The power of self-healing

The essence of self-healing is your innate inner repair ability. It does not require you to deliberately "eliminate" negative emotions, nor does it require you to live an indestructible and perfect person. It just allows you to learn not to compete with yourself and leave some space and time for the inner wounds to heal.

I received a visitor last year. She is a 32-year-old Internet content operator. She ranked among the top three in her department in KPI for three consecutive years. At the end of last year, the entire project was canceled. She took the initiative to resign. She thought she could finally take a breath. However, after staying at home for only a week, her parents urged her to find a job. Her friends texted her every day "Women before 35 years old" She panicked about the article "Get a Firm Foothold" and listed a page full of self-discipline plans: learn Python at 7 a.m., submit 10 resumes in the afternoon, and run five kilometers at night. However, after three days of execution, she collapsed. She sat on the ground crying every day, feeling that she was a waste. She couldn't complete the plan, couldn't find a job, and her whole life was ruined.

Later I told her, just tear up the page of the plan and do whatever you want, even if you just lie down in a daze. She half-believed it and did it. She didn't force herself to submit a resume, nor did she force herself to exercise. Every day when she woke up, she would squat on the balcony to water more than a dozen pots of succulents. When she went downstairs to throw away the garbage, she would pick up some beautiful sycamore leaves and put them in her notebook to make specimens. Occasionally, she would submit a recruitment information that she was interested in. If she didn't want to submit, she would watch anime all afternoon. After hanging around like this for three months, she sent me a message last week, saying that she had received an offer with a salary that was 20% higher than before. When she was packing her things that day, she came across the leaf specimens that she had pressed before. Suddenly she felt that during those days when everyone thought she was "wasted", she was actually recharging herself.

Don't tell me, I have reviewed clinical research at home and abroad before, and different schools of psychology have different opinions on the logic of self-healing. The school of psychoanalysis believes that you must first see the wounds hidden in the subconscious. For example, why does she feel like a waste when she fails to complete her plan? In fact, when I was a child, I would be scolded by my parents if I didn't get into the top three in the exam. This evaluation standard engraved in my subconscious was awakened. When you see it, it will be half better. Humanistic scholars disagree with this statement. They believe that people have the instinct to repair themselves, just like the skin will scab when it is broken. Don't always pick at the wound, don't always force yourself to "get better quickly", give it a loose enough environment, and it will grow on its own. You see, during the days when she did nothing, she actually gave herself a loose enough environment. Researchers in the cognitive-behavioral school have other ideas. They believe that you need to replace the irrational beliefs in your mind, such as "I must find a job within three months or I will be finished" with "I just need to rest now. It doesn't matter if I find another job after I have had enough rest." When your thoughts change, your emotions will naturally smooth out.

In fact, these statements are all correct, they are just suitable for different people. Some people just have to dig up the knots of the past and air out those unspoken grievances before they can heal. ； Some people don't want to mention the bad things in the past, so just eat something good, watch something happy, and live a good life in the present. There is no need to live by a certain standard.

Of course, some people criticize, saying that self-healing is all for free time. If you don’t have money, no matter how much you heal, it’s useless. If you have the time, it’s better to make money. I agree with half of this. After all, if you can't pay the rent next month, it's really unrealistic for you to squat at home and collect leaves, but it's not conflicting - you can't run to catch the subway to find a job while still cursing yourself in your mind "Why are you so useless that you can't even find a job?" right? Just buy a hot bun downstairs, and when you take the first bite, say to yourself, "I worked hard today." This is also self-healing. It won't cost you two yuan, nor will it take you two minutes, but your job search status will be different that day. I used to work overtime until after ten o'clock. When I got off the subway, I felt like I was about to fall apart. I even wanted to quit my job and go back to my hometown. However, the aunt who sold sausages at the door gave me an extra layer of sweet and spicy sauce. I stood in the wind and finished eating the hot sausage. Suddenly, I felt that there was nothing I couldn't overcome. At that time, I knew that it wasn’t the grilled sausage that had magic power. It was me giving myself a minute and allowing myself to take a breath, and the self-healing switch turned on by itself.

I was working on an industry report last year and stayed up for half a month. On the final day of submission, I was completely numb. My friend asked me to go to the gym to relax and I didn’t want to move. Hearing the mindfulness meditation made me tired. So I went to the supermarket and bought ten bags of orange gummy candies that I had eaten when I was a child. I sat on the sofa and watched the old version of "Journey to the West" for two days. I shed two tears when I saw Sun Wukong being pressed against the Five Elements Mountain. Two days later, all negative emotions were gone. So I just did what I was supposed to do. You see, there is no standard treatment method. Whatever you feel comfortable with is the best.

In fact, each of us healed ourselves when we were young. I cried for a while after falling in pain and then ran to play. After I failed in the exam, I recovered after eating the braised pork ribs cooked by my mother. I had a fight with a good friend and made up with a small snack. It’s just that when we grow up, we are taught to be strong, sensible, and emotionally stable. It is useless to cry, and being sad is weak. Gradually, we forget this innate ability.

There is no need to rush to pull yourself up or force yourself to get better immediately. If you squat down and accompany yourself when you are in a bad mood, just like your good friend who accompanied you when you were in pain when you were young, you will find that you have enough strength to heal yourself.