During lunch today I had a meaningful conversation with two of the women on retreat here. Our conversation centered on our experiences of past traumas or abuses of one nature or another. I hadn’t anticipated that I would have such a conversation with anyone I had only recently met, however in some ways it was especially helpful to do so with safe strangers. This experience prompted me to look again at some resources on-line and I found that I have made much more progress in my healing than I often realize.
That in turn helped me discern that what I’m looking for in my next stages/phases/processes of healing is not so much excavating old memories and wounds, and not even particularly “healing” my wounded self, but nurturing myself and strengthening myself in all the ways that have yet been neglected when I focus only on “healing.” I’m sure that the process of “strengthening” and the ways of “nurturing” also have healing effects, and/or may (conversely) occasionally evoke the need of focusing my energies on healing hurts that come to my attention because of nurturing myself and working to become stronger, but for the most part, I’m eager to expand, to move forward, to celebrate myself and all the blessedness of being, being me, who I am even now — however yet imperfect or flawed.
I think I might be something like a long distance runner who had some kind of major injury and had to focus on therapy for a significant amount of time, but couldn’t wait to run again until she was some kind of perfection or wholeness she conceived herself to have been before the injury. Sometimes, one is sufficiently healed to run again! Sometimes it is even more efficacious to run, even as the therapy needed to run better! Furthermore, it has come to my awareness that I may never become perfect! Not even in Heaven! (The risen Christ in His resurrected body still had visible scars from His wounds from being crucified. He even used those wounds to help His disciples recognize Him: even the scars had redemptive value.)
However, I do hope for wholeness, at least eventually in Heaven, and meanwhile throughout the rest of my life I hope for increasing wellness and wholeness, and for integration of all that I am and have experienced into a Blessedness that goes beyond Perfection. What are the ways I need and want to nurture myself? Better nutrition (literally), be more active (at least walk every day), make a habit of playful activities (I need to let myself joyfully embrace being an amateur at a few things, artistic things I want to try just for the fun of it, just for being playful), travel more (I’m doing that — hurrah!), dedicate a regular time for writing (I write now, but only impetuously), make a priority of getting my home organized the way I really want it (honor my need for a nest uniquely suited to me), and nurture my marriage in the particular ways that I really need and in the ways my spouse really needs (not according to ideas preconceived by others, but according to our own insights).
Meridians and Longitudes 
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