If you have bodily pain, you have a multitude of options available to you. For a cut or headache, you can go to the medicine cabinet to figure out which medication will work best for you. Or you can call a doctor, or even visit an emergency room. We have so many different remedies and facilities available to address physical pain, from bandaids and pain relief medicine, to walk-in-clinics and ERs; the list is long. But if you have suffered the loss of a friend or family member, you’ve been fighting with your spouse, work is very stressful, or perhaps you are feeling really down or worried - what then? What elixirs to you have to deal with emotional pain? Emotional healing has been given very little attention, and this has had devastating effects on our society. Due to the rise of anxiety, depression, and numerous other neurological disorders in people of all ages, addressing emotional health and emotional healing is gaining a tremendous amount of momentum. Its importance is now being recognized.
The Importance of Emotional Healing
Emotional healing is just as important as physical healing. We must have methods of dealing with emotional traumas, or our mental injuries will manifest into physical ailments. Stress is a primary example of how this can happen. When the body experiences prolonged and extreme stress, either physical or psychological, the adrenal glands become fatigued and can no longer keep up with the body’s demands for adrenal hormones, or the many other hormones that manage the body’s functions. adrenal fatigue is a physical ailment that can be brought on by emotional turmoil.
Mental stress can create problems in the body, and symptoms begin to appear which worsen over time, become debilitating, and can even result in death. Mental stress is related to many chronic ailments including:
Adrenal fatigue
Heart disease
Obesity
Diabetes
Asthma
Headaches
Gastrointestinal problems
Accelerated aging
Alzheimer’s disease
Premature death
When stress and emotional damage manifest into physical ailments, the entire body is affected. The NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) Stress Response is a system of interrelated organs that kicks into effect when the body needs to deal with stress or is put into “fight or flight” mode. It uses multiple body functions, organized into six primary systems, that keep the body operational. If one of the systems becomes unbalanced or injured, the entire stress response will begin to get out of sync.
When a person feels an emotional injury has occurred, they should address it immediately, just as they would consider the urgency of a physical ailment needing a band-aid or pain relief. If left unchecked, psychological damage can have devastating effects. Having the tools to handle emotional healing is imperative to overall wellness.
Methods of Emotional Healing
The following are practical ways to encourage emotional healing. Create a mental medicine cabinet for yourself, and open it whenever you feel the need to address issues that have left you feeling emotionally drained, unhappy, sad, or angry. Learn how to practice emotional first aid.
Recognize emotional pain when it first strikes. Everyone encounters rejection, failure, and the occasional “bad mood.” A healthy response is one where you can feel the emotion, yet turn it around and refocus on the positive, not allowing the issue to interfere with their daily life. If the pain from a rejection, failure, or “bad mood” lingers and is not going away within a reasonable time frame, your feelings may need addressing. The first step to emotional healing is to identify and recognize that an emotional injury has occurred.
Change your gut reactions. Psychological wounds can often lead from one negative thought or behavior to another. But changing your gut reaction to the initial incident can help prevent the emotional chain reaction that can occur. Practice ignoring initial reactions that focus on what you lack, what you cannot do well, or lead to feelings of demoralization. Instead, practice focusing on your strengths, what brings you happiness, and what you are grateful for. Focus on those thoughts rather than the negative, post-failure, gut-reactions that can linger if allowed.
Protect your self-esteem. Good self-esteem is your psychological immune system. The stronger it is, the healthier your mind will be. It buffers you from emotional pain and encourages quick emotional healing. It is extremely important to protect your self-esteem as much as possible. When negativity consumes you and you feel like insulting yourself and focusing on your shortcomings, just stop. Take a moment and show yourself some compassion.To heal damaged self-esteem, avoid putting yourself down as much as you possibly can. A good exercise for improving self-esteem is to imagine talking to a friend who is dealing with similar issues as you, and write an email expressing support. Read the email, keep a copy. That compassion you have written is the message you should be giving yourself. Every time you encounter a different emotional problem, write a letter to a “friend”. This is a reason why many people choose to keep journals.
Learn the art of distraction. Distraction is a powerful emotional tool and should be used frequently. If you are prepared with the needed distraction materials, have the ability to quickly acknowledge your negative emotional state, and recognize your need to redirect and change your thoughts, studies show you could reduce your unhealthy habits in less than two minutes by engaging in the art of distraction. If you are in a continual loop of replaying stressful events over and over in your mind, engage in an activity that fully consumes your mind and distracts your thinking process. Many people find instant distraction when playing games like Sudoku or doing crossword puzzles, practicing a hobby, or reading a book. Another strategy is to engage in thought processes such as recalling lists of items, the names from a class in school, or walking through the floor plan of a childhood home.
