March 2, 2023 • 14 mins
Saying that should cease – Time heals all wounds
While a common saying, time is not the healer. Healing includes everything from medical attention for physical wounds, attentional focus for psychological wounds, and internal work and forgiveness.
Merriam Webster dictionary https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grudge
Peter Herrndorf’s memorial - https://www.tvo.org/article/remembering-peter-herrndorf
Connect with Tanya Hewitt on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-hewitt-55804529/
Buy her a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tanyah
Credits:
Adam Johns – voiceover - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjohns730/
Beverley McKiver – composer and player of the music Tell Me About Love - https://www.linkedin.com/in/beverleymckiver/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Adam Johns (00:03):
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
Recently, I watched a program on Deutsche Welle, which is an English program that comes from Berlin, Germany. And they were talking about German fashion. They were talking about this being a near oxymoron, as German fashion is far more practical than what French fashion is likely to be seen in the public eye. In fact, one of the guests on the program had said that a lot of the fashion choices in Germany harken back to the Second World War, where she said her grandmother saved every single scrap of everything, you wasted nothing, because everything was in such short supply. It was a World War. And the idea of reusing clothes over and over again, maybe in different forms, was very normalized. And I was thinking that's possibly where we are headed. Now that we are in a global climate crisis. It's not a world war, but it will be very strenuous on our resources. And instead of this fast fashion, which I'm sure you've heard, is destructive to the environment and is very wasteful, and really doesn't allow us to value our clothes. For the long term, we could, instead of seeing this German mindset as being on the wrong side, see if we can start to adopt such practices, so that we can have our clothes last longer
(02:25):
than a lot of North Americans or even Europeans perhaps do presently, and ensure that we can promote environmentalsustainability.
Adam Johns (02:41):
Today's episode is sayings that should cease.
Tanya Hewitt (02:47):
Hello, everybody. Today's saying that should cease is Time heals all wounds. This will need some explanation, as this saying has been in our culture for a very long time. And sometimes it does apply. For example, if we look at some physical injuries, such as scrapes, bruises and minor cuts, we can get into just allowing our bodies to heal these types of wounds, which does take some time. But that doesn't mean that it's the time that's healing the wounds, it means that it's our bodies and their immune systems that is actually doing the healing. It takes our bodies a little bit of time to undertake that healing. If we go to more serious bodily issues, such as illnesses and injuries and other such things, it's not the time that is healing these types of wounds. It is the medical interventions. Often, these medical interventions need some time in order to come to full fruition. That may be true, but it isn't the time that is doing the healing. It is all of the help that the bodies are getting in order to be able to deal with what they're being afflicted with.
(04:16):
However, most of the time when we say time heals all wounds, we're talking about psychological injuries and not so muchphysical injuries. We experience a spectrum of emotions from joy and ecstasy to dread and anger and everything in between. When we experience any emotion at the extreme, and we're talking this can be bliss or a can be very strong anger. We lose control of our ability to think our cognition, because for about seven seconds when we are in the throes of an extreme emotion,our prefrontal cortex, where we have our capacities to engage in executive functioning and self regulating is compromised. So, in this particular state, when we are in the throws of a very extreme emotion, time might well be the best prescription here. Although it is only about seven seconds. This is where you have heard the familiar refrains to count to 10, take a few deep breaths, go for a walk. These types of things are necessary to allow the chemical bath that has overtaken our prefrontal cortexes to actually disperse so that we're not still incapacitated by that very strong emotion. But once you do this, maybe even go to sleep and allow your subconscious to work on it., we do tend to be better than we were in the
(06:10):
extreme throes of the emotion. Time is fairly good advice in this particular circumstance.
So just to really hammer this point out, this is for any strong emotion. This physiological chemical bath is emotionallyagnostic. The only criterion is that the emotional response is very strong. But the same time heals all wounds, and joy and ecstasy and bliss are rarely emotional responses to wounds. Typically, we're looking at some of the other emotions. Grudges are a great example of time not really doing much in the face of psychological harm. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines grudge as a feeling of deep seated resentment or ill will. So let me give you a few examples. I just read a celebration of the life of Peter Herrndorf, whose work is woven into the cultural institutions in Canada, such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, TV Ontario, the National Art Center here in the nation's capital, Ottawa, Ontario, to name a few. I'll read a quote from an article that I will put into the show notes. I'll read a little bit of the context around the issue that I'm trying to highlight. Quoting "When I hosted between the lines, TV shows weekly Town Hall Show, there was Peter in the control room just watching never barking orders. He just wanted to be where the action was. He loved hanging out with creative
(08:00):
people, be they the producers, the hosts, the technical folks, or guests. For one program, I invited six former premierswho'd signed the Meech Lake Accord, including Ontario's David Peterson to be our guests at our young and Eglington studios and discuss what had happened to our country since the accords failure to pass. The show was wonderful. And after it was over, Peter invited all the premiers to go back to his house for some deeper schmoozing. But he never invited me. It's the one thing to this day for which I haven't forgiven him" End quote. This happened in 1992; 30 years ago. And Peter Herrndorf recently passed away. In fact, that article was in memoriam to him. You can almost hear the anguish in the choice of words that expose a wound that time did not heal.
