not affected by life, and you've embraced that, accepted that, and let it refine you.
[00:16:20] As you go through that process in this phase, you build that confidence from within where you don't actually need evidence around you to tell you that you're gonna be okay or you can succeed. You start feeling it from within, trusting God that He's got your back no matter what happens, and that He's teaching you how to have your back too. You're not mean to yourself when you fail. You're not constantly thinking you're not good enough. You're not comparing yourself to all the people around you wishing that your life was different. No. In this phase, you have that inner confidence that you can do whatever God calls you to because you trust Him and you trust you.
[00:17:02] These beautiful things start rippling through your life in the fourth phase, but you know what comes with them? Those ups and downs and rocky moments of life that interrupt the perfect ripple pattern. If you are on water, a bug flies in or a boat goes by, or some other kid comes and throws a stick and it interrupt some of those ripples that you are wanting to have go out, but because you have gone through the process you have space to be on this fallen planet, living a human life, because that's what's real. There is no place where you're not going to have everyday life struggles, ugly cries, moments of imperfection, and really just simply humanity.
[00:17:50] As you cycle through the mini versions of your healing journey, recognizing something's off, giving it space, "Where is it? What am I feeling? " Redirecting with a clear purpose and refining your thoughts and feelings along the way, you see more ripples, and it starts to become a rhythm.
[00:18:10] You finally feel peace that you're on the right path, even with the imperfect moments. Hope that you will never have to go back to where you were in those traumatic places. Even if there are major traumatic hardships in your life, you have new understanding, new tools, new awareness of yourself. That hope is worth every ounce of whatever you've gone through to get there.
[00:18:41] You also have the courage to keep moving forward while being human, knowing that you can do this with God's help. And as you're going through that process, you end up opening up to have space to feel joy along the way in those moments where maybe it doesn't feel as chaotic, but you allow that joy instead of chasing it away with fear that it's not gonna last.
[00:19:08] These feelings of peace, hope, courage, and joy are products of a true healing journey. If you are not feeling these in your life, I invite you to do something different. I know that it's hard. I've been there where you just feel like there is no possible way that you are going to heal, that you could have that peace to even feel hopeful that tomorrow might be better, or the courage to take the next step towards that joy.
[00:19:46] I know how that feels. And I've watched with tears in my eyes, woman after woman, struggle through the beginning phases of their healing journey. Those courageous warriors who have gone through hell and back, I have sat in those deapths myself and with them. And if you are in that space, my friend, you are not alone. But you don't have to be there. You don't have to stay there.
[00:20:20] You can recognize, redirect, refine, and ripple. It is possible and my passion is creating a space for you to journey forward, to liberate you from feeling stuck on your healing journey with the empowering tools and the beliefs that you need so that you can create that life. And so I have poured my soul into a tool that will help you know exactly what phase you're in and give you three simple steps for that phase to help you move forward.
[00:21:05] So whatever you're doing, please invest five minutes in yourself right now.
[00:21:10] Go to www.thelightcoach.com/quiz and take this empowering quiz that will help you know where you're at on the four healing phases and what you can do today to help you move forward. I promise you that even as short as six months from now, you will find more peace, hope, courage, and joy in your life because you choose to show up for yourself in this small way today.
[00:21:46] You deserve to move forward, my friend. I can't wait to see what the next six months hold for you.
[00:21:56] Are you getting my TLC Tuesday emails? They are filled with tips, insights, and invitations to help you add light to your life. Go to www.thelightcoach.com/subscribe and make sure you're included. Because big things are coming and I don't want you to miss them.
[00:22:15] Together we can create a healing journey that's full of peace, hope, confidence, and joy.
