Healing from the past; the next steps

After we have had time to self reflect, the next steps to healing include validating our emotions and feeling them. Our emotions are so painful precisely because they were not validated very often during our developmental years. When our emotions are not validated, we don’t learn how to cope with them effectively, and we have a tendency to try to rationalize or avoid them. Our emotions are painful because we have not learned how to soothe ourselves. We then also neglect our emotions, which can overwhelm and control us. Do you remember what a terrible feeling it was when you felt something very strongly and then, when you shared it with someone else, they told you, “It’s not that bad. Get over it.” When your feelings are not validated, it feels as if they do not matter, which can make you feel as if you do not matter.

When we look back at our past, we use rationalization because we are looking at these events through our current “adult” eyes. Furthermore, we do not even always look at our childhood experiences and, when we do, we generally minimize them. To start the validation process, it is important to try to look at these feelings as if you were that child, looking at them in present time. Sometimes, when we consider our past, we think “It wasn’t that bad, however, in order to heal, it is important that you validate the feelings you had regarding those events. Think back as the child that you were and examine how you truly felt, and what you really thought about these experiences. Examine how painful, traumatic, dangerous, even unstable the situations really were. How did these experiences mold your emotional experiences? How did these experiences shape how you see yourself and your world? As adults, we can validate our own emotional experiences, even if they were not validated before. We can validate these feelings, after we have identified them, by saying to ourselves, “It was okay to be sad (or hurt, angry, disappointed, etc.

The next step is to feel those feelings—truly feel them. When negative emotions are experienced, we tend to push them away because we are either afraid to feel them or they are too painful. You need to understand that, at some point, those emotions will surface in some form or another. Sometimes, we try to avoid feeling hurt, but when we try to suppress the emotions, they can manifest at a later time as anger. When you start to feel your feelings, feel them with the understanding that soon you will them go. They do not have to be overwhelming, because you can control the process now that you know what you are dealing with. Feel the sadness, feel the anger, feel all the pain and, once you do, only then should you start to let those feelings go. When you feel these feelings, do not judge them, and do not judge yourself. Try not to allow your rational mind to stop this process.

After you have spent some time truly feeling your feelings, then you must ask yourself important questions: are these feelings valid, useful, or serving any purpose; or are your feelings causing you to feel sad, angry, anxious, or non-productive? Hopefully, you come to the realization that these feelings are not serving you and are preventing you from living a full life. Most, if not all, of our negative emotions are not serving us in a positive way. We can make the choice to let them go. We can also better let them go when we realize that the current pain we are feeling stems from negative emotions created in our past. It is usually when we get to the origin of the pain can we truly let it go. They are not serving us in our present, because they prevent us from truly being happy and at peace. If, after this process, you are still having difficulty letting these feelings go, you may need to re-explore the matter.