Healing Is Boundless
I lay on the couch on a warm day, the Summer sun streaming through the birches dancing leaves, throwing splatters of light and shade onto my body.
I scrolled through Petfinder, looking at images of cats — but more so looking to see if I got 'the feeling.'
We had lost a cat only a month ago. I wasn't expecting much. I was judging myself for even looking.
Then — there it was.
Are you sure? Asked Chris.
I was sure. I had felt it.
All the energies that said it's too soon, not another orange boy, you should take more time to think about it — dissipated in the face of my subtle, piercing, intuitive knowing.
Fast-forward to less than a week later, and we arrived home with this scrawny, rambunctious, insecurity-ridden cat.
He was full of radiating light and brash boldness. We named him Sol.
While we weren't given the entirety of his origin story, we knew it was bad. Left somewhere outside as a kitten and eventually found. The runt of his litter. The last one to be adopted.
His coping strategy for his early-life traumas was fight-flight. He was riddled with bouts of defensiveness and aggression mixed with skittishness and an inability to calm down.
He anxiously claimed the entire house, every litter box, and us as his. He bullied our other cat, Sequoia, as he attempted to own and dominate everything in sight.
Outside, he pushed the boundaries — adventuring far and wide, absent from sun up to sun down. We were left anxious and unsure. We half expected him to come home beat up from some form of cat street fight.
He only appeared to relax when he slept. As soon as he awoke, he snapped into action. Incessantly scanning, searching for security in dominant ownership, mistrusting that he would not be guaranteed his stay with us in this home.
He didn't trust that he would be taken care of.
We delved into cat psychology and learned tools and strategies for dealing with his bullying and repairing the relationship between him and Sequoia.
We ensured his basic needs were consistently met — good food, fresh water, ample play, abundant outside time, clean litter boxes, and myriad places to climb, sleep, and venture.
We offered a steady presence of appropriate nurturing, daily consistency, and stable rhythms.
Months passed, and Chris was still unsure if he was 'our cat.' I asked him to play along like he was for now — knowing that Sol could feel his unsureness, amplifying his core wound of ‘mistrust.’
Time undulated forward, and just like the soft whispers of a changing season, we noticed Sol was relaxing. Within that relaxation, his personality was starting to shine forth.
His true nature.
He stopped venturing far and wide. His daily route lessened to a much smaller loop in our neighborhood. He spent most of his time on the porch, grass, or paved pathways around our house — napping.
His love of love fountained out. He began a schedule of daily check-ins — bounding into the house, alerting us that he was here to say hello and get pets. If we came outside, he would happily spend the whole time with us.
He began to slowly make peace with his sister. Nobody's perfect, and his Napoleon tendencies would still take over now and then. But they were accompanied by more adjacent hang out's, crying for each other if they couldn't find each other at night, and even the occasional cuddle and bath.
I marveled at the progress.
I was granted a daily reminder that the medicine we need is simple. And that healing is boundless.
It's so easy to become attached to over complicated ideas of what it means to heal and be healed.
Each day, as Sol released and sprung forth into deeper trust, I was reminded that sometimes, most of the time, the foundations of healing are a steady, loving place, stable rhythms your body can count on, essential nourishment, and the consistent reminder that you belong, you are so easy to love, and underneath any wounded expression — you are good.
This experience may lack flashy intensity, consistent catharsis, and endless complexity. In this mixture, there is slowness, subtleness, and gentleness. You become fortified enough to let go of that which you've picked up, to give your pain a home, and to remember that you are already forgiven.
Perhaps this is what your wise animal body, soft heart, and subtle body have been crying out for all along.
For in this space, they can finally do what they do best, all on their own — heal.
