Today I was studying about injury and inflammation. When one of your cells is injured, your body sends chemicals like plasma proteins, white blood cells, and fluids to the site of injury to repair the cell.
The damaged cells themselves even release something called kinins to help the inflammation process.
The body is truly amazing. It can heal itself to an incredible level. But it got me thinking, why can’t we heal ourselves emotionally as efficiently as the body takes care of injury and illness?
The thing is, we can. But it takes hard work. And acknowledgement of the issues, which is not easy.
I broke my elbow when I was a child and my body healed itself. Every once in a while the area gets tight and I have to stretch it out, but on the whole I almost never think about this injury that disrupted my life for an entire summer.
I wish I could say the same about seemingly small incidents that have left a permanent imprint on my psyche. One bad grade or one confrontation with a friend now serves as a trigger. When something in my daily life reminds me of these memories, the feelings of not being good enough come rushing back to the surface and it is hard to shake myself free from them.
Besides the occasional stiffness, there is no physical evidence of a bone I broke so many years ago. There is no physical evidence of any of my emotional injuries, either, but they still survive there just beneath the surface, waiting for a memory to bring them back to the forefront of my mind.
Talking about healing these emotional issues is one thing…I realize that. But I think the first step to actually doing it is acknowledging it. And hopefully the next time I let something from my past make me sad in the present, I can picture myself fixing my emotional cells just like my body heals my physical ones.
