“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.”
On the other side of the deck of the house where I am staying is a lattice support for a hearty clematis vine. And tucked inside the vine and the lattice, a robin has built her nest. I have watched and listened over the course of Spring as the hatchlings have moved from peeping invisibly to sitting on the edge of the nest with open mouths waiting for mother to return with their meals.
There is no growth without a nest.
I have been thinking a lot about nests, about incubation, and especially about the idea of incubators. Places where vulnerable infants heal. About what it takes for the premature, the vulnerable, and the hurt inside of us to heal and grow. Thinking about the aspects of healing that can show up years into a long process -when hurt aspects emerge and are not yet ready to withstand the elements of the outside world.
So much of what we think of when we think of healing focuses on what you do. It focuses on action. But there needs to be attention, not just on doing, but on the container in which the doing happens. On what holds you while you are healing. On your nest, or, if the situation requires, your incubator.
Healing is a non-linear process. I have described it as cyclical—as a healing cycle—a process where you cycle through stages. And yet even describing it as a cycle can make it sound more consistent –or the work you need to do-- as more consistent—than it can can feel. There is an intermittentness to healing. There are stretches of time that go by quickly and there are periods of time that are slow and gentle, or even completely still.
I know incubators aren’t usually discussed when thinking about adults. Incubators are for infants or the newly hatched of an organism. An incubator is a piece of equipment used ‘to maintain environmental conditions suitable’ for a pre-term or vulnerable infant. It is intended to create the right conditions for development (e.g., heat, oxygen) and it protects the vulnerable infant from impingement and overstimulation. An incubator is an environment of intentional nourishment and protection.
Healing can be so confusing. I can hear you ask: I thought I was supposed to be ‘working hard?’ What about challenging and stretching myself? What about the zone of proximal development—that place out of our reach where we stretch to and heal and grow? This is exactly why healing isn’t a simple one-size-fits-all solution—across individuals or groups, or even, within an individual across time. It takes discernment to observe where you are in the continuum from zone of proximal development (appropriate stretch and challenge) to a place that needs incubation (a place that needs tender care.)
I’ve said before that trauma shatters -- but when trauma shatters, not everything is equally broken. And in our course of healing, we can sometimes repair things enough for now. Meaning—we can get ourselves moving—or we can use our stronger, and least detrimental, or more socially acceptable defenses to keep ourselves moving forward in our lives. So not everything gets healed or healed fully. We have parts of ourselves that have waited patiently to heal.
Healing repeated trauma isn’t just about what happened. It’s also how we protected ourselves from trauma, and what didn’t happen while the trauma was occurring.
And it is our old protections –that worked so well to help us survive—that often keep us from being able to learn or practice what didn’t happen. This is where the idea of the incubator comes in. It’s a protective external environment so you don’t have to use your protective internal defenses. It’s a nest bigger than the one you created internally to survive.
The amazing thing about the power of healing is that despite the fact that you can create these defenses that seem to keep everything out—new tender shoots of healing and growth still emerge. And when these tender shoots emerge you need something else besides doing— you need an incubator.
Sometimes these moments show up because the world offers you an exit ramp or a period of slowness—and your job, as Miller states, is to recognize that tender shoot as your own. You may be aware of the hurt—you are exhausted, you are in pain, you can feel or see your wounds. This can be hard, but it makes seeking or leaning into a supportive environment a bit easier because it comes with an understandable narrative---it comes with a way to explain it to yourself and others.
But it can be even harder if you recognize the tender shoot or old wound and have to intentionally seek out a nest or incubator on your own: the day off, the week off or a sabbatical of some sort. Yes, it can be hard to recognize them when they show up. But the real challenge is to seek or create an incubator for the that thing that is newly healing, that needs more time, space, love, care—to grow and take hold. It can be hard to explain, and hard to see—and it may not make sense to you or anyone around you. These tender places often defy language or logic. You can feel the need but may have a hard time describing it in language that you think others will understand. You may have a hard time describing in language that you can understand.
But there are also different kinds of understanding—and when we are healing often we seek the kind of understanding that lives in our minds. But the kind of healing that needs incubation is made up of a different sort of knowing. A knowing that lives somewhere in our hearts or bodies. A knowing that I have described before as living in your bones. A knowing that is as undeniable as it seems to be invisible or ephemeral. And this knowing requires, not more knowledge, but instead, faith. A faith in the wisdom you have that recognizes and protects the need slowness. A faith in your longing for an environment of protection and nourishment. And it requires a faith in your inner voice asking you to trust in the process of growth.
© 2023 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD