lessons in healing, buried pain, healing emotional wounds
“What is buried alive will come back to life.” (paraphrased from Freud)
The Denial
We have a tendency, especially us spiritually attuned people, to suppress our hurt. We try to affirm it away and tell how “blessed” we are. We know there is danger in dwelling in fear. We tell ourselves that admitting hurt and pain is blocking our blessings and that we are to demonstrate Christ’s forgiveness.
Yet in that penchant for always responding “I’m blessed and highly favored” when asked how we are doing, we forget that we are human. We forget that the rest of the world has no problem being in anger and hurt until they have a clear way out. We forget that in order to get on the other side of pain, we have to grieve, and many of us have mastered the first stage, denial. We’ve denied that anything is truly wrong, and we’ve denied our true feelings. I know I’ve done it as I’ve written about finally coming to the place where I’m telling the truth of my feelings surrounding infertility, and I’ve tried pushing towards forgiveness without allowing myself to fully feel the pain.
I told y’all I’m learning this along with you!
The Danger
What I do know is that when you don’t truly heal, the same situations and hurts keep surfacing over and over again because they are unresolved, begging for you to face it and deal with it. Could this be you, too?
The Acceptance
Here are some ways to figure out if you are in the midst of unresolved business. Ask yourself:
1. When have I been here before?
2. What does it feel like when I’m here?
3. When in my past have I felt like this?
4. When was the first time I felt like this?
5. Who else in my formative years behaved like me?
6. Who in my formative years behaved like the source of my pain?
If you were able to answer these questions, then you have some business to heal, boo. Get a journal, some Kleenex, and join me this month unpacking this stuff.