Time Heals All Wounds
October 23, 2007 by brianrodgers
by Robert Smith
We’ve all heard it. From our first broken heart, we have been told this one truth of the universe. “Don’t worry, time heals all wounds.” I am sure each of you, no matter where you are on your grief journey, has already been told this same thing. It is therefore with great reluctance that I must bring you bad news… Time heals nothing. Don’t get me wrong, Time is of utmost importance. Time is necessary in all healing, the problem is Time is not sufficient. The way it has always been told, if I have a broken heart, all I must do in order to get better is just wait. If I wait long enough, something magical will happen and Time will take away all of my sadness. How many of you have been waiting?
Time is necessary, but not sufficient. Let me give you an example of this. I live about 30 minutes from The Amelia Center. Imagine one afternoon I get off work and walk to my car. I get in, crank the engine, turn on the radio, and just sit there for 30 minutes with out ever putting the car in gear. Am I home? NO… I’m sitting in the parking lot at work. Why? I put in the required time. What I did not do during that time is put in the required work. Time and work go hand in hand. Work without time is just as useless. I can not drive my car fast enough to be home in 10 minutes. The law says I can not. That’s the law of physics by the way, not the criminal code! Grief is the same way. No matter how hard you work at grief, it does not go away immediately. It takes time.
So, what does heal wounds? Time and Work. But how do you work at grief? There are many correct answers to this question. Talking to people you trust, reading books, writing in a journal, actively seeking new experiences in life, remembering the person who has died and honoring their life, and maybe even by seeing a counselor. As a counselor, I encourage all of my clients to work on accomplishing Worden’s Four Tasks of Mourning. If you do not know what these are, ask your counselor to teach them to you. My point is… you must make good choices in order to heal and one of those choices must be to work everyday at getting better. No one can do it for you and waiting on Time will only leave you older and still hurting. You and you alone are responsible for making the decision to work at getting better.
