Healing

There is so much people out there that are hurting. They are hurting and they don’t even know it, or they just simply ignore it. It becomes normal to live our lives carrying old pains and traumas. However, the way people treat others reflects their lack of trust, their frustrations, their fears, their insecurities, among many other things. We are constantly in “defense mode” because we are fearful that someone will hurt us, or lie to us, or simply pretend to be someone they are not. We tend to hide our darkest secrets and we pretend to be “OK” in the eyes of everyone outside our internal world (meaning our head). It is a self-defense mechanism; we put a shield to pretend we are perfectly fine! I’m not suggesting you go out and burst out all of your traumas! Of course not! But why instead of pretending to be fine, can’t we just focus on healing the old traumas or whatever pains us? That way we won’t need to live our lives pretending; instead, we can be free!

Healing is not an easy task. It is not easy to accomplish. It takes time. Trust me…I know! But what happens? Life happens! Life continues, and we need to continue along with our routines, our jobs, and responsibilities, but as a result we end up failing in finding the necessary time for us to heal. The problem starts to arise when we don’t take care of our internal “things”. We pile up damaged emotions. We accumulate all the hurting without realizing that one day it will explode in our face! Have you thought about how many people out there have mental health issues? We see people being aggressive towards others. We see hatred, we see bullying, we encounter liars, we encounter pretenders…. maybe we even pretend ourselves! We see people having nervous breakdowns or suffering from anxiety. But we don’t see many people looking to heal from any of that because society have taught us that if you need to seek help from a psychologist, you are “crazy”! If we need medication to help us handle our depression, our anxiety, or even the ADD/ADHD, we are seen as weak! However, we do medicate ourselves if we have a headache or if we have a heart condition or if we have any other medical condition. But God forbit we get medication for anything related to our mental health! Why is it that it is seen as “wrong” for us to seek help or care for our mental health? Why is it seen as something bad, or people are seen as weak or “crazy”? Well, that comes with history. In the mid 1800’s psychology was considered a branch of philosophy and not of science, and some people still argue that it is not a science but more of a social behavior problem. Not too far along (in the 1930’s), people who suffered from depression were placed in asylums and given electric shocks and many other torturing treatments. Therefore, since the treatments were traumatic and physically damaging, the patients didn’t seem to improve and therefore, were labeled as “crazy”. The solution was to isolate them and lock them up! In my opinion, those treatments were the ones who were insane and whoever practiced them on those patients were the actual crazy ones!

I don’t want to get you bored with all this history, but it is important to mention it to bring up some of the reasons why mental health has a bad reputation in our society. However, as important as it is for us to take care of our physical health, we need to also take care of our mental health and give it the same importance. So, how do we heal? How can we find out those things that have traumatized us or that are hurting us, and we don’t even realize? Well, the first step is to accept and realize that you need healing! That will require you to do a self-evaluation. If you find yourself feeling stressed or anxious or inexplicably sad, you need to take a PAUSE and begin a journey of self-evaluation. Even if you don’t experience any of these symptoms I mentioned, perhaps you are constantly feeling defensive or aggressive. Maybe you overreact and then you regret it. Maybe you feel frustrated. Maybe you feel unimportant. Perhaps you feel unsuccessful. All of these are signs that show that you are hurting in some way and that therefore you need healing. In order for us to aim to heal we need to find the root of the problem.

If you want to embark in this journey on your own, it is perfectly fine, if I did it…you can also do it! However, I did require some guidance during my process, and I will try my best to share with you the steps I followed and the things I did that helped me (and that I still do) while in this healing process. The first step is to make the decision that you will commit yourself into healing. If you don’t make this commitment with yourself, you won’t reach the goal. Once the decision is made you will need some guidance as well. You can start by researching into finding books that can help you during this process. Books related self-help and psychology. Since I am not a psychologist or therapist, that was a MUST for me and reading was one of the things I did during my journey of healing, and doing so helped me incredibly (I still read). I am speaking based on my personal experience and what worked for me. A book I read that truly helped me was: “Love Don’t Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment and Building Lasting, Loving Relationships” by Michelle Skeen, Psy D. This book took me on this journey of self-evaluation, and I was able to understand and identify many of my traumas, many of which I didn’t even knew I had. My being able to identify them, helped me understand myself without judgement; why I had acted a certain way or made X or Y decision throughout the course of my life.

Another important part of your healing process is to have someone to talk to and that you know won’t judge you. Many times, the closest people in our lives are biased and they will unconsciously judge or would give us advises based on their view of themselves and the view they have of us. They may mean well, but they really don’t help during this process the way we need to be helped. That is not really fair for you if you are looking for healing, for growth, and for self-improvement; you will need someone outside of your regular circle of people and the best person would be a therapist, a coach, or a psychologist. These people are trained to listen and to guide you into finding the answers you need during this journey of self-improvement. Look for one with whom you connect well with, someone you feel comfortable with and free to be yourself and speak out your concerns and issues without a care. If you cannot connect with that person, how can that person help you? So that is very important!

Healing is long process, like I said. But it is a journey worth taking. It will liberate you from huge bags that you’ve been carrying for far too long and without a reason. At the end of the day, the only person in control of your feelings and of your emotions is YOURSELF. If you are hurting, you can’t walk the walk of life properly. You will be hurting all the way and, unfortunately, you will be hurting others along your way, even when you don’t mean to do so. If you walk the walk of life being hurt, you won’t be able to go too far in your life because you are limping throughout your journey. But that doesn’t have to be your story. You can change things around by simply committing to this process of healing. You can and you are capable of taking control of your life and take action into becoming better. For that you need to start with the simple decision of embarking yourself in the journey of self-healing. If you are hurting inside, it would be very difficult to find purpose in your life.

Being able to heal sets you free into the life you never thought you could live. Being able to heal allows you to enjoy life despite having difficult days. Being able to heal allows you to help others heal as well. Being able to heal allows you to be more sensitive and compassionate towards others and therefore you won’t be hurting people along your way. There are so many things we need to unlearn and many others we need to learn in order to find true happiness in this journey called life. But the true happiness will come into your life once you heal because you will see life from a different perspective. The angle changes and so does the view. You will be able to forgive everyone who ever hurt you, including yourself. This journey of healing is empowering, and it’ll take you to the best and ultimate destination of life which is to learn to love yourself so much that there will be no more pain, no more hurting, no more dragging bags full of traumas and resentment that don’t allow you to run and reach your goals. You will have control of your happiness and you will shine happiness into other people’s life. Healing gives you that freedom and that kind of life.