Emotional Healing Is Possible: 6 Key Steps To Begin Your Healing Journey

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” Stephen King

Have you experienced something extremely painful in your life? Maybe you are on a journey paved with suffering right now? Maybe you’ve been hurting for so long you don’t remember what healthy, happy, and hopeful look like anymore. You feel like life will always be “this way,” like there is no escape. Life is overwhelmingly crushing and you feel like you can’t even breathe. Tomorrow seems impossible. You are barely surviving only moment by moment, drowning in a season of despair.

Is it possible to heal? To feel hope again? To be optimistic about the future and to believe that something good will come out of your anguish?

Is it possible to heal from anxiety, depression, or trauma? Is it possible to heal from rejection, from not being included, or from having a broken heart?

Maybe you have tried to heal, but you feel stuck and hopeless. Nothing is working. Nothing changes.

When you feel hopeless, the idea of believing that life will get better, that you can overcome, and that tomorrow will be a "good day" seems beyond your reach.

But wait. There is hope. Healing is possible. One step, one moment at a time. Tomorrow is a brighter day, beckoning you, and welcoming you towards health and freedom and happiness once more.

Where does your journey begin? We each hold a different story. For me, childhood was good. Check. Then, one day Dad left. Not so good. Full pain ahead. I wish I would have known another path where I had a choice. Where I could choose a path that said, “Happiness road,” or something positive like that.

The day when my dad left was the first time I remember experiencing devastating pain, confusion, and intense sadness for the family that no longer existed. The road to recovery was long. At 16 years old, my options felt limited. So much changed overnight. From family to single parent home. Middle class family to poverty. Nice home to poor neighborhood. Good school to a school with gangs, fighting, and violence. The list goes on.

I experienced a lot of anger, which I did not understand at the time. What it was really saying to me was, “there is something deeper going on underneath.” I know that is why psychology interested me so much when I got to college. It helped me discover “me,” and I was able to not only understand myself better, but I was also able to also understand others better.

“Wellness is the complete integration of body, mind, and spirit – the realization that everything we do, think, feel, and believe affects our state of well-being.” – Greg Anderson

Steps to Begin the Healing Journey

1. Recognize And Accept Where You Are

As you begin your healing journey, take a moment to acknowledge where you are. Recognize that you are experiencing pain. This starting point might mean journaling your story. There is healing in the process of retelling our story. Another form of retelling your story could be in art form, whether that is through painting, drawing, or music. Acknowledging and accepting where you are can put you on a healing path.

Journaling can be a powerful tool for processing our emotions. It can help us understand our story and ourselves better. It can also help us discover patters and triggers that are impacting our current story and to possibly begin to make healthier choices to aid in our healing.

How is your past affecting your present?
How has your story impacted your relationship with God and others?
How has your pain affected how you view yourself and the world around you?

2. Feel Your Feelings

It is not possible to get to the other side of pain, unless you are able to recognize and accept what you are experiencing and allow yourself to feel the painful feelings you need to feel so that you can encounter what healing looks like for you. Once you allow yourself to feel and to process your emotions, you will be able to set a new course toward health.

When I began to process my emotions and seek to understand why I was angry, I was able to recognize the emotions that were underneath the surface of what was really going on emotionally inside of me. I believe my anger was a signal that was telling me I needed to feel loved. It was telling me that I was hurting for what was lost, such as my family, my friends, my home, and neighborhood.

For example, if you experience anger, recognize it as a signal that there is something deeper going on underneath the surface. What is your trigger or signal telling you? Is it telling you that you need something? What are your emotions telling you about yourself? What are they teaching you? What insights can you gain from your emotions that can bring clarity, direction, and set you on a course toward healing?

Identify the emotional barriers you are creating and how they are impacting your life.
Take time to feel your feelings to help you move forward.
Use tools to process your emotions, such as journaling, writing poetry, reading the Psalms, art form or music as a way to explore deeper feelings and emotions underneath the surface.

