Healing Past Trauma and Emotional Pain

Healing Past Emotional Pain

One technique or practice that is essential to getting results.

Daily Work to make Things Clearer

A lot of what’s in the back of our minds is really fuzzy and not all that articulated, in terms of how we are able to really see and understand or describe it.

That’s a big problem because that mostly unconscious stuff causes us pain, distress and to also make poor decisions day after day. After a number of years go by, people get fed up and accept that they’ll either have to continue to suffer a lot longer or begin the long and arduous process of looking inward, and trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

It gets worse. Once you begin this inner work you have no idea where to start or in which direction to go in, what therapy to try out, and have no clue as to what’s really happening inside. Add to that the reality that the pain and old wounds are abstract and therefore difficult to work with or even conceptualize, and you feel like throwing your arms up and giving up out of pure, and understandable, frustration. You curse the gods, your parents and the therapists for being inept and leaving you in such a mess of a state.

But, it also gets better.

One Path

A lot of therapy is inward focus. As you try to connect with the gremlins that have been running your life outside of your awareness, you find that, like the image above (top), that’s it’s blurry or not very clear.

At first you have a vague notion that whatever you are trying to access or connect to is either positive or negative, and that’s all you can see or perceive at that beginning stage. For example, you might be talking to your therapist and telling them that you are accessing a memory from childhood and that you felt “sad“. While that is the necessary starting point, it really isn’t all that helpful at that level of analysis.

What you need to do then, what the daily practice is, is to FOCUS on that sadness and see if you can make the image clearer. If alone, you do this by asking yourself questions, or if you have a therapist, they usually ask you the questions to help you zero in on a particular aspect of what you are working with at the moment. Eventually, you get to a point where you can clearly see how things are playing out inside you, and how you are being affected by them (see the area between the woman’s fingers in the above image).

Unlike the image though, it doesn’t happen all at once, or at least it rarely happens that fast. Usually, you have to work at it day after day, focusing and each time trying to see more and more of the picture or memory.

A good example can be found in The Eating Love Guide which you can see laid out below.

Gradual Progression to Higher & Higher Resolution

Here is the first of 4 images.

This image will represent what you might see when you look inward. It’s not much to go on but if you take the time to look closely, you’ll see what looks like a small figure of a person, maybe two of them. You know it looks grey and the feel is not very welcoming, yet not horrible either. After focusing awhile on this inner image, it will start to look like this one:

Now you can see that there definitely is a young person in the picture and it looks like they are outside. So at this point you’d continue to focus on the main subject of the image, the child, while also being able to focus and figure out what’s going on around him or her. Again, after a while of working on this newer image you’ll see:

Here you can see that the small person is most likely a boy, and that he is definitely outside near mountains, and that he is standing on the grass. If this was you, you could imagine what you would have felt like in that place, is it familiar, what does it remind you of and have you been there before? And with more inner focus you’ll eventually get:

A clear image. You see a boy with a blue sweater, NOT on the grass like you initially though but on a dirt path, outside looking up. If this was you it might get you in touch with your deep loneliness, or make you aware of just how much you had to be on your own, of the fact that perhaps you were neglected to some degree.

Now What?

Access and Understanding

In that example above, what you get out of the whole daily exercise is access and understanding. By accessing the loneliness you come to realize why you perhaps had this “sinking” feeling every night before bed or why you needed to EAT COMFORT FOODS at a certain times. It also allows you to understand why you sometimes avoid certain situations or run toward others. If you were lonely you might insist on always having a room mate wherever you live, or arrange your life in such a way that you were always busy and always around people. As healthy as it is to be social, too much of that good thing can be overwhelming, and can keep you from yourself, where you need to go to for grounding every so often.

Positive Change

And once you have access and understanding, the low-resolution, cluster of energy that used to be in your mind’s basement is now full out in the open, able to be seen and felt, and with that comes some discomfort but also relief. Relief because it has now been processed and has much less effect than it used to when it was hidden.

This is an example of emotional growth. More understanding and ease.

Revisit the image every so often to solidify it as concrete in your mind and then repeat this work or process over and over with more memories or feelings or intuitions you are drawn to.

This is what is meant by diving into the depths of your soul. It’s some of the most rewarding and meaningful work you’ll ever do.

…

THE EATING LOVE GUIDE (FREE)

The Eating Love Guide has helped many people regain control of their eating patterns, resulting not only in weight loss but also better health and improved self-esteem. To read it online, click here.