Emotional Healing

 

 

Emotional healing is a very big subject. To be effective, emotional healing must be tailored to the individual person and the situation that caused the need for healing.

A Holistic Approach To Emotional Healing

Emotions have often been treated as inconveniences. If someone has emotional pain it is frequently considered a personal problem.

However, attitudes are changing. Now that research like that of Dr. Candace Pert is proving that the mind and body are not really separate and the model of mind over matter is incorrect, it is becoming increasingly apparent that emotional damage and traumatic stress are problems of the entire human organism and the society. Abuse harms us all.

Abuse affects one’s entire being. To fully heal therefore,  a holistic approach to emotional healing is important and even necessary.

The Impediments To Emotional Healing

There are several reasons why emotional healing is difficult.

  • memory. The human memory is one of the greatest impediments to emotional healing. Once we have an experience in our memory, our minds treats it as reality, not just an event. When the memory recalls the event it seems real to it and often we re-experience the earlier trauma. Conditioned experience is really a conditioning of the memory. What we have in our memory becomes the basis of our expectations and therefore affects what we attract into our lives. If you have suffered a trauma, your memory may make healing difficult. It may seem unfair, but that is often what happens.
  • support. We often do not receive the support we need from those closest to us. This situation can feel like a continual re-injuring of ourselves because the validation that we need to heal is not forthcoming and other needed support may not be available.
  • trying to fix the past. When we try to fix the past rather than accept it, we create several problems for ourselves. We may attract people into our lives who are harmful to us and we may expend a lot of energy ruminating about the past and waste a lot of time and energy. Essentially we are still re-injuring ourselves.

Creating An Emotional Healing Plan

In order to create an effective emotional healing plan for yourself, there are certain steps you need to take:

  1. decide if you have a short term or long term healing need.
  2. develop a plan for:
    • the letting go process so that you can minimize re-injury. Therapy, writing in a journal, meditation and visualization can help.
    • getting the validation you need so that you can restore your self-worth. If the person who injured you cannot acknowledge the damage, then therapy or a support group will help.
    • restoring your physical health. Emotional injury can cause serious physical problems because emotional injury can become embedded in our bodies. Good basic care of food, exercise, and sleep are a start. Energy practices like reiki, EFT, and other energy medicine are worth considering as well.

Once you have established a healing process for yourself, start visualizing some new possibilities for yourself. It helps to let your imagination work for you to create new avenues for your mind and emotions to travel.

All changes take time. Starting a new life while you are healing is a great way to make the healing process more joyful, and give your new life the attention it deserves.

It may feel like a raw deal to have a need for emotional healing. It is. However, when you have completed the process you will have given yourself the gift of self-regard and that is one of the most important gifts you can give yourself.