Not Healing While Hurting

I've started playing a mobile game called Shootero. It's an arcade-like game where you control one spaceship, and you have to fight your way through waves of other spaceships. As you proceed, you can collect "mods," which temporarily improve your ship's abilities. One of my favorite mods for this game is Regeneration, which lets your ship regain some HP every second, but there's a catch. Regeneration only works if you haven't taken damage within the last few seconds. With Regeneration, if you want to stop taking damage first.

I think there's something profound in that that can be applied to other aspects of life. A knife wound, for example, can't heal until the knife is removed, and no cut would heal if it kept getting cut open during the healing process. So, at least physically, we can't heal while we're still getting hurt.

I wonder if this applies spiritually as well. Naturally, we can't repent of a sin while we're still committing it (except perhaps if we're trying to stop). Repentance doesn't work like that. Repentance means change. If we're not changing our behavior for the better, then we're not really repenting.

But might this apply emotionally as well? It could be that our hearts can't heal until they stop getting broken. Maybe we can't effectively de-stress until the distress stops. I don't know; I'm not an expert. Anyhow, stopping the continuation and/or repetition of the problem is, generally, an important step in solving the problem. Before things can get better, they need to stop getting worse.

So, if you need to, turtle up. Focus on defense. Do what you can to slow the problem down, or even stop it, if you can. Then you can focus of rebuilding and repairing what was broken. Healing can't begin until the harm stops. So avoid harm as much as possible (both causing it and receiving it), take a breather, and relax. Once the hurting stops, the healing can begin.