(09:06):
So another story. A family gathered around to hear the reading of a will, and a set of china was bequeathed to one woman. Hersister was mortified, and the sisters engaged in a decade's long silent treatment over this set of dishes. Cousins didn't meet, birthdays were celebrated in silos, and memories were never created. It did turn out that the sisters reconciled after something like 19 years, which might suggest that time healed that wound, but it was at a terrible cost. I would like to propose, though, that the women at the dispersal of the China focussed their attention almost unnaturally exclusively on the dispersal of the China. It was the center of their worlds. And they kept that at the center of their worlds for years. And 19 years later, their attention focus was elsewhere. Who knows, maybe on the fragility of life or on the pettiness of a set of dishes, I have no idea. But I strongly suspect that they did change their attentional focus from where it had been when holding that grudge.
(10:28):
So think about that. It's not so much the time as it is how we are focusing our attention. Often, time allows us to changeour attentional focus. But it is not the time that heals. It is changes in our attentional focus that does, time is only a proxy. I'll leave you with an insight that I hope to develop later on. In a group meditation session recently, a woman in her late 60s revealed that she has had insomnia forever, which sounds very familiar to many, including yours truly. And with that particular meditation exercise that we had undertaken that day, she learned that as a kid, she remembered her parents arguing at her bedtime, and this instilled fear into her, which translated into issues with sleeping. She was shocked. She has lived a long time and had taken medicines, gone to sleep clinics. But this internal revelation was revealing to her wounds that time did not heal. Deep internal work was the prescription to find the source of the wound and treat it, not just ignore it and assume that time will be the ultimate healer. The ultimate healer is forgiveness. And that takes a lot of work. It has very little to do with time. It has a lot to do with learning about yourself, and how destructive it is to hold grudges. Time
(12:23):
I assert does not heal anything changing attentional focus or even better, doing the internal work to learn how to forgive.That is very healing.
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener, having reallyappreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
Adam Johns (13:51):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it was diametrically opposed to us, at any rate, we trust it made you think. The more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. Begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
Recently, I watched a program on Deutsche Welle, which is an English program that comes from Berlin, Germany. And they were talking about German fashion. They were talking about this being a near oxymoron, as German fashion is far more practical than what French fashion is likely to be seen in the public eye. In fact, one of the guests on the program had said that a lot of the fashion choices in Germany harken back to the Second World War, where she said her grandmother saved every single scrap of everything, you wasted nothing, because everything was in such short supply. It was a World War. And the idea of reusing clothes over and over again, maybe in different forms, was very normalized. And I was thinking that's possibly where we are headed. Now that we are in a global climate crisis. It's not a world war, but it will be very strenuous on our resources. And instead of this fast fashion, which I'm sure you've heard, is destructive to the environment and is very wasteful, and really doesn't allow us to value our clothes. For the long term, we could, instead of seeing this German mindset as being on the wrong side, see if we can start to adopt such practices, so that we can have our clothes last longer
(02:25):
than a lot of North Americans or even Europeans perhaps do presently, and ensure that we can promote environmentalsustainability.
Adam Johns (02:41):
Today's episode is sayings that should cease.
Tanya Hewitt (02:47):
Hello, everybody. Today's saying that should cease is Time heals all wounds. This will need some explanation, as this saying has been in our culture for a very long time. And sometimes it does apply. For example, if we look at some physical injuries, such as scrapes, bruises and minor cuts, we can get into just allowing our bodies to heal these types of wounds, which does take some time. But that doesn't mean that it's the time that's healing the wounds, it means that it's our bodies and their immune systems that is actually doing the healing. It takes our bodies a little bit of time to undertake that healing. If we go to more serious bodily issues, such as illnesses and injuries and other such things, it's not the time that is healing these types of wounds. It is the medical interventions. Often, these medical interventions need some time in order to come to full fruition. That may be true, but it isn't the time that is doing the healing. It is all of the help that the bodies are getting in order to be able to deal with what they're being afflicted with.