Facing grief. Grief is undeniably one of the worst emotional stressors a person can go through. There is usually no short cut around this feeling. Although loss is part of life, sometimes it causes tremendous wounds, both mental and physical. You must allow yourself to grieve in full, but if time has passed and you find yourself struggling to move forward, you may need to reach into your emotional medicine cabinet and get help. Experts recommend introducing a new way of thinking about the loss that can be more productive. For example, finding meaning from your loss and deriving a purpose from it may help. Many times loss brings us closer to friends and family. Sometimes it gives us a new appreciation for life. Maybe a loss has directed you to align your life with your values and purpose, leading you to pursue new projects, interests, or social groups.
Let go of guilt. Small doses of guilt can be useful in life as it often lets us know that action needs to be taken somewhere on our part. However, lingering guilt that is unresolved is toxic to the body. It can be distracting, it can drain you emotionally and intellectually, and it can keep you from enjoying life to the fullest. And ruminating over rejections, failures, and shortcomings can be just as crippling to the body emotionally as physical injuries. Instead, focus on the present, what you can do now, and what you can learn from past experiences to implement in the future. Also, set healthy boundaries. You are not responsible for everything that happens to you or others.
Empathize with others. Try to see other points of view in a conflict, and try to negotiate for a win-win situation. Learning how to give effective and sincere apologies is another good skill to have. An effective apology must include an empathy statement. This means the focus of the apology should be on how your actions impacted the other person over why you did what you did. When you convey a sincere apology, you will get more authentic forgiveness. Trying to empathize with others is also a good way to improve your relationships and understand and forgive past actions that may have caused you pain.
Learn yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises. All three of these techniques encompass important breathing and relaxation exercises that encourage your “rest and repair” response to activate and allow healing to take place after times of stress and emotional strain. Few people take the time to ensure they are breathing correctly, especially under stress. Proper breathing as in yoga, for example, can slow down the heart rate when stress takes place, and bring about a calmer state of mind. Sometimes dealing with a stressful situation can be helped by taking a few moments to close your eyes and focus on your breath, clearing the mind of any thoughts besides the inhalation and exhalation of oxygen flowing through your body. Keep your breathing relaxed and gentle.
Understand What Works Best for You
One of the key factors in dealing with your emotional health is paying close attention to yourself and understanding which methods work best for your own emotional healing. It is important to know how you personally respond to triggers and which triggers set you off. Can you breathe through troubling situations? Do you tend to shrug off issues that need addressing? Do you get upset easily, but recover quickly? Or do you tend to recover slowly and spiral down into depression? When you understand yourself, you are better equipped to understand what you need to recover from emotional pain.
It is a good idea to try various techniques one at a time and see what methods work best for you, before you are in a difficult emotional situation.
Finding ways to take stock of your psychological well being on a regular basis is vital to emotional healing. Begin to see when you are happiest, and notice what situations are difficult, stressful, and emotionally painful. Practicing journaling or meditation, or going to counseling, are also good ways to become more aware of your thought patterns.
Everyone should take measures to protect their emotional health and wellbeing. If you feel that your emotional pain is severe, it may be a good idea to seek help from a professional health care practitioner.
Yes, yoga is a great tool for emotional healing and overall wellbeing. It encourages blood flow to the adrenals, and proper breathing techniques have been shown to have healing abilities for the entire body. Yoga should be practiced with caution for those who suffer from muscle fatigue or weakness, however.
If you have bodily pain, you have a multitude of options available to you. For a cut or headache, you can go to the medicine cabinet to figure out which medication will work best for you. Or you can call a doctor, or even visit an emergency room. We have so many different remedies and facilities available to address physical pain, from bandaids and pain relief medicine, to walk-in-clinics and ERs; the list is long. But if you have suffered the loss of a friend or family member, you’ve been fighting with your spouse, work is very stressful, or perhaps you are feeling really down or worried - what then? What elixirs to you have to deal with emotional pain? Emotional healing has been given very little attention, and this has had devastating effects on our society. Due to the rise of anxiety, depression, and numerous other neurological disorders in people of all ages, addressing emotional health and emotional healing is gaining a tremendous amount of momentum. Its importance is now being recognized.
