Four Stages of Healing
Although there are many ideas about stages of healing in books or on the internet, I think there are four stages of emotional healing. These can apply to grief situations or ended relationships.
- Surviving - This is where you are facing the emotional pain. This stage hurts the most, and you are just holding on day-by-day. Sometimes it feels like a minute-to-minute struggle. You don’t have the energy or strength to heal. It is like you are living inside hurt feelings and cannot differentiate yourself from them.
- Healing - There is still plenty of pain during this stage, but somehow you have made a decision to start moving forward. You start to pay attention to yourself and your health. You begin to feel some strength, which can grow little by little. Although there are setbacks and reminders of the cause of the pain you feel, you can get a sense of who you are again.
- Growing - Although the healing process continues, you have a much clearer sense of your “self” now. You can make decisions that are good for you. Typically, the pain is still there but not all the time, and it might be more of a “dull” feeling. Also, you have been able at some point to separate yourself from the events that hurt you, and begin to understand that your feelings are reactions, not “you”.
- Thriving - You are active and living with purpose. This doesn’t mean the pain is completely gone, but you have mostly accepted the pain and its meaning in your life. You are able to separate yourself from the emotional pain you felt. You have learned from your hurt feelings, and have moved forward.
