Healing can best be defined as the restoration of your health and well-being from a place of damage, disease or imbalance. This can be physically, emotionally, spiritually or mentally. Some relationships can leave you so filled with bitterness and sadness that healing seems like a concept that is unreachable. When you utter statements such as, “All men are dogs,” or, “Women cannot be trusted,” you are having a difficult time transcending past trauma and need to work towards being healed. Are you ready to take that risk?
The Return on Investment, or ROI, is a calculation of how much you put into a thing and what you ultimately gain in return. For example, you take a risk and purchase a dilapidated house to flip for $50,000. You renovate the home for $30,000 and ultimately sell the home for $130,000. After expenses, that is a 100% ROI for your efforts. How can this money rule relate to being healed, you ask? Simple. When you address the pain in your life by risking vulnerability to love again, that is the beginning of healing.
Let’s start by identifying the origin of your emotional damage. You planned on being married to one person for a lifetime and learned that he had been serially unfaithful in your marriage. Therefore, that person and the pain they caused has led you to believe that men are inherently disgraceful people. As a man, you believe in romance and your love language is gift giving. Three relationships later and thousands of dollars spent, you have earned the label as a guy fit for “the friend zone,” and your trust in women has been diminished. These experiences have caused you to determine that the playground of love isn’t worth playing on and you have picked up your basketball and gone home.
What if we begin again? What if we look at our pain face to face and decide we no longer want to be stuck? First and foremost, forgive your offender and get free. Yes, he was unkind and hurt you terribly. But will you allow their lack of value in you to negate the love of someone that knows it is a privilege to share your life? Yes, you lost some money in the process of being generous. Staying angry or allowing bitterness to grow in your heart will infect your character and quality of life. When that infection takes hold of you, it is nearly impossible to allow any goodness to be a part of your future. Forgive them. Note, I did not say allow them to have your heart again. YOU CANNOT GET HEALED IN THE SAME PLACE YOU GOT WOUNDED. But you also cannot get healed when you hold onto the pain of the past. Next, invest in loving and taking care of you. Treat yourself to the beauty of life and love that comes from YOU. Make an investment of learning how to enjoy what feeds you. Lavish yourself in the quality of your time and what fills your days with goodness. These acts teach you how to love who you are. Finally, open your heart to people that will value you the way that you value you. There is a saying that bad company corrupts your worth and character. Allowing people that do not see the privilege of your presence to share your life only serves to rob you. We all need people. It was how we were created. But we need people that fulfill those parts of us that know we are an investment.
Healing will bring tremendous ROI to your life. It allows you to live a life of richness and unlimited potential. Take the opportunity to grab all that a good life has for you by pouring into you and being open to love again.
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