For the Week of July 13, 2014: What It Means to Heal

So much died here last year

but last month rain forced

peach-red mouths out of balding sand,

and within weeks sun coaxed

tiny constellations of yellow,

purple, and white into sandy flats,

along rocky dirt roads . . .

I will never be the same

knowing how effortlessly death

rests in the cells of my body,

yet with each step I am willing

to say yes to the chances I take,

to the hope no one can take from me

here in the midst of my recovery

now that I’ve seen what can thrive

in the bankrupt landscape of the heart.

 (From “Hiking in the Anza-Borrego Desert after Surgery,” by Francine Sterle.  In: The Cancer Poetry Project, Karin Miller, Ed., 2001)

“Healing” is a word I frequently use. My cancer writing groups were inspired, in part, by the research on writing’s healing benefits.  Both my books on the subject contain the words “heal” or “healing” in their titles.  But I have new respect for what it means, at this stage in my life, to heal.  Like you, I’ve experienced emotional and physical healing more times in my life than I care to admit.  But for the past several weeks, my life has been concerned with the long, slow process of physical healing.

In early April, I suffered a bruised tailbone when landed on the hardwood floor as my desk chair rolled out from under me when I sat down.  A week later, I strained the muscles in my right arm badly when I threw caution to the wind and lifted one too many potted plants on our deck.  Days before I was headed to spend the month of May in Toronto, I fell, rather badly, as I backed up to take a photograph of my husband and his new car.  I confess my eyes were on the camera, not where I was stepping, and my back heel caught on a garden stone.  I took a fine photograph of the sky and telephone wires as I fell, landing hard on my already bruised tailbone and shoulder before my head hit the pavement.  I felt more embarrassment than injury at the time; the pain came later.  All of this preceded, I might add, the advent of my seventieth birthday.  Not only my body was damaged, but so was my self-image.   I’ve been forced to accept that as I age, I need to be more considered about some of the physical tasks I undertake—or at the very least, pay attention to where I’m stepping!

Healing from all of these mishaps has taken far longer than my body ever required to recover from the bumps and bruises of a rough and tumble childhood—and it’s given me pause for thought.  I’ve seen doctors, been to acupuncture and worked with a physiotherapist.  But my body refuses to be rushed in its healing process, and that new reality is forcing me to learn a tough lesson of patience.

What does it mean to heal?   Obviously, time is involved, but google the word “healing,” and you’ll be confronted with more variations on it than you can possibly read, whether from traditional medicine, psychology, religion, or the alternative healing arts.  Look up “healing” in the dictionary, and you’ll find  “the natural process by which the body repairs itself,” and “tending to cure or restore to health.”

In my cancer writing groups, “healing” has more of an emotional and spiritual context.  During the experience of cancer, terms like “recovery”, “in remission,” and, for some, “cure,” are more commonly used to describe the body’s process of repair during treatment.  “Healing,” on the other hand, carries multiple meanings, and what each person considers as healing is unique to their lives and situation.

It’s not just the body that needs healing during cancer.  A cancer diagnosis threatens our sense of wholeness and of self.  We suffer, although out of that suffering, we may gain new insights into what it means to be human and what truly matters to us—which can be a prelude to healing.  Healing is more than physical repair; it involves transformation.  We emerge from the cancer experience in remission or with “no evidence of cancer,” but we aren’t the same people we were before it.  We’re changed. Our lives are redefined, and so is our sense of meaning.  To come to terms with that change, that altered self also takes time—it’s a process of healing, and it, too, cannot be rushed.

In a May 2005 article by Thomas Egnew,“The Meaning of Healing:  Transcending Suffering,” appearing in the Annals of Family Medicine, the author explored the meaning of healing and translated it into behaviors—all as a way  to help doctors enhance their abilities to be healers. Egnew included three major themes in his definition, and not surprisingly, they are ones that readily apply to anyone:  wholeness (to become or make whole), narrative (a reinterpretation of life), and spirituality (the search to be human; to transcend).

Healing requires that we have the courage to truly plumb the depths of who we are—who we have become as a result of cancer—or any other major life upheaval.  Last summer, I was among a group of presenters at the Omega Institute in New York along with oncologist and pioneer in integrative medicine, Jeremy Geffen, MD, the weekend’s featured speaker.  Dr. Geffen defined seven distinct levels of healing needed to regain wholeness.  According to Geffen, as he listened to his patients their concerns and questions over the years, he saw a pattern emerging,  Patients’ concerns fell into one of seven interwoven, yet distinct, areas.  Ultimately, he labeled them as “The Seven Levels of Healing.  They include:

1. Information or knowledge
2. Connecting with others
3. Exploring safe and effective ways of tending to our health
4. Emotional healing
5. Harnessing the power of the mind
6. Assessing our life’s purpose and meaning
7. A spiritual connection

(The Journey Through Cancer: Healing and Transforming the Whole Person, by Jeremy Geffen, MD, 2006).

Healing, true healing, is complex and multi-dimensional.  And it takes time.  I thought I understood that, at least during those “big” illnesses and surgeries I’ve endured.  The fact that some bruising and muscle sprains have required me to re-assess so much of what I’ve blithely taken for granted about my body has forced me, again, to slow down and reconsider what it means, this time, to heal.

What about you?  Do Geffen’s seven levels of healing resonate with your experience?  How would you define “healing” if asked by someone newly diagnosed with cancer?  What, in your experience, has been healing for you?  What people, places or activities have been important in your healing process?    Think about what it means to heal.  Write about it.