It’s Okay If You Can’t Get Up Yet: Take Your Time

Don’t worry if you can’t handle everything today, it’s okay if you can’t get up yet: take your time. Do not forget that people who are broken have loose pieces of life that may be infected, and that all this hurts when walking, breathing and even thinking. Rest, start the duel, embrace your wounds, because little by little you will feel your body lighter and your mind stronger …

Albert Ellis used to comment that one of the automatisms that we put into practice every time we suffer a disappointment, a loss or a traumatic event is to blame ourselves. What’s more, what we often do  is project onto ourselves a certain “contempt” for not being able to handle our lives, for not finding enough courage to get up in the morning, the courage to face certain situations and circumstances.

It’s as if we want to run after spraining ourselves. We get angry for feeling pain and not being able to go as fast as our mind wants. We overlook that there is an injury in that foot that must be treated, that we need rest, treatment and above all, become aware that for a time, we will not be able to walk, even less run …

Take your time, but make good use of that time

Take your time, what you need and not what others tell you. Because everyone has their own rhythm, each one needs their guidelines, their strategies, their internal awakenings and those external aids to follow and work on daily. Understanding this is essential because today, whether we like it or not, we assume certain misconceptions that prevent us from shaping an authentic healing process.

As they explain to us in an interesting work published in the journal “Perspectives on Psychological Science”, in recent years the idea that people are resilient by nature has become popular. We are often told that time heals everything, and that we just have to let our brain act, allowing little by little that inner strength to emerge with which to dissolve all stressors, with which to overcome any adverse situation.

It is a mistake . Time alone does not heal nor do we have an automatic pilot capable of activating to guide us on the path of resilience. Thus, something that the researchers of this work tell us is that assuming this type of ideas places us in a scenario of authentic psychological passivity, sinking irremediably into quicksand where we can wait for a cure that never happens.

Ideas we should stop believing about psychological healing

Popular psychology, as well as certain spiritual aspects, tend to germinate erroneous beliefs very far from what the research actually says. Assuming many of these concepts can hinder our psychological healing, and therefore it is necessary to bear in mind some of these false myths. They are as follows.

• Time heals everything (false) ⇔ It heals what we do during that time.
• All grief lasts three months (false)  ⇔  Each person needs a certain time to face a loss or a emotional breakdown.
• Strong people can with everything ( false)  ⇔ What do we understand by strong people? Labeling a person as “strong” from the outside can force them to feel better as soon as possible and that is dangerous.
• We are all resilient (false ) ⇔ Resilience is worked on, developed, refined and individualized based on our characteristics and needs. It is not a spontaneous awakening, it is a craft that one must learn and put into practice on a day-to-day basis and not just in times of greatest need.

Take your time to hibernate, your time to heal

We said it at the beginning taking Albert Ellis as a reference: people get angry with ourselves for not healing soon, for not running as fast as we would like, for not being able to be the same as always. If so, it is because we live in a world where we are urged to always be well, always functional, to sell an image of pristine and dazzling happiness.

However, life does not come with Instagram filters, we cannot improve our mood with a single “click”. Such a task requires time and work and above all an intentional approach. So let’s describe two simple strategies to achieve this.

• Take your time to hibernate. It is not about sleeping and being isolated, but about applying one of the advantages of this physiological process that hibernating animals put into practice: conserving energy. If your body can’t take it anymore, if your mind is exhausted, rest, stop prioritizing others, put aside external noise to attend to your internal needs.

• Take your time to heal. The one you need and not the one others tell you. He understands that healing is not a journey with a departure date and an arrival date, it is a process, a walk without comforts where we do not have to look at the landscape or what surrounds us: the gaze is located in the own being.

Last but not least, we cannot forget that in this healing process it is good not to give up the company; you have to choose good travel companions. Choosing a good professional to guide us in this process will make it easier, and will help us understand that before running free again, we must learn to walk again.

Achieving it is possible, achieving it will take time, but we will achieve that goal.