3. Processing Means To Be Willing To Explore

What is it that has been done to you? What is it that is causing your suffering? Have you experienced abandonment, rejection, bullying? Have you experienced loss? Loss of a job, divorce, death? Have you experienced trauma? Processing means to be willing to explore the root cause of your pain. What unresolved feelings and emotions do you need to explore to get to the other side of the painful journey you are on?

Who is your support system?
Who are the people you trust and feel safe with to share your story?
Consider talking with a mental health professional to help you process your feelings and emotions.

4. Surrender Your Pain To God

What does surrender look like for you? What do you need to let go of in order to move forward, find peace, and heal? Does it look like surrendering your pain to God? Does it look like forgiveness, grace, and mercy? Does it look like letting go of negative and unhealthy behaviors and replacing them with healthy coping skills? Once you are able to forgive, and let go of the negative, unhealthy emotions that are holding you captive, you release that burden and free yourself from that confinement and you make space for healing.

Is there someone you need to forgive?
Is there something you need to surrender to God?
What gives your life meaning and purpose?

"Forgiveness is not something we do for other people. It’s something we do for ourselves to move forward." - unknown

5. Self-Care Improves Our Mental Health

I strongly believe that prioritizing our self-care is a catalyst toward restoring our mental health. Self-care means being aware of how every decision we make impacts our health in a positive or negative way. It means being intentional in meeting our needs on a daily basis so that we can be at our best. It means that we define what self-care looks like played out in our lives that will bring us to a place of wholeness. Wholeness is setting time aside to spend with God and others, as well as taking care of our mental and physical health. It requires us to set healthy boundaries to prevent stress, anxiety, and burnout.

What does self-care look like for you?
What is it that you need to feel at your best?
If there an area of your life you need to improve to feel whole?
What are the activities you enjoy doing? Can you commit to doing one of them today or this week?

6. Identify The Root Cause

In order to process pain, you need to identify and address the root cause of your anguish. Holding onto distressing emotions, such as anger, anxiety, and depression, or not recognizing or admitting the cause of an addiction, only furthers ones’ suffering. Negative emotions manifest in our thought process, like going down the rabbit hole, and they affect the way we behave. We begin to react to people and situations, instead of responding in a healthy manner. Taking time to do the inner work and addressing the root cause of our emotions leads us toward healing, health, and wholeness.

Identifying the root cause means doing the inner work.
Learn healthy coping skills to help your regulate your emotions.
It may mean seeking professional help from someone that can help you get to the other side of your pain.

"The best way out is always through." - Robert Frost

Doing the inner work not only helps us to heal and move forward in a healthy direction, it makes us resilient and gives us new confidence we may have never experienced before. It allows us to take control of our lives, to take the wheel and not be crushed by the storm we thought we couldn't escape. Knowing that you can and have gotten through something painful puts you on a course toward transformation. You won't feel the same, and you also won't look the same. That's not only a good thing, that is a chance to a new beginning filled with hope and optimism and the possibility of a brighter future. Emotional healing is possible.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." - Nelson Mandela

If you are ready to begin the healing journey, remember that you are not alone. Take one day, one moment at a time. Take the first step, then the next. Take the baby steps you need to get you where you need to be. Understand healing takes time, but you will get there. Be patient with yourself. Give yourself grace and be confident that you will persevere with God by your side. Set manageable expectations of yourself and if you fall get up - and get up again. Have compassion on yourself in believing in your best. Process, learn, and grow. You can overcome. You will.

"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12:9

I can't begin to understand why my dad chose to leave, but I can choose to surrender that pain to God and accept the peace that God alone provides me. I can choose to live free and whole again, by the grace God offers me. For the Lord says in the New Living Translation: "Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7

If you would like support in your healing journey, I invite you to schedule a free phone consultation with me, Sandy Ische, Board Certified Mental Health Coach. Call: 619.347.4090 or via e-mail at SandyLIsche@gmail.com