Have you ever wondered if emotional healing is possible? Can you heal from trauma, depression, grief, or heartbreak?
Each individual is struggling. Some people are dealing with abusive relationships, fighting their self-doubt, or even the untimely death of a loved one.
We tend to bottle up emotions like sadness, depression, or even anxiety. Then we pretend that they are gone forever.
But what we don’t realize is that these bottled-up feelings grow over time and tend to affect our daily lives. Perhaps you’ve tried to get over your feelings, but you feel stuck (and nothing seems to work). At some point, it feels too heavy to handle.
I want you to know that emotional healing is possible. You can make tremendous changes, become happy, and live a healthy life in ways you never thought possible.
In this article, we are going to explore five steps to achieve emotional healing and create personal transformations that last a lifetime.
What is Emotional Trauma?
Emotional traumas are the results of stressful events that leave us feeling sad,
anxious, unsafe, and disconnected from everyone around us.
It could be as a result of any form of experience like:
- Loss of a loved one
- Breakup or divorce
- Financial hardships
- Etc.
Traumas are personal. Nobody’s experience is the same. Many people experience painful feelings that won’t go away. These emotional wounds can live in the mind for a long time – and affect our lives without us realizing it.
This is a gentle reminder that it doesn’t need to be valid. Some normal experiences can impact our sense of self and view of the world.
How Does Emotional Trauma Affect Us?
A person who has unresolved emotional trauma often associates new feelings with past experiences.
Let’s take swimming as an example. You go out with your friends and you are excited to feel the waters on your skin. But, it can also induce fear in someone who nearly drowned or has watched someone drown in a water body.
Why does this happen?
The subconscious mind replays past experiences that are similar to new feelings and thus, stir up uncontrollable emotions.
It can manifest in the form of insecurity, jealousy, anxiety, or anger and these emotions can lead to undesired behaviors that affect our personal lives, relationship with others, and our careers.
Here are some benefits of emotional healing:
- You will stop being a slave to your past and you can take full control of your future. You’ll find the courage to pursue your passion without doubting your abilities.
- You will experience an upgrade in every area of your life. You’ll regain the power to work on yourself and your self-esteem will increase.
- You’ll be able to control your emotions rather than your emotions controlling you. When you learn this, you can be anything you want to be!
5 Steps to Let Go of Emotional Baggage and Achieve Emotional Healing
Become aware of your emotions
Trying to make changes is never easy. You may become overwhelmed at a point or you’ll feel too vulnerable. It’s like reliving the traumatic experience all over again.
The first step to emotional healing is acknowledging how you feel (today) and becoming aware that you have the power to change.
Here are a few examples of how to take this step:
• Take a few minutes to notice how you’re feeling.
• Write down your present thoughts and feelings in your journal.
• What emotions are connected to your thoughts and feelings?
• Write down a sentence to describe the emotion.When you do this frequently, you can be in control of how you interpret your trauma and past. Simply admitting what you feel can be soothing to your brain.
It’s okay to feel angry or sad. It’s okay to not be okay.
Practice Mindfulness
See yourself as someone who’s observing the emotional pain, but don’t make the discomfort be a part of who you are.
Trying to avoid what happened in the past doesn’t work. Those feelings tend to lie dormant for a while, but they’ll explode and it can affect your physical and mental health.
You need to feel your feelings. You can slowly work your way around your feelings by practicing mindfulness.
Mindfulness means self-awareness of the present moment. Slowing down allows us to acknowledge and validate our pain. Since mindfulness allows you to focus on the now, you can slowly release your pain so that the wound can heal.
Once you become more self-aware, you can focus on the beautiful moments and become more positive.
Practice Patience
Healing is a lot of work. We need to be patient and allow for time to heal. Stop interfering with the healing process.
You cannot put a deadline on your healing journey. The best thing you can do is set achievable milestones to tackle one at a time.
It takes a significant amount of time to heal from past traumatic experiences, and rushing will only make it difficult for you.
Take deep breaths and be proud of every step you take towards progression. And we need to be willing to keep on going even when it gets challenging.
Prioritize Self-Love
Take extra time to listen and take good care of yourself.
When going through the phase of emotional healing, we tend to be harsh on ourselves. Sometimes, we purposely mistreat ourselves thinking that we deserve it.
Listen, your past experiences and trauma doesn’t define you. You are enough and you are worthy to be loved.
Write appreciation letters to yourself, take yourself to coffee dates, and constantly cultivate self-love.
Set Realistic Expectations
Here’s the ugly truth: Progress is two steps forward and one step back.
Nobody makes consistent progress without minor setbacks.Most of the time, we end up disappointing ourselves when we face challenges on our path that slow down our healing journey.
I’m here to remind you that failure is part of the process. There are days where you’ll feel lost, confused, and angry.
But when you set realistic expectations, paired out with self-love and patience, you’ll be able to live through those moments and hope for better days.
Nobody makes consistent progress without minor setbacks.
