Creating Space to Heal

by: Shelby Miller

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There are moments in life that are heavy, that we would never want to revisit. As I sit here and write this, I feel a lump in my throat because I am going to share about some of those moments for me.

I remember it so vividly – the days I would sit on the floor of my shower wishing this reality away. The nights I was so desperate I would invite anyone over just so I didn’t have to be alone with my thoughts. I would look in the mirror and tell myself I was better than this and I owed it to everyone around me to move on from this. I was hurting so badly, but I kept hiding, kept putting on the mask that deceived everyone into thinking I was doing great. Full time student, full time nurse, full time newlywed, full time depressed, anxious and trying to fake it until I made it. 

But I wasn’t making it. I was spiraling deeper and deeper into a really dark place.  I was fighting really hard to be who I “knew” I was supposed to be or “expected” to be, but it wasn’t working. I was supposed to be the crazy, up for anything friend that was always down for an adventure, but I was avoiding calls and texts because I didn’t want to get out of bed. I was supposed to be the bubbly wife excited to make new friends and try new things, but I was canceling plans because I was too exhausted to keep faking it. I was supposed to be the up for a challenge, young, smart, “I’ll take the hardest patient” nurse, but instead I was having panic attacks in the parking deck because the stress of my job was crushing me. 

I remember making so many promises to myself, to my husband, and to God, that I would get better. I would start working out, doing yoga, journaling, and going to counseling. It felt like when you know you have picked up something too heavy to carry but you carry it anyways because you don’t have too far to go. The only problem was I did have a long way to go. A lifetime of joy and hope and peace and living out my purpose. I knew I needed more than a quick fix. And while I think every human should be in counseling and I love to journal (still hate working out and feel like a seal trying to do yoga), I was doing them from a place of work and self reliance rather than a place of rest and healing.

When you think about physical healing of our bodies there are four stages. Non-medical people hang with me here. First, you have something called hemostasis where we stop the bleeding. Then in the inflammatory phase, our body fights any bacteria that crept in during our trauma and cleans out the wound to prepare it for new growth. In the proliferative phase, our immune system fills in and covers the wound with all kinds of good stuff. Finally, through maturation the area gains strength and flexibility. 

Why are you getting a physiology lesson? Because I think our culture, churches, family and friends, and even our own minds are often skipping a really important part of the healing process. 

We feel this pressure to quickly stop the bleeding and jump straight to the fill and cover phase. We start filling our time with bible studies, yoga, and talking on our instagram stories about how we are out of the woods. Then we are smacked in the face with the reality that we have covered a wound that was full of debris. Now it’s infected and interrupts the healing process. We then start to believe lies that we are fake, a liar, and freedom will never come. I remember going on instagram live talking about how I cope with anxiety and how I was in a much healthier place.  Two days later I had a panic attack that led to a series of really scary panic attacks. I felt like this would be my life forever, that I would never actually get better. I truly thought I had “healed”, but as every anxiety attack would come, I would go right back through the same cycle. I was an unhealed wound continuously scraped back open. 

The wound was full of infection, hurt and lies about who I was and who God was. I knew if I was going to heal for real, I had to do it the long and slow way this time.

So what does it look like to do it the long way? It means that we might need to sit in the ugly inflammatory stage of our healing. It’s important to mention that this phase is where the wound gets swollen, red, painful, and hot. It hurts to clean out the wounds in our heart and mind. Sometimes it even looks worse before it starts to look better. A healing wound can be itchy, painful, or bruised – all signs that it is healing. This stage could look like going to counseling, sitting and processing, resting, being brutally honest with the people who love you most. For me, all of those things hurt really bad. I felt like I was letting everyone down. But what I actually did was let myself heal and prepared my heart and mind for new growth. I gave myself a lot of grace and realized that recovering from crippling anxiety and depression was not going to happen overnight. I committed to the longterm fight because freedom and wholeness are worth it. It wasn’t instagram worthy. It was hard and uncomfortable. But it was and is worth it. 

From one anxious human to another, I encourage you to give yourself grace. Take time to uncover the debris and rid yourself of the bacteria that snuck in during your trauma.

You are worthy of the time it takes to fully heal.