Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Healing Is a Process

(an encore post by Cecil Murphey)

At a seminar in El Paso, I said, "Healing is not an event; healing is a process."

One man said, "I needed to hear those words." At age 43, memories of abuse by a church deacon began to surface. He had gone to a therapist for nearly three months. The question he had planned to ask me before the seminar was, "Why am I still not healed?"

Without knowing his question, I gave him the answer when I spoke to the entire group—something most survivors could have done. We'd like to believe that we have a moment—a special insight—and we're free forever.

I wish it worked like that.

We need the experience of enlightenment, awareness, or what we refer to as the aha moment. That's where we begin. Once we face the reality of our abuse, we start down a path of healing. Notice I used the word start.

None of us knows where the journey ends.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I hope that the crisis of my son's threatened suicide was a moment that woke my former husband up. Perhaps in my son getting counseling, he will realize that it is something he, too, needs to heal from the sexual abuse he endured as a teen at the hands of a priest. Help is available to him, and he needs to see that and take the step. I pray that our marriage can be restored, as we had nearly 36 years as a couple. He was haunted the last 10 years of that, and I suffered, not knowing what really waa his problem. Now I want to help and be there, but am helpless...he divorced me to escape facing me. What can I do now? Is there any hope for us?