There are many facets to how one heals from trauma. Back in August we touched on hurt and navigating through it lest its toxic affects begin to attack our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. Today we are digging a little deeper from releasing the hurt in order to walk in healing.
Before you walk in healing a work needs to be done to address what has caused the injury to begin with. Looking at this from a medical standpoint, if I hurt my ankle jogging, I would not just bandage it up and continue jogging on it. I may try to nurse it on my own by keeping it elevated, icing it, or not bearing too much weight on it. But as time goes by with no improvement, I may now decide to visit a doctor to identify if I’m dealing with a sprain, ligament tear, or fractured bone in order to rectify the injury and set a course towards healing it.
Emotionally, journeying to healing begins with identifying the starting point of what has caused the pain. Sometimes we are able to pinpoint this and other times not because we have buried it so far deep down, forgetting about the offence until we are triggered by an instance where that hurt now surfaces. If you become emotional to the place where it’s difficult to function by someone’s actions, here you need to ask yourself what is causing me to feel this way and note any memory that may play across your mind. When that memory plays, identify instances that may need to be processed and people that may need to be forgiven.
By now we should all be aware that unresolved injuries take a toll on our overall health. Bottled up resentment, anger, frustration, unforgiveness, negative thought patterns such as fear, jealousy, hate, and worry attack us mentally from that emotion, and physically as migraines, insomnia, obesity, dementia, and cancers. Recognizing (and releasing) hurt is usually the first step towards healing, but once that first step is taken, dealing with triggers follows and at times we may not know all our triggers until we are in that moment. While you journey to healing you should find yourself less affected by the triggers. Keep in mind this is a process and there may be times a trigger gets to you, but the evidence you are getting closer to your destination is the hurt attached to that trigger begins to lessen and lessen, and that’s progress.
For this week’s journal exercise:
-Ask yourself in what areas of your life do you feel you need healing. Ask God where in your life you need healing.
-Identify triggers that bring up an emotion (names, scents, songs, places, etc.).
-Revisit blogs Releasing Hurt and Forgive and Forget? to identify areas in and for growth.
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