A Helpful Approach to Navigate Healing

Article written by Denver Therapist, Molly Ward

There can be a lot of reasons that we may feel we want or need to heal.

We might need or want to heal after the end of an unhealthy friendship.

We might need or want to heal from a work relationship or situation that brought a lot of stress.

Or we might need or want to heal from moments in our childhood that have followed us to adulthood. 

Whatever the reason may be, we may feel the need to experience healing when we, or our nervous system, has experienced anything that feels too much or too fast. 

What Does It Mean To “Heal”?

Healing is not a destination, but a series of behaviors that you integrate over time that help you move along your journey.

It is a journey forward with what has been.

It is a felt sense that comes when we find ways to nourish and support our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. 

When we endure painful experiences, the emotions and energy related to those get stuck in our body and can take a lead in our reactions to others.

The felt experience of healing happens when these difficult experiences can move through our body and we find new meaning and ways of coping.

With healing, we might start to notice less internal conflict and more feelings of calm or peace.

We might notice that our bodies feel more settled, and have less physical symptoms of distress like hypervigilance, stomach aches, headaches, etc.

The sense of healing happens when our body and mind can be in sync.

Therapy is one way to support healing, especially when modalities such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR Therapy) and Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) are used, but it is not the only route.

There are other paths toward healing as an adult as well.

Ways You Can Start To Heal As An Adult

Incorporate Play Into Your Life:

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Play is a tool that is often forgotten in adulthood, but it is one of the most effective tools to support healing and manage mental health issues.

Why?

Play helps us relieve stress, increases happy chemicals in our body like endorphins, and helps us connect with those around.

Play also helps us learn to trust ourselves and our bodies, ultimately leading to feelings of safety – a feeling that is sometimes lost when we’re in need of healing.

As children, play helped positively shape our brain, but over time we move away from this.

Engaging in play as an adult can help rebuild positive experiences and even offer a sense of control; all aspects that are needed to facilitate healing.

Playing as an adult can be anything where you are absorbed in your activity and feel pure enjoyment.

Play can also be anything where you start feeling silly, goofy, carefree, and tap into your child-like self.

Play can look like making a joke at work, playing a board game, engaging in a game like frisbee or pickleball, dancing to your favorite songs at home, doing headstands in the pool, completing a puzzle, playing whatever game your kid wants to play, or singing along whole-heartedly to your anthem.

Whatever it is, play is an opportunity to let go of a purpose or agenda, a needed tool to help move energy through, supporting healing the body and brain. 

Engage in Movement:

When we go through difficult experiences, these experiences can be stored in our body, and finding a way to physically release can be helpful.

Movement in our bodies can be a way to release pent up energy and emotion and calm the nervous system.

Thinking about how you can create a consistent schedule with movement in your week, such as going for walks or signing up for your favorite work out class, is an important place to start when building this foundation.

However, movement doesn’t just have to solely be done with exercise.

Healing can occur through yoga, cold plunges, breathwork, EFT tapping, stretching, or through physical touch with other safe humans.

There are many different ways that our body can release what is stored, but stagnation or lack of movement will not support your healing journey. 

Lean Into Creativity:

With healing, we can take advantage of all the different ways to release our stories.

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Exploring creative ways to express our inner emotions can be a powerful way to facilitate healing.

Creative outlets like drawing, painting, doing pottery, dancing, writing stories or poems, creating songs, or connecting to nature can all be great ways to tap into creativity and release and process our inner emotions.

Creativity also helps us have more play, increases connection, and can be incredibly helpful for those that struggle with talking about thoughts and emotions.

Connection With Others:

There are many tools we can lean on to help regulate our nervous systems and work towards healing, but regulating our nervous systems can most effectively be done when we connect and regulate with others.

This could mean hugging your partner until you feel your body relax, getting a massage, dancing with someone, taking deep breaths together, going for a walk in nature with a friend, practicing Filipino Martial Arts, giving or getting a foot rub, or cooking with someone.

Co-regulation is the key to our healing journey and cannot be something we do in isolation.

Get Back to Basics:

Healing cannot happen without the fundamentals to maintaining a healthy well-being.

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These five pillars relate to sleep, nutrition, staying hydrated, mindfulness/meditation, and physical activity.

Focusing on getting a restful night of sleep, nourishing our body by consistently eating and enjoying colorful foods, drinking plenty of water, engaging in activities that allow pause and present moment awareness, and moving your body 150 minutes a week.

If you are struggling with any of these pillars, related issues must be addressed before leaning into deeper healing. 

Contrary to popular belief, time does not heal all wounds, and we have to actively work to form a new, healthy relationship with our experiences.

With these 5 ways of moving to a felt sense of healing, and maybe some therapeutic work, it’s possible to create a life with more peace and joy.

However, we must remember throughout this process that healing is not linear and it’s not a final destination.

Even if you feel that you are making progress, there will always be some hard days, and we can never forget some of the experiences that we’ve been through.

But in the end, there are many ways that healing can happen as an adult, and it’s possible that you can too.

You just have to take that first step.

***

Denver Therapist, Molly Ward

Molly Ward, LCSW, LAC is a Denver therapist who walks the talk.

Molly provides guidance for those she works through that she has also tried herself. Molly strives to create a relationship with clients that supports and encourages deeper work.

She helps people who suffer with anxiety, those who want to move past trauma, those who struggle with substance use, people who want a better relationship with their body and food, teens, families and adults.

If you’re curious about working with Molly, or want to know more about her, schedule a 20-minute consultation here.

You can find Molly on our website and on instagram at @therapy_with_molly