Letting go of emotional suffering is the most significant barrier to finding freedom in the Recovery process. Some of us find comfort in our suffering because it is familiar and safe. We stay in our suffering to shield ourselves from the emotions that will surface.
When we begin to allow our emotions to surface we may want to immediately stuff them down fearing we will become out of control. Also, when we allow our strong feelings to bubble up we may freeze, run from our emotions, or behave violently. Each of these is a coping mechanism that we rely on to prevent facing suffering and trauma.
When we are ready to heal we don’t need to go it alone. In fact, for us to recover we need to find at least one person to trust and feel safe. Ideally doing this with a trained professional is the most direct road toward healing. However, we may not be ready to seek professional care but a self-help group may meet our needs better. A self-help group offers confidentiality and safety.
The important things to remember when our feelings surface include:
1. Let go of judgments about your feelings.
2. Experience the emotion as waves come and go on a beach.
3. Notice the action urge that you want to do in order to release your suffering temporarily. No need to act.
4. Radically accept your emotions as a gift to heal and find freedom.
Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. states, “Talking about painful events doesn’t necessarily establish a community – often quite the contrary. It is an enormous challenge to find safe places to express the pain and trauma, that is why survivor groups can be so critical to get to”.
Thursday evenings from 6-7:00 pm I facilitate a free support group. Go to this link to get direct access to the meeting: https://superhumanbeing.net/thursday-zoom-event/
Peace
Larry
email: ljw@superhumanbeing.net
website: https://superhumanbeing.net/