When we talk about healing, we usually talk about the body.

A wound closes. A broken bone knits itself back together. After surgery, we rest and give the body time to repair itself. We understand that physical healing is a process. We do not expect someone to walk normally the day after knee surgery, and we do not criticize a wound because it has not healed overnight.

But what about wounds we cannot see?

This month, as Natural Awakenings explores healing in many forms, I find myself thinking about healing of the soul and why we sometimes give emotional wounds less attention than physical ones.

Our instruction manual, the Bible, says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” — Psalm 147:3

I love that imagery because it acknowledges that emotional pain can injure us even when there is no visible scar.

I have been on the receiving end of pain that did not begin with me. I suspect most of us have.

Sometimes someone else’s old rejection arrives as anger. Their fear becomes control. Their insecurity becomes criticism. Hurt can show up as defensiveness, mistrust, withdrawal, people-pleasing, controlling behavior or a constant need to be noticed. Sometimes we simply know that somebody has hurt us.

I have had to learn that the person standing in front of me may be reacting not only to me, but also to wounds that came long before me.

That does not excuse harmful behavior. Healing and accountability belong together. But understanding the source can help us respond with wisdom instead of adding another wound to the pile.

Unhealed emotional pain can affect how people experience safety, regulate emotions, form relationships and see themselves and others. It may surface as anger, shame, isolation or mistrust. When wounds remain unaddressed, their effects can move through marriages, families, workplaces and communities.

That is how individual pain can become collective pain.

Perhaps this is why Proverbs 4:23 advises, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

Everything flows from it: how we love, parent, lead, disagree and treat the people around us.

So what does healing of the soul look like?

Much like physical healing, it begins by recognizing that we have been hurt. Then we need safety, rest and nourishment of another kind: prayer, counseling, honest conversation, supportive relationships, forgiveness, appropriate boundaries and sometimes simply telling the truth about something we have carried too long.

I think three needs sit close to the center of emotional healing: peace, identity and healthy attention.

Peace tells us, I am safe enough to stop fighting everything.

Identity tells us, I know who I am, so I do not need someone else’s approval to establish my worth.

Healthy attention is not constant praise or being the center of attention. It is the steady reassurance of being seen, heard, valued and appropriately affirmed, so we do not have to perform, provoke, control or create chaos to matter.

When those needs begin to heal, something remarkable happens. The person who was wounded becomes less likely to wound. Families become healthier. Relationships become safer. Communities become stronger.

Every soul that heals changes the environment around it.

As we explore physical healing, recovery and survivorship throughout this month’s issue, perhaps we should also ask: What within me still needs to heal? And who might experience a healthier version of me when it does?

Maybe becoming truly well means allowing God to heal what everyone can see and what only He can see.

Blessings until next month,

Bernice Butler, Publisher