Beyond life’s daily reminders of beauty, magnificence, and divine impeccability, it is hard to imagine breathing through one’s personal experience without facing any challenges or unhappy memories along the way.
Inevitably, we all go through heart-wrenching, difficult events at some point in our lives that involve complex emotions, overall distress, and deeper soul-searching processing on our end.
One approach to this inner, self-reflective restorative practice is emotional healing, or the path to integrating, allowing, realizing, assimilating, and accepting life’s painful circumstances and past emotional blockages. From this viewpoint, we will enable ourselves to grow and evolve from a healthier, more profound emotional and spiritual level while suitably developing adjustment and coping skills. It will also entail cultivating self-empathy, mindfulness, self-compassion, self-love, and self-regulation proficiency to create enduring, positive change in our present reality.
While it might be tough and disheartening to leap into the realm of those tender memories and emotions, there are many health benefits associated with “doing the inner work” and addressing this kind of psychological hurt. For example, this article suggests that creating awareness of our emotional panorama can support cardiovascular health, lower cortisol output, and potentially expand our lifespan, among others.
Thankfully, when it comes to reaching out for assistance and support, there are myriad ways (and resources) to advance our emotional healing voyage, from online courses and ebooks to educative programs and therapy. These tools aim to stimulate transformative change, boost self-confidence, release emotional hindrances, and ultimately recover from trauma.
However, it is vital to remember that everybody’s healing journey is different, and there is not necessarily a finish line to cross or an end goal to achieve. Often, healing is a gradual, ever-evolving adventure we embark upon as we continue to assemble every part of our mind-body-spirit selves. Below are two accessible tips for healing emotional harm and becoming an active participant in your journey toward ultimate well-being:
Mindfulness
One crucial pillar of the healing process is being both self-aware and receptive to the power of now, particularly after emotional trauma. Mindfulness practices are paramount to cultivating the fertile ground for this because they allow us to experience the whole range of emotions entirely without attaching any other meaning or judgment.
Indeed, healing can only occur in the present moment, and although revising the past is a part of the healing ritual, we do not need to live or stay there for too long for the wounds to be unveiled. To get you started, here are six easy steps to practicing mindfulness as described by Public Benefits Corporation, Mindful Magazine:
- Take a seat
- Set a time limit
- Sense your physical body
- Notice your breath
- Observe when your mind has wandered
- Be thoughtful to your wandering mind
Yes, Movement!
An epitome of healing, moving the body is fundamental to processing our emotional landscape better. When we allow our bodies to shift and flow through space, our brains release feel-good chemicals that can raise our self-esteem, create more focus and encouragement, and increase our energy levels, to name a few.
Staying active is also an essential coping mechanism because it forces us to live, feel, and move our bodies in the current moment, giving our brains a break and supporting our emotional headway en route!
