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Emotional scars can take a long time to heal, as you’re dealing with things from the past, things you can’t change anymore. The only way to heal yourself emotionally is through deep understanding of yourself and the world around you. But before we learn how to heal yourself from the past, you need to understand the parts of yourself that cause pain. Understanding is light. And light leads to knowledge. However, it’s not possible to know yourself completely without the genuine help of a wise counsellor or a spiritual teacher because most people see themselves and the world around them through the lens of the ego.
It’s been said that the cause of human misery is the desire for more. More, power, more money, more fame, more everything. It’s this desire that affects our ego and who we are as a person. But what is the ego? In essence, the ego is your belief about yourself which is reflected in all your actions and interactions with everything and everyone around you. In other words, the ego is a wrong-minded attempt to perceive yourself as you wish to be, rather than as you are. Unfortunately, the ego’s beliefs about who you are vary constantly, thus promoting different moods in you. Produced by fear, the ego only reproduces fear. And the basic fear of the ego is that you’re not good enough.
Read about how to overcome fear here.
This sense of unworthiness is generally learned from your first teachers in life, and they’re your parents or caregivers. When a parent or a caregiver has lost touch with their own sense of worth and their inner beauty, it’s impossible for them to see the inner beauty and the real worth of their children. Sadly, those parents often treat their children in unloving and disrespectful ways. Parents’ emotional neglect or abuse can take many forms from a parent not being responsive to the child’s needs, having too high expectations, labelling the child inappropriately, to invalidating a child’s emotional experiences. Therefore, developing a positive sense of self can be challenging for the child.
When these children grow up, being close with another human being in a loving relationship can activate memories of painful childhood experiences, fears of abandonment or feelings of loneliness from the past. In essence, deep inside, those individuals are afraid of being hurt in the same ways they were hurt as children. Hence, being loved, valued or seen in a positive light is confusing for them because it conflicts with the negative self-concept they have formed in their early childhood in the interactions with their closest family members. In such situations, unconsciously, these people feel compelled to act in unloving ways that may hurt their lover by punishing him/her, creating emotional distance and pushing love away.
Essentially, all healing is a release from the past. And in order to heal yourself emotionally, you must learn to forgive. Until you forgive, you‘ll keep living in the past. You‘ll feel stuck in the past. The future will look gloomy for you because, in your mind, you see only your past. The present is not enjoyable either because you’re not really present here and now. In reality, the past is over, but it isn’t over in your mind. That’s why you are still in pain.
Forgiveness, especially of people who you love the most, is difficult when they have hurt you deeply. However, forgiveness is an important step to take in the process of emotional healing. When trying to forgive others, it’s helpful if you understand what forgiveness truly is. Forgiveness means letting go of the past. It’s a conscious decision to release the negative feelings of anger, blame, resentment, and hate towards the people who have hurt you in the past. It’s a process of letting go of these deeply held negative feelings within you. Forgiveness brings peace of mind and great feelings of freedom from the pain you have suffered. Remember that only genuine forgiveness can help you to heal completely, and move on with your life.
With forgiveness, you change your perception of the past, and this changes your perception of the present and the future. Only with forgiveness can you spread your love to everyone around you (your family members, friends, enemies, and strangers). In this way, you can end the cycle of suffering, pain, guilt, revenge, and attack. Forgiveness teaches you that focusing on the pain and staying in pain doesn’t make the pain go away. Forgiveness teaches you that who you truly are has nothing to do with what happened in your past. Forgiveness is the way back to the source of love that resides deep within you.
To release yourself from the pain of your past events, you may also write and say loudly affirmations for forgiveness. For example, you may repeat to yourself the following affirmations for forgiveness: “I forgive those who have harmed me in my past, and I peacefully detach from them. I forgive them and I set them free.”
All of this can gradually bring more acceptance, love, and compassion towards yourself, and those that hurt you. My role as a counsellor is to help you heal emotionally, to distinguish the truth from illusions, so the truth can break through the self-imposed walls set up by your ego and enlighten your path with wisdom. In this way, you can heal yourself, let your light shine out into the world, and follow your path to happiness and success.
If you want to learn more about how to heal yourself emotionally, you can contact Dr Snezhana on the following email:
hello@anotherwayeducation.org
We can arrange a virtual or face to face counselling session at a day and time convenient for you.