I know this sounds elementary. After all, we’re different human beings with different needs and desires. With different hopes and dreams. And different pain.

I saw Eat, Pray, Love, tonight. Don’t judge me if I say I disliked it. Because I did. After the movie, during a debrief with a new friend, I found myself angry at the main character, Liz. I wasn’t angry because she was able to travel the world in search of herself. I wasn’t angry because she ate her way through Italy, meditated her way through India, and slept her way through Bali. I was angry because her life didn’t seem so bad to begin with. It wasn’t bad enough to warrant a year-long journey for discovery. Her life was seemingly perfect. With a husband completely and wholly devoted to her, supportive friends, a well-paying job, her life was flawless. Instead of being thankful for what she had, for what she was living, she quit. And ran.

And then I realized. Everybody feels and heals differently.

Maybe, what she was going through, did require a trip across the world. Maybe, she was feeling lost in her own way and needed to seek refuge in these foreign countries by herself. Who am I to judge what she needs, wants, desires? Who am I do judge what she feels?

For me, I am most in touch with my thoughts when I write. I am most aware of what I am feeling when I’m sitting in front of a blank page in my journal – not my blog, or the internet, but my hand-written journal I still keep. Writing is how I stay in touch with those innermost thoughts and feelings as they generally get swept away with the busy day.

Sometimes, we forget to feel.

But, what’s even more important than that, sometimes, we forget that others feel, too. There’s no right or wrong way to feel. Sometimes, we get so caught up on our way that we think it’s the only way–the right way–when the truth to compassion is accepting many different ways. In fact, there are unlimited ways.

For Liz, she travelled the world to find peace inside of her turmoil. She ventured to foreign places, building families in each one, to heal her hurt. In each destination, she mended a different piece of her broken heart – her broken ability to feel.

For me, I am most peaceful, most tranquil, when I’m surrounded by people I know and love. When I’m in a familiar place. When I can be myself, sit in silence or in deep discussion. When I can take a deep breath and step outside of myself, for just a minute, to determine what I really am feeling. At that moment, the healing will come. The peace will arrive and I’ll be left with nothing but myself. And a choice. Quit. Or discover.

The truth is, I could flip a coin each time I’m faced with that choice.

In the end, we’re all the same. Heartbreak is heartbreak regardless of how the heart is broken. There is no pain that is more or less than another’s. And we all cope with that pain in different ways – no right or wrong or better or worse. We all seek peace and healing through different avenues.

But the question is: are we ever really healed? Or is life just a constant quest for healing?