You’ve carried your pain long enough. Move forward with courage and self-compassion, knowing that it’s never too late to heal and enjoy a level of fulfillment beyond your imagination.
Healing may seem to be nothing more than a means of getting rid of pain and restoring physical health. A scab forms over a cut, or the muscles and tissues reconnect after knee surgery.
Returning to physical health is one aspect of healing, but as important as physical healing is, you can’t be fully healed if you ignore inner wounds. The knee might bend again and only a scar remains from the cut, but this is no guarantee that you’ll feel better.
Why Inner Healing?
Western style medicine is designed to look after the physical body, but that’s not all that must be healed. The body, mind, and spirit are one of a piece. What happens to one, affects the whole. When you feel sad, for example, there’s no sparkle in your eye or dance in your step. It shows up in your spirit as a loss of motivation and enthusiasm, even for things you’ve always enjoyed. When left unhealed, inner suffering silently affects every aspect of your life.
Holistic healing involves identifying the unmet needs of the mind and spirit, understanding their origins, and finding healthy ways to deal with them. Healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about reclaiming your life.It’s an integrative process through which the whole self undergoes change, and it can’t be rushed.
Healing inner pain gives us back our lives.
- It frees the mind of negative emotions and sabotaging self-talk.
- It breaks destructive patterns of behavior.
- It awakens the spirit, restoring hope, trust and faith.
Why Now?
You may not think that you need inner healing, but who among us hasn’t at some time felt the crippling effects of inner pain. The World Health Organization reports that mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and trauma-related disorders are at a historic high. It’s estimated that 23 percent of adults in the U.S. and 1 in 7 adults in Canada experience a mental health crisis at some point. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, incidents of mental health crises among the young have risen dramatically.
These statistics don’t begin to tell the whole story. How many people do you know who are satisfied and enthusiastic about life? Even though there may not be a diagnosis of mental illness, the pain of anxiety and hopelessness casts a long shadow over many of us.
Where Do Inner Wounds Come From?
Trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry isn’t alone in the belief that childhood trauma is at the heart of the current mental health crisis. The root of inner pain may come from circumstances that appear all too normal:
- Neglect through lack of proper care, attention and emotional support
- Unrealistic expectation, often reflecting a parent’s needs, rather than the child’s
- Household dysfunction such as parental addiction or domestic violence
- Instability from divorce and poverty that deprives the child of the essentials of life
- Chronic illness that leaves a child feeling powerless and isolated
In my case, I’ve come to understand that, among other things, my need for inner healing is connected to the trauma my father had as a 17-year-old boy in World War 1. Like many veterans, he turned to alcohol in later life as a means of coping. His suffering was so deeply buried that he was only able to talk about it late in his life. As a child I was unable to understand his pain. I only saw that, from one day to the next, he could turn from a loving parent to a monster. The coping patterns I developed as a child have taken decades to change.
Steppingstones To Healing
In my father’s time treatment was woefully inadequate. Today, however, with understanding and compassion, there’s a viable path to healing from the inside represented in these steppingstones:
Steppingstone 1 – You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken
When we name long-buried trauma, it no longer has power over us. Ask yourself:
- Where does the pain come from?
- What happened to me that led to distorted beliefs about myself?
Tools that can help in naming your journey include journaling, meditation, and honest self-inquiry.
Steppingstone 2 – You’re not just a body
Invest time, energy and – if need be – money in healing the whole self. Explore:
- What self-sabotaging habits do I use to keep me in my comfort zone?
- What new habits can I adopt to support healing my body?
- What new habits can I adopt to support healing my mind?
- What new habits can I adopt to support healing my inner spirit?
Tools to help in healing your whole self include breathwork, yoga, connection with nature, mindful practices, and somatic therapies.
Steppingstone 3 – Trust the journey
You can’t move forward by looking backwards. Put your trust into the journey and know that it’s never too late to heal and find fulfillment. Delve into:
- What strengths do I have as a foundation for healing?
- What am I meant to learn from the challenges in my way?
- How do I celebrate myself?
Tools that will help you move forward include self-care practices, support networks, and professional help.
The senior years are the last chance you have to become who you are meant to be. Step up and rid yourself of pain and suffering that’s not of your making but that keeps you in the shadows and robs you of living fully. Bring meaning back into your life. It may be tough at times to believe that you can be happy, but trust the journey. and move step by step toward the full life you deserve.
Author Bio
Dr. Susanne T. Eden spent her career providing leadership to educators across Canada as a teacher, author, consultant, and staff developer. Among her achievements, she is a past President of the Canadian Association for Young Children and past Chair of the Board of Governors, Seneca College, Toronto Ontario. Now 87, she shares her personal story of healing and personal transformation in her book, Healing from the Inside: Living Fully as You Age (Sept. 13, 2025), inspiring others to approach the gift of aging with optimism and purpose. Learn more at www.susanneeden.com.