Does time heal all wounds?

I ain’t real sure. I think in some arenas is does - in others, mebbe not.

There’s the story of the father and son, whenever his son would unleash his anger on another, he made his son promise to stick a knife in the wooden fence in their backyard. Then, when he’d done a good deed - or said something nice to someone, he could pull one knife out. Over time, the anger bouts lessened, and eventually the day came when the last knife was pulled from the fence.

The basic moral is that the son was upset in that all the knives were removed - but there were still scars left within the fence. Exactly the point the father was trying to make.

MU lost last night. For the 12,478th time in my life of athletics, I’d allowed myself to reach the pentium of enthusiasm - only to be dropped freefalling back to my abode mid 4th quarter.

I woke up, reread about how bad it was. Now what?

There’s a local shrink who only works with sport’s clients… Has a one hour weekly radio show on the subject.. And as I sat in the Piggly Wiggly parking with my eyes on the KC paper - my ears were tuned to his words of “Just how do you personally overcome a loss.”

Sport losses are reasonably easy to overcome. One, it’s a damn game. Yes, crow is sometimes eaten - but the sun comes up - there are more games to be played. When I Googled “rebound from loss” no less than 10,000 stories came up - and each and every one was a headline of a team playing again, “rebound from loss to.”

All kinds of losses. Loved ones. Time helps, but it doesn’t heal the wound. Strangely, the hurt, in and of itself, may be a good thing here. Hurt over the loss of a loved one means “what we had was special… I am so lucky to have had that… I do still, however, miss them/that.”

Job loss. For awhile all is good. We can cuss them. Be glad we ain’t gotta travel that same route every morning. Exchange emails/phone calls, etc., with former co-workers, and smile that we ain’t gotta work any longer with the ones we abhorred. Then - reality sets in. Bills keep coming in the mail. There’s no bread. The frozen dinners are down to two. The pets need fed. You have two good pair of underwear left. So whaddya do? You get your ass up, get another job and start anew.

Mate loss. I see widows on dating sites - and many of them “want what I had.” Wow. How trying would that be? For each. Mate loss thru divorce, or, if not married - simply through the other leaving. Sometimes “a new game” helps. Sometimes we brood. Sometimes we don’t jump back in the pool. Sometimes we don’t leggo of our heart because we know the feel of it being yanked. Many do move on quite nicely, and some even end up in the best relationship they’ve ever had.

I read an article by another shrink. I’d Googled “time heals all wounds” - and what he said, I thought, was prophetic. Reckon I oughta mention his name if I’m gonna “borrow” what he said. Jeff Herring.

“What I say to clients when they say "time heals all wounds" is that time doesn't heal anything, time simply passes. It is what we do with our lives while time is passing that either helps us, heals us or keeps us stuck.

In my work over the years, I have noticed that some people seem to have an ability to accept the hurts and disappointments of life and then move on. They have a certain resiliency.
Others seem to stay stuck in their pain, living as if the painful events of their lives had occurred just moments ago.

As I sought to understand the strategies of these different types of people, some interesting differences made themselves clear. What follows are lists of strategies for how to remain miserable and then strategies for how to heal, move on, and thrive.

How to stay miserable
• Complain about the unfairness of it all. ("This should not have happened" - "How could anyone do such a thing?")
• Organize your life around the event, trauma or injustice. Make it a central theme in your life. Talk about nothing else. Bore your friends.
• Remain bitter and unforgiving. A wise friend of mine once said, "Not forgiving someone is much like trying to crush a sandspur between your fingers. You might eventually do it, but it sure is going to hurt."
• Become a victim. Give up your power to take responsibility and control over your own life.
• Play the scene over and over in your mind. Keep thinking of what you should have done or what you should have said.
How to move on, heal and thrive
• Talk about it. Many of us mistakenly believe that if we keep it inside it won't bother us. Quite the opposite is true. Remember the character -Tom Wingo in "Prince of Tides" and the damage done by not talking about the trauma that had happened in his family? Many times, getting it. out in the open can make it manageable.
• Forgive those involved. Forgiving does not condone what someone else did, it simply releases us from the pain of their actions.
• Most importantly, follow this favorite advice of mine:
"Make a place for the event in your life and then put it in its place."
It's important to remember that it did happen and it did affect you. At the same time, its place is in the past, much like a chapter in a book you have read and choose not to read again.

Thanks Jeff. We’ve all probably reacted in most of the ways mentioned above.

Not me. I’m perfect. GD Oklahoma Sooners. GD Len “no field goal kickin’” Elliot. I miss you terribly mom, dad, Vanda. And to you Seko Air Freight - HA - I appealed and won the right to unemployment. Oh, and finally. My one last wish is to see “him” riding his Harley down the road with onea those “the bitch fell off “ T Shirts!!!!

Hehe. Life rocks. It’s up, it’s down. It’s happy, it’s sad. We get all enthused, excited. Sometimes we rejoice, sometimes we brood. Sometimes we make marks, sometimes we make smiles. Sometimes we hurt. Sometimes we rebound better. Sometimes hurt lessens, but upon occasion we still feel baby aches.

Life, ya gotta love it. I do. Happy day, love, Victurd.