September 14, 2021—My teacher heart has recently been orbiting around the distinction between being healed and being cured. Several factors have contributed to this churn including losses around the COVID pandemic, the climate crisis, the increased emphasis on the commodification and industrialization of education and general political discord. But one moment in particular stands out. In an August 12th, 2021 On Being interview with Krista Tippet, Kevin Kling, notes: “The heart is an instrument, once broken, never repairs the same. Yet, even though it can’t be cured, it can be healed, and you can love again. But that heart isn’t the same heart that was broken the first time… It’s all loss, and it’s all trauma, and it’s all things that are broken that can’t be cured. You can’t go back. But you can heal it, and that’s an important thing to know” (https://onbeing.org/programs/kevin-kling-the-losses-we-grow-into/).
As I was listening to this interview, I was thinking of all the broken-hearted and depleted teachers I know. I see them every week in the graduate classes I teach. They look exhausted and thin, and yet they show up and teach day after day with integrity and fidelity to their craft. They talk about how much they have a calling to teach but holding true to that vision can be a challenge. Although not as crushing, I too have experienced loss as an educator. I love the work, so loss seems like part of the package deal; love and loss are walking partners. Loss can be as simple as watching students graduate and as complex and the shattering death of a student or beloved colleague. Loss can take the form of loosing track of one’s passion or calling when the institutional imperatives are so great that only the immediate requirements and mandates are attended to.
So, this distinction between being healed and being cured is helpful for me in thinking about restoring wholeness and wellbeing for myself and other educators. According to Psychology Today, “curing means eliminating all evidence of disease, while healing means becoming whole” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/owning-pink/201110/the-difference-between-healing-and-curing ). And wholeness means more than attending to the physical, it includes the mind, spirit, heart and emotions; the fullness of what it means to be a human involved in the act of teaching. Whenever I hear the word cure, I think of food that has been hung out to dry. It connotes a sense of being preserved and set aside for future use. Not, I think, the most compelling image for finding one’s way back the energizing center of practice.
Healing is a process, not an end state. It tends to be very personal, scars and all, since it often begins in loss and pain. Curing relies heavily on an external authority, which is required at certain points and can be an important element in wholeness. For instance, when the challenges in education are so massive and so debilitating that an external expert who can cure us is appealing. They offer the promise of an end to the disease and a return to normal life again. But there are, I believe, numerous smaller losses that are better understood through the metaphor of healing because it elevates personal agency and empowerment. It is more intimate, human scaled, when it comes to wellbeing and wholeness. When I think of healing, I envision being in relationship to something greater than self; spiritual but not necessarily religious. Curing feels to me like something coming down from above that solves problems by returning everything back to its pre-disease state, almost as if woundedness never occurred.
In my healing practice I turn to three wisdom traditions; poetry, community and mystery. Poetry speaks in the language of the heart not the rational logic of the mind. For me the most painful losses, as Kevin Kling notes, involve the heart and not the head. Because the heart is more central to effective teaching than the mind as it is better at building relationships, navigating ambiguity and seeing beyond the known facts to the ineffable of knowing. Community is a place where I can share my stories of loss and healing even as it acts to curb the tendency of my ego to seek out versions of my experience that are self-fulling. In community I can trust my colleagues to challenge my false perceptions. To guide me toward a deeper sense of truth that is healing because they remind me of the gifts that are still present in the midst of loss. Mystery keeps the healing process dynamic and fluid. It encourages an attentive and intentional observation of the wound as it mends, a wonderment around the healing process, and a curiosity about how it all works. It invites me into relationship with the mysterious nature of my own healing and wellbeing.
When you think of the distinction between being cured and being healed what emerges for you? In what ways is healing, which integrates woundedness and wellbeing, into wholeness a more complete description of how you navigate loss in teaching. How might you help other educators heal from the disheartening challenges of teaching?