He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
-- Psalm 147:3, NKJV
“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it…” -- Nicholas Spark
I recently heard someone say, “Feel it to heal it” and remember a former clinical supervisor often saying, “We are here not to make patients feel better but to help them better feel.” When helping people to emotionally, psychologically, and/or spiritually heal, nothing can be closer to the truth. When we are unwilling or unable to be present and fully feel sadness, hurt, anger, grief, and many other emotions that are from painful events, we are faced with the unlikelihood of healing wholly. When we deny ourselves the opportunity to embrace the emotions that arise when we endure any heartache, traumatic event, loss of a loved one, et cetera, we circumvent a necessary part of the healing process. This is often because we either avoid discomfort (often labeling it as “bad); or we disconnect or dissociate, which can be interpreted as the brain’s “coping skill” for emotional survival.
I must take a moment to say that emotions are neither “bad” nor “good”. They just are. They are an expression of a very visceral response to any type of intense experience. It is those experiences that are either “bad” or “good. Somewhere during intensely emotionally evoking experiences, of all kinds, we learn to categorize or label those responses based on if we “like them or not.” For those we do not like, our minds develop the ability to skillfully ignore, numb, and deny any of those feelings. We must learn to acknowledge these feelings and not suppress them so that they can be faced and released so true healing can take place. This additionally allows us to increase our distress tolerance. Increasing our distress tolerance is like muscle building. The less we avoid the faster and more wholly we can heal because we can ‘bear” sitting with the emotion.
Ignoring emotions, I feel, is like ignoring a two-year-old. They will consistently repeat your name until they are acknowledged – so it is with emotions. At the first instance of injury, if only we would acknowledge our wound, treat the wound, and dress it for it to heal properly, we could minimize the chances of negatively impacting our perception of ourselves, others, situations, and even the World.
Ignoring feelings will only result in bigger wounds but acknowledging that we were offended, hurt, saddened, angry, grieving, or any other feelings will allow us to assess the situation and be able to fully heal and be able to move on. One of my favorite books of the Bible is the book of Psalms, David was so candid with God that he never shied away from any of his feelings, even ones that may have been deemed as distasteful, but for him to truly be able to be obedient to God’s plan for him, he had to voice his concerns and feelings to his Heavenly Father. God wants us to be candid so that we can fully heal from whatever has injured us during our journey we call life, allowing us to be vulnerable and come to Him, candidly, will allow us to heal and live the life that He has for us. It is time that we stop focusing on feeling better and begin to focus on learning to better feel in pursuit of living limitlessly.
Our mission at Total Win Strategies, LLC is to offer pragmatic solutions to overcome obstacles that have held you back. By implementing our 4 Disciplines for Actualization, we help you heal, explore, realize and execute your God-given purpose with tools tailored and structured specifically for you and to your destination of LIVING LIMITLESSLY on purpose, with passion, to leave a legacy.
The Healing Wholly Discipline involves you meeting with a licensed professional to help you identify and release the effects of trauma so that you can heal wholly in order to live limitlessly through five key steps: Prayer, Rest, Receiving (Revelation), Recovery, and Restoration.
Special thanks to Z’hara Majors for her insight into this article.
Comments