Pain Heals, Chicks Dig Scars, Glory Lasts Forever – Shane Falco (The Replacements)

Hours before my oldest son’s last soccer game of the season, we all went to the driving range. Somehow, he ended up with a blister on his hand and requested a band-aid to relieve the pain. About a week before this, I made a poor life choice and slid during a slow-pitch softball game. I slid on what can best be described as concrete with kitty litter thrown on top for good measure. For those of you who grew up playing softball at the Colorado Firecracker Tournament, it was a lot like those fields. I scraped up my ankle pretty badly and had been wearing a Welly band-aid to help it heal. (Side note: I highly recommend those band-aids. They stick incredibly well and are amazing for children.)

Throughout the first half of his game, while playing goalie, he had difficulty focusing. He continuously checked his hand and looked at his blister. At half-time, he came over to tell me his blister was bothering him. It wasn’t only bothering him it was consuming him. The blister had become a distraction to life and prevented him from fully participating in what was going on around him. I told him that the blister would still be there whether you looked at it or not. But, the pain wouldn’t necessarily be as intense if he was able to channel his focus and attention onto something different – like the game. The distraction of the game would not heal his wound but it would allow him to continue living life while the blister healed.

I sat in my worn-down, tattered soccer mom foldout chair with my ankle still seeping blood and oozing through the band-aid (still highly recommend them). I continued to show up to work, play softball, take showers, and live daily life without giving it a second thought. I only noticed the scrape when I banged it on something, it seeped through onto a work chair (I cleaned it up), when I had to change the band-aid, or when someone else asked me what happened.

In that moment, I realized how relatable overcoming physical pain is to overcoming emotional pain. They both require practice in order to grow and mature.

My son hasn’t lived a very long life. At this point, he was 8.5 years old (the half is important!). He had some injuries in the past including stitches for a busted lip, butterfly band-aids for collisions with inanimate objects, trips to the ER, and your everyday bumps and bruises.

I will be 37 this month (happy birthday to me) and have undergone 10 operations, multiple dislocations, a couple of C-sections, numerous scars that tell stories all over my body like tattoos, and everyday bumps and bruises that seem to come out of nowhere. Needless to say, I’ve had more practice than he has at healing and trusting my body to do its thing. I no longer need to focus on the source of pain because I know it will heal.

The scars will always be there as reminders, but I am able to look at them from a different perspective that does not overwhelm me with emotion or incapacitate me from daily functioning. The same thing happens with emotional scars. The betrayals, the hurts, the regrets, the grief/loss, and the just plain sucky things no longer paralyze me when I reflect on my past. The further back in time they happened, along with proper processing, the more I am able to look at them, sit with them, and move on. Because like my physical pain, I trust that my emotional pain will heal with time.

Physical pain takes time to heal. They start out as open wounds and are painful to the touch. Close up and create scabs. As long as we do not pick those scabs, they will completely heal, and we will be left with beautiful scars that tell a story of our lives.

Emotional pain is no different. They feel like open wounds and are painful to think about. Given time, they begin to heal and start to scab over. Once they have completely healed, memories are left to remind us of what we’ve made it through.

Some emotional wounds can be healed with a simple caring touch, like when we kiss a child’s boo-boo to make it all better. A hug or a safe form of physical touch can release our happy hormones and relieve our pain.

Other emotional wounds need a band-aid like an open, honest, vulnerable conversation with a friend, family member, or therapist. Recognition and validation can be healing on their own.

Additionally, some emotional wounds require medication, like physical pain, to reduce the overwhelm so that normal functioning can take place.

Furthermore, some emotional wounds might require an operation. Removing the parts that are toxic might be the best way to heal the whole body. Separation from friends and family will bring healing along with creating new scars.

Whichever method of healing you need or take on, make sure you have support. Physical and emotional pain does not need to be healed alone. We could all use some help.

With physical and emotional scabs, if we routinely pick at them and open them up, they take longer to heal, and we continue to bleed.

Allow yourself to heal.

Don’t pick the scab.