Healing; a process to become healthy again, a process where painful emotions ends or improves. Though emotional healing might mean different to different people, still some basic principles would be common to us all.
And as you grow and heal, these few tips can help you get started through your healing journey and help you recover better.
Emotional Healing Start with Self Compassion
Emotional hurt doesn’t only bring sadness, it also brings along anger, guilt or shame. Because your feelings are not only about what happened but also about what you let happened.
Many a times this guilt swallows us with self blames. ‘I could have acted sooner’, ‘Only if I were vigilant enough, strong enough, smart enough!!’ As if we allowed that to happen to us or to our loved ones. As if we could have stopped it and chose otherwise.
And this self blame pattern is the biggest hurdle in your healing journey. It wont let you forgive yourself and it won’t let you heal.
Your kindness starts with you. Your compassion starts with you.
Any situation, any circumstance or any event can have numerous outcomes, numerous possibilities. May be what you chose was because you felt it was the best. May be your judgment was misplaced, but were your intentions misplaced too?
Self criticism won’t help. Show yourself some grace, be kind to yourself. The last thing any hurt person needs is criticism. And you won’t do that to someone else who is in pain, right? Then why be so harsh on yourself?
Remember, you are the most worthy of your love.
Give Yourself Time to Heal
Healing can not and should not be rushed. Let grief take its course. Emotional healing is just like physical healing, where you have to go through a certain days of medication, you cannot just swallow all of your pills at once to fast-track your healing.
Likewise emotions cant be fast-tracked too!! Yes there is a deep desire to feel better and move on, and that is why many a times we try to push negative feelings aside. Because we just want to rush towards happiness.
But this denial shall only elongate the healing process.
Don’t be in a hurry to gather yourself. Let the tears roll down, allow yourself to be alone if you need to, allow yourself a break if you need to. Skip a gathering if you need to.
Allow yourself time off work to get lost in nature. Let yourself sit for hours beside a lake or under a tree. Let all emotions come to surface one by one and release them as they come.
Take your time, there is no rush.
Understand There Would be Bad Days
Emotional healing is not a linear curve. There would be days when you’ll feel better and there would be times when you shall feel worse. Memories of the past can trigger without a warning, pulling you back again.
But that’s how healing works, it goes upwards and downwards. As many people say, healing is not a process, it’s a practice.
There would be bends on the road but that doesn’t mean that’ its a dead end. You have the power to bounce back. So every time you face a setback, just ground yourself and continue on your healing journey.
Don’t Try to Fix Everything Together
Trauma hurts us in many ways. And that’s why healing is also multidimensional. And not everything can be fixed in one single try. It has to happen gradually.
So start taking it one at a time. Starting with what matters to you the most at present. Is it your health which was completely ignored and now is reflecting in your medical reports? Or is it your work which has taken a backseat and you feel like addressing it now?
Whatever it is; an ignored relationship or a forgotten commitment, prioritise what feels right at this moment. Prioritise your happiness and move with the flow.
How Gratitude Supports Emotional Healing
Gratitude is a humble emotion of thanking life for what it offers, which by no way means to thank the trauma or adversities. Gratitude doesn’t encourage you to look for positivity in such times.
Rather, gratitude means to look around at everything and everyone we still have, which gives us a confidence that we are not alone, and this is not the end. A mere awareness of empathy and compassion around, can charge you up and make you bounce back.
Gratitude is a reminder that you still have strength and there is still hope.
Emotional healing is a process that connects you with your inner self, opening deeper and deeper layers of emotions. And it all starts with bringing your consciousness from around to within.
""Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it." - Tori Amos