Welcome back!!
Have you ever told yourself, or someone else, you are “ok” or “fine” when you really weren’t. And you told them that because you either were trying to convince yourself that you were ok, because you just didn’t want to relive it all over again, or because you’ve learned to cope by saying things like that. Either way, what was really happening was you trying to avoid feeling the pain of a situation again and either consciously or subconsciously just trying to suppress it.
Did you just read that and think “no I just really don’t care anymore”? Because if so, you are still lying to yourself. (Insert awkward smiley face). I mean think about it. Have you ever walked away from a pleasant situation and said, “I’m ok. I’m fine”? I highly doubt it
Hopefully by now you have opened yourself up to walk into the awareness and vulnerability necessary to heal. But the third thing you have to open yourself up to is being honest, which I completely understand can be VERY hard at times. Making that choice to start your healing journey might feel scary but it typically isn’t the part that feels painful. Allowing yourself to bring up that stuff you convinced yourself didn’t bother you anymore and remembering that it did, or does, is absolutely one of the harder parts of walking into healing.
For me, my choice of suppression was trying to find the positive in every hard situation. Which sounds like a good thing right? It is when it’s coming from a healthy, REAL place. But when it’s coming from a place of trying to avoid feeling hurt or rejected, it’s no different than saying “I’m ok” when I’m really not. Even positive things can be used in an unhealthy way.
Like most things I talk about, it boils down to your mindset. And it is IMPOSSIBLE to heal while living in denial or protection mode. But don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to dig anything up right now. We still aren’t quite to the place of doing that yet. What we are doing now is bringing that awareness, yet again, and preparing your mind to walk into the hard stuff. So take a deep breath and let go of that resistance you may be feeling right now. Allow yourself to hear what it is I’m talking about and rest easy in the fact that we are just having a conversation right now.
Obviously not wanting to feel pain is one reason, and a big reason, why we might suppress unwanted feelings. But another big one is because we don’t want to think or believe that someone would hurt us or that someone is “bad”. While counseling others, I’ve noticed that a common reason why people block out wounds from their childhood is to protect the image of their parents. I’ve also personally done this with friends and family as well with my own past pain. We would rather believe that they are “good” and love us so we block out any negative memories or make excuses for the things that happened or didn’t happen.
So, let me help you work past this by saying JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE HURTS YOU DOESN’T MEAN THEY ARE BAD. Just because someone wasn’t able to meet a need for you doesn’t mean they don’t love you. We’ve talked about this in the past, but everyone is wounded and no-one will ever be able to meet ALL of your needs. Jesus is the only one who can because He is honestly the only one who knows what our true needs are. We don’t even know if we want to get really deep with this. There is no such thing as a perfect parent or friend and there is no childhood that is walked out of without some sort of wound and coping mechanism. However, if the proper communication or counseling happens at a young enough age, it can lessen the intensity of that wound and the power it will have over their life.
Saying “I’m ok” or “its fine, it doesn’t bother me” or “it’s whatever” are all big red flags that you are not ok and indications that you need to process what you are experiencing. Allow yourself to recognize that whatever just happened made you feel a certain way about yourself. Don’t focus on surface level feelings, but instead actually realize how it made you feel about you as a person. Did you feel a certain insecurity about your character? Name it. And then remember our past exercises of reminding yourself of the truth aka the opposite of how that made you feel, even if you don’t believe that’s the truth. God doesn’t make mistakes, and even if you do have a characteristic you need to work on, He would never throw it in your face and belittle you for it. Also remember that they are also wounded and either weren’t aware that they hurt you OR were feeling triggered and resorted to fight or flight mode. This doesn’t mean you justify or allow the behavior or situation to be ok, but you are simply reminding yourself that you are working on growing and healing which means not allowing yourself to believe the lies that are coming from the enemy or your survival coping behaviors because of that situation. Refer back to the first few blogs if you need to.
Now obviously I’m not advising that you walk around telling everyone you’re miserable when they ask how you are. What I AM saying is don’t allow yourself to live in that unhealthy place of protection and denial. And honestly I’m more so referring to what you tell yourself rather than what you tell others. When it comes to others you could just say more honest things like “I’m blessed”, “I’m growing”, or even something simple like “I’m getting there!” Lol Try and keep it encouraging or light and if you feel like the setting is appropriate and want to elaborate more about your healing journey, then do so! You never know who could want to join you and start their own journey! My point is to just keep it from going to a negative or dishonest answer. And when you are speaking to yourself, apply the same rule of thumb. Allow yourself to be honest but keep it encouraging at the same time. Living in a negative place while trying to heal is never a productive place to be.
What I want you to do as you move forward on this journey and as we move more into the deeper healing, is keep your mind/ heart open. Recognize when you are experiencing old, unhealthy patterns, are understand what being honest/ real feels like, and still ALLOW yourself to walk into it. Things are going to start to gradually get deeper from this point and the ONLY way healing will take place is if you take all these tools we’ve talked about so far and start applying them. And the ONLY way you can apply them is by being honest and open with yourself and others. If you don’t and you continue to go deeper, not only will it just hurt the same all over again, but it can also cause relapse to happen. You have to allow God’s voice to be a part of your journey and the only way that will happen is by opening yourself up to it.
You’ve got this, friend! I am SO proud of how far you have come and my prayer is that you continue on your journey! Reach out if you need a friend! And I will see you next week! Don’t forget to do something this week to encourage yourself and remind you of your truth! I hope you have the best week ever!