(04:16):
However, most of the time when we say time heals all wounds, we're talking about psychological injuries and not so muchphysical injuries. We experience a spectrum of emotions from joy and ecstasy to dread and anger and everything in between. When we experience any emotion at the extreme, and we're talking this can be bliss or a can be very strong anger. We lose control of our ability to think our cognition, because for about seven seconds when we are in the throes of an extreme emotion,our prefrontal cortex, where we have our capacities to engage in executive functioning and self regulating is compromised. So, in this particular state, when we are in the throws of a very extreme emotion, time might well be the best prescription here. Although it is only about seven seconds. This is where you have heard the familiar refrains to count to 10, take a few deep breaths, go for a walk. These types of things are necessary to allow the chemical bath that has overtaken our prefrontal cortexes to actually disperse so that we're not still incapacitated by that very strong emotion. But once you do this, maybe even go to sleep and allow your subconscious to work on it., we do tend to be better than we were in the
(06:10):
extreme throes of the emotion. Time is fairly good advice in this particular circumstance.
So just to really hammer this point out, this is for any strong emotion. This physiological chemical bath is emotionallyagnostic. The only criterion is that the emotional response is very strong. But the same time heals all wounds, and joy and ecstasy and bliss are rarely emotional responses to wounds. Typically, we're looking at some of the other emotions. Grudges are a great example of time not really doing much in the face of psychological harm. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines grudge as a feeling of deep seated resentment or ill will. So let me give you a few examples. I just read a celebration of the life of Peter Herrndorf, whose work is woven into the cultural institutions in Canada, such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, TV Ontario, the National Art Center here in the nation's capital, Ottawa, Ontario, to name a few. I'll read a quote from an article that I will put into the show notes. I'll read a little bit of the context around the issue that I'm trying to highlight. Quoting "When I hosted between the lines, TV shows weekly Town Hall Show, there was Peter in the control room just watching never barking orders. He just wanted to be where the action was. He loved hanging out with creative
(08:00):
people, be they the producers, the hosts, the technical folks, or guests. For one program, I invited six former premierswho'd signed the Meech Lake Accord, including Ontario's David Peterson to be our guests at our young and Eglington studios and discuss what had happened to our country since the accords failure to pass. The show was wonderful. And after it was over, Peter invited all the premiers to go back to his house for some deeper schmoozing. But he never invited me. It's the one thing to this day for which I haven't forgiven him" End quote. This happened in 1992; 30 years ago. And Peter Herrndorf recently passed away. In fact, that article was in memoriam to him. You can almost hear the anguish in the choice of words that expose a wound that time did not heal.
(09:06):
So another story. A family gathered around to hear the reading of a will, and a set of china was bequeathed to one woman. Hersister was mortified, and the sisters engaged in a decade's long silent treatment over this set of dishes. Cousins didn't meet, birthdays were celebrated in silos, and memories were never created. It did turn out that the sisters reconciled after something like 19 years, which might suggest that time healed that wound, but it was at a terrible cost. I would like to propose, though, that the women at the dispersal of the China focussed their attention almost unnaturally exclusively on the dispersal of the China. It was the center of their worlds. And they kept that at the center of their worlds for years. And 19 years later, their attention focus was elsewhere. Who knows, maybe on the fragility of life or on the pettiness of a set of dishes, I have no idea. But I strongly suspect that they did change their attentional focus from where it had been when holding that grudge.
(10:28):
So think about that. It's not so much the time as it is how we are focusing our attention. Often, time allows us to changeour attentional focus. But it is not the time that heals. It is changes in our attentional focus that does, time is only a proxy. I'll leave you with an insight that I hope to develop later on. In a group meditation session recently, a woman in her late 60s revealed that she has had insomnia forever, which sounds very familiar to many, including yours truly. And with that particular meditation exercise that we had undertaken that day, she learned that as a kid, she remembered her parents arguing at her bedtime, and this instilled fear into her, which translated into issues with sleeping. She was shocked. She has lived a long time and had taken medicines, gone to sleep clinics. But this internal revelation was revealing to her wounds that time did not heal. Deep internal work was the prescription to find the source of the wound and treat it, not just ignore it and assume that time will be the ultimate healer. The ultimate healer is forgiveness. And that takes a lot of work. It has very little to do with time. It has a lot to do with learning about yourself, and how destructive it is to hold grudges. Time
(12:23):
I assert does not heal anything changing attentional focus or even better, doing the internal work to learn how to forgive.That is very healing.
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener, having reallyappreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
Adam Johns (13:51):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it was diametrically opposed to us, at any rate, we trust it made you think. The more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. Begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
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