Emotional Healing

Emotional healing is a lifetime journey.  I have been actively and consciously working at my own emotional healing for twenty years using all sorts of resources, processes, systems and people. In fact, I have become so good at it that I am able to help people with the deepest darkest pain resolve their emotional wounds – all through what I have learnt along my own journey. Yet even today as I sat down to meditate, seeking answers to some of what I thought were my life’s urgent and important questions, I received the gift of healing for an old wound.

Recently my son has been on the receiving end of some severe bullying. This triggered an enormous rage, anxiety and intense hatred in me that had me lying awake at night planning how I would return the favour to the group of teenagers who would dare gang up on and threaten my son.  Although my head knew that this was insanity, my emotions were running riot creating images and ideas that I didn’t know I was capable of! Interestingly enough I also came down with a head cold in the same few days – which is uncommon for me.

Where had ‘I’ gone?  What had happened to the peaceful, spiritual Tim who I liked to identify with? It was like he had gone out and a raging lunatic had replaced him. Fortunately there is a big gap between our thoughts, feelings and emotions.  When we live an unconscious life, this gap tends to be very small, even non-existent.  Or maybe we are just unaware that we don’t need to act on our thoughts and feelings, as they are just thoughts and feelings.  So I was able to contain the messy thoughts and feelings within my head and heart and was very aware that this was triggering something of my own unresolved past.

Twenty years of consciously working on my emotional healing and here I was struggling with the immature antics of pimply faced teenagers!  You’d think I’d have been ‘fixed’ by now!  But no, the journey of emotional healing had presented me with another mountain to tackle.

Leading up to this morning’s experience, I had taken a couple of steps to address the issues (within myself).  I had spent some time in my journal the day before – writing about how I felt and what was coming up for me.  During this time I felt my anxiety going through the roof as I recalled my own bullying experiences at school and how I had failed to stand up for myself (out of a greater fear of punishment from my parents  and, strangely enough, dishonouring God!)  Here I was, sitting in the peace and safety of my own home, virtually trembling with anxiety over past (and current) experiences.  It doesn’t make any logical sense, but the emotional life is like that!

As I journalled and meditatively reflected on my inner turmoil I was able to apply a simple principle that is fundamental to emotional resolution and healing.  Acknowledge, Honour, Release.  Here is how it works:

Acknowledge – We are accustomed to avoiding, projecting, repressing or acting out on our emotional energy when we experience it.  We do this unconsciously and in a myriad of ways.  The secret to emotional resolve is to capture and name the feeling – find some separation from it.  Being able to say “I’m feeling anxious, afraid, sad, angry” isolates the energy and allows us to see what is driving our thoughts and behaviour.

Honour – Even once we identify the energy, usually we have a reaction.  We have been conditioned to believe that any emotional state other than happiness is unacceptable and intolerable – thus the unwillingness to acknowledge our emotional energy.  This deepens the avoidance/behavioural cycle or just generates anger on top of the existing emotion, leading to a secondary cycle of unacknowledged and unresolved emotion.  To honour our emotional energy means to accept and acknowledge that it is present.  Recognise it as an important part of yourself that is bringing you a message.  Let yourself feel the feeling that is present. Emotions are like smoke – they point to a fire within our psyche.  Ignore the smoke and the fire burns brighter.  Most of us live with smouldering fires within our lives for years. This one had been there for almost twenty-five years of my life.  Once I’d discovered the fire and put it out, I could see how much damage it had really caused in my life, unbeknown to me!

Release – Emotions are energy.  Energy needs to go somewhere.  If not, it will build up and explode, implode or run your head and behaviour like an irrational steam engine gone way off its tracks.  Once we have acknowledged and honoured our feelings – we need a safe, constructive outlet.  Maybe that means taking positive action, having a conversation, crying, painting, drawing, talking, walking or a myriad of other options.  The key here is constructive not destructive expression.  Often, in the process of acknowledge and honour, the emotional energy dissipates and resolves itself.  In this case the release has automatically happened.

While this is a powerful approach to emotional resolve and healing, it contains only a fraction of useful information about resolving our emotions.  I have spent years developing a system of emotional healing through both my own journey and having the privilege of applying and observing this process at work with real people and achieving astounding results.  Unresolved emotion runs in the background of our lives affecting every aspect of our life choices and expression.  Emotional wounds from our past can undermine our entire life – sabotaging success in our relationships, our careers our financial success and general peace of life and mind.  The unenlightened mind generally carries with it enormous amounts of emotional baggage and bad emotional habits that we are completely unaware of and prevent us from personal growth and expression.  Don't be afraid to begin the daring journey of emotional healing and awareness.  I will be publishing further articles that will be helpful in getting you started or contributing to your journey in this process.