In this series, I’ve talked about the importance of healing on all 4 levels of the self. The 4 levels are spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. I’ve already discussed healing on the spiritual level and mental level. Today, I’m going to talk about healing on the emotional level.
The truth is, working on yourself on the spiritual level can be very motivating and inspiring. It opens up a door to the unknown and allows you to get excited about something outside of yourself. The mental level is non-threatening because, after all, it’s where you probably live most of the time. As a result, it is your comfort zone.
When it comes to the emotional level … well, that’s a different story. This is where I get stuck sometimes, my clients get stuck and, predictably, where you get stuck too. You’ve undoubtedly been taught, directly or indirectly, to fear your emotions. You judge them as “good” or “bad” when the reality is they are simply just e-m-o-t-i-o-n-s. Nothing more, nothing less. They simply are what they are.
As simple as that sounds, I’d venture to guess that you’ve spent a life time running away from them. You’ve made the effort to bury the “bad” or painful feelings deep down – committed to getting “over it”. As a result, you focus solely on the so-called “positive” feelings. After all, you don’t see the point of digging up old feelings. They’re in the past and they should stay that way, right?
Wrong!!
When you don’t deal with pain from the past, you drag it along with you every day. It informs how you act, respond, feel and believe about everything around you.
In essence, it defines you!
When you repress your emotions, you aren’t honoring all of who you are. Instead, you play it safe and show the world only the part of you that’s “good” and can be loved and accepted. The part of you that you reveal to the world is called the “mask self”. Jung referred to it as the “shadow self”. No matter what you call it, it’s not all of who you are.
In your early developmental years you’ve been trained to behave, act, feel … BE a certain way. It becomes deeply entrenched in your psyche. You may have received messages like “ladies don’t behave that way”, “big boys don’t cry”, “stop acting that way”, “rise above it”.
Even when you expressed your “good” feelings, such as love, joy, laughter and happiness, you may have been shut down too. Often times, this happens because it’s too overwhelming for the adult. They can’t feel the “good” feelings themselves so, God forbid, should you be allowed to feel them! This is usually subconscious. However, the impulse to shut you down exists just the same.
So, at this point, all of your feelings are being rejected. You’re being shut down for having them. In essence, you’re taught that it’s not okay to have them. As a result, you repress them all, focus on just being “good”, so that you can be loved and accepted. Unfortunately, this eventually leads to depression, anxiety, and other emotional issues.
Attempting to Fill the Void
In an attempt to fill the void, most people lean towards spirituality. However, this is not the best tactic. You may have been told to put your feelings aside, focus on the positive, “let go, let God”. Yes, God will take care of it. So you develop the spiritual aspect of yourself at the expense of the rest of who you are – body, mind and emotions. After all, the spiritual aspect of yourself is who you really are … or is it? If this is the case, it assumes that the part of you that feels the so-called “bad” or negative emotions is your false self. A self that needs to be dethroned or overcome somehow.
This, my friends, is personal denial dressed up in positive affirmations and a smile. It is our attempt to reject an integral and crucial part of who we are.
Shame on us!!
How can we possible deny the true essence of who we are?! We can’t reflect, repress or deny our true essence which is mind, body, spirit and emotions without causing problems for ourselves.
As I said before, there is no such thing as a “good” or “bad” emotion. Emotions are a deep part of who we are, and a significant part of our human experience, so they should be honored and respected without prejudice or bias.
With each emotion you feel, there is a silver lining in the form of a message or lesson, asking you to listen. Sadness, fear and anger are the top 3 “bad” feelings that we tend to repress – desperately trying not to feel them. Yet, all 3 have important functions. They warn you that something may be out of balance. As a result, the solution is not to control the emotion but to feel them and bring you back into balance.
Your emotions are the life force that moves through you. When you don’t feel the feelings, and allow them to move through you, the energy gets stuck in your body. This is a primary contributor to physical, emotional, and mental issues. So, what does it mean when you allow yourself to feel the emotions? Well, the opposite is true. When you feel your feelings, and allow them to flow, you are able to heal on the physical, emotional and mental level.
So how do you heal emotionally?
There are 5 steps to healing emotionally. They are as follows:
- Acknowledge, accept and process your feelings as they arise
- Communicate your feelings in a constructive way so that others can hear, understand, and empathize.
- Explore feelings that you may be repressing and afraid to feel
- Discover the primary emotional need behind them (ie. the need for love, acceptance, or compassion)
- Identify the wounds from childhood that may have triggered the feelings
- Identify the source of the wounds
- Commit to healing the wounds once and for all
This process can be tricky because it may mean that you will be blaming a parent or some other primary care giver. The magic in the process is not to blame or call out who hurt you. That is not necessary for healing. Although it may be appropriate depending on the circumstances. The key is to simply surrender to the feelings surrounding the situation.
Summary
It’s important to know that emotional healing is a process and it takes time. In order to do the deep, emotional healing work, it can be beneficial to find support – a guide on your journey if you will.
There is such a huge negative stigma about going to a therapist and, truthfully, that is bogus! There is nothing wrong with that! Of course, I’m biased. However, even as a therapist, I have been seeing a therapist off and on for years and will continue to do so. It is extremely helpful to rely on someone you can trust that will support, guide and love you through the good, bad and ugly!
Where do you need to heal emotionally? What emotions are you repressing that need to be brought out into the open and healed? What are you holding onto that is holding you back?
