CLEAR first then HEAL

How many times have you tried to HEAL before you CLEARED the problem?

This reminds me of being a kid and impatiently caring for a wound from playing outside with pals.

We fall. We get a scrape. We sort of clean it up.

We might put ointment and bandage on it.

We might not do either.

We get right back to playing.

It never works out well and almost always leads to an infection or delayed healing.

We do the same thing if not worse with our emotions, our heart or heads, every day.

Why?

When something bad or sad happens, we tend to skip the move on dot com part. We don’t want to look at the gross cut or wound. We certainly don’t want to take time to clear the debris, apply life changing ointment or even bandage it up. This leads us to never healing. The healing can’t possibly take place unless we do the proper clearing. Sometimes that clearing can take years. (insert narcissistic parents, traumatic childhood, misunderstood circumstances and more) If we never take the time to CLEAR the origin of the problem, we will never HEAL. If we treat our heart like an unclean wound, our heart and our mind will sit unhealed for a long time.

CLEAR:

"Clear that in which boggles the mind."

For example: I am currently on a writing retreat.

I was supposed to leave the house at 9:45 am. As of 11:30 am I still had not left, why?

Work emergencies. Everyone seemed to need everything all at once for their emergency meeting, or their emergency life situation. This is my job. I am a fixer. Emergencies are a part of the job description. I am good at solving problems quickly.

I am grateful for my job. I am grateful to my clients. As much as I love my job and my clients, it's a lot of mental summersaults and it fills my brain.

On this particular day, I left for my retreat 3 hours later than expected and my mind was in a bit of scrambled eggs. It was not prepared to start writing immediately.

I needed a buffer.

I needed an official “clearing” so I could create space and start fresh.

I went to a meditation garden.

I sat in silence.

I stared at the ocean.

I listened to birds.

I watched springtime flowers blow in the wind.

It only took 25 minutes to clear my mind, so I was ready to write.

After I left the garden, I was fresh, I was ready to go.

We don’t always need a meditation garden.

We can practice CLEARING anywhere, at any time, for any length of time.

I think it’s important to consider how we CLEAR before we jump to the next thing.

Without CLEARING, what are we preventing from healing or what long term infections are we causing ourselves.

On this particular day, if I had gone directly into writing, the writing would have been jeopardized. It would have been scrambled and messy. Adding that buffer, giving your brain and body space to understand what happened, accept it and clip your seatbelt in to take on what’s next is a step we all miss but a very important part of our days. We must clear our minds, so we have space for succinct thoughts.

Next Stop On The Wellness Train—HEALING.

HEAL: Healing happens over time. Healing can be a metaphor. Healing can be physical. Healing sometimes accompanies grief. Grief almost always accompanies grace.

Healing can’t happen unless you clear first.

My friend Sepi who is a Somatic Breathing/Healing expert, uses the CLEAR then HEAL method in her practice. She gives a series of cues and breathing modalities designed to help you CLEAR first.

The breathing is rapid.

There’s a sense of urgency.

There is purpose in the CLEARING section of her somatic breathing method.

It’s designed to clear your thoughts, clear your physical being, clear the blockages physically and emotionally inside you.

Once you’re done with the clearing, she moves onto the HEALING.

It’s a completely different mode of breathing than CLEARING.

The pace is slower, the space between breaths is longer.

It feels relaxing and delicious at all at the same time.

I truly feel physically, spiritually and emotionally healed from at least one thing every time I end a session with her.

CLEAR first then HEAL makes sense to me

What if we transfer this into other parts of our lives?

Where do we need to CLEAR then HEAL?

What are we not CLEARING but expecting to HEAL all on it's own?

What is still UNHEALED?

Do we dare start with some CLEARING and see where it takes us?

I am so grateful for those 25 minutes in a meditation garden off the side of the road.

This was all I needed to clear my mind of the work debris so I could make space for a creative writing endeavor. I am going to start this practice on other avenues in my life and see what happens next. It seems so easy, but I’ve never really thought about it in this way in the past.

I invite you to dare to share your thoughts on CLEAR then HEAL.

I want to hear your stories.

Send them to me at MandiGraziano.com

Mandi Graziano is the founder of Facetime Coaching Company, Co-Host of Adventures in Business Live Podcast, Author, Mentor and Vice President of Global Accounts for HPN Global. Her books, writing and expertise can be found on Linkedin, Instagram, YouTube or her Website. She wants to hear from you. Reach out, anytime.