Conscious Communication: How to Establish Healthy Relationships and Resolve Conflict Peacefully While Maintaining Independence by Miles Sherts

Author:Miles Sherts [Sherts, Miles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: New
Amazon: B00M49JVJG
Goodreads: 24103163
Published: 2009-03-12T07:00:00+00:00

Tending Emotional Wounds

The only way to release emotions is to deal with them directly. Once you learn to respond to your emotions in an effective way, the attraction of addictive behaviors begins to diminish. There are no shortcuts in this process. However, you can learn simple skills that will help.

Just as physical pain is a signal of a physical wound, emotional pain is a signal of a wound in your deeper being. To resolve physical pain, you need to know where you are hurt and care for your body in a way that helps it heal. In a similar way, discharging emotions involves paying attention to your hurt feelings. It may help to do an inventory of what you are feeling by asking questions like these:

What does the hurt feel like, and where do I feel it?

What are my emotions, and what do they feel like?

What do I need now?

Self-inspection is a natural response when you feel physical pain. If you cut yourself while using a knife, it is normal to stop what you are doing, rinse off the wound, and examine it. It is common sense to find out how deep the wound is and whether there is dirt in it, and to gauge the level of pain you are feeling. With this basic information, you can take care of your cut effectively.

For emotional wounds, it is the same. Simply being present and paying attention to what is happening inside you usually reveals what is wrong and how to take care of it. Just as physical pain is a signal of a physical need, emotional pain is a sign of an emotional need. You simply have to listen and use your awareness to discover what you need at that moment.

Of course, even taking care of a physical wound is not always so easy. Sometimes it takes a crisis to teach us the importance of tending to our wounds. I once got a cut on my leg and just tried to ignore it, hoping it would take care of itself. I did not pay any attention to it at all, and several days later, I noticed that it was not healing by itself. In fact, the skin around it was becoming swollen and turning white, and the wound began to hurt all the time.

I asked someone to look at it with me and discovered that the wound had become infected and was getting worse. The infection had moved inside my body, and I had to see a doctor and get a prescription for an antibiotic. Resolving the infection cost a lot of money and involved taking strong medication for several weeks. I learned through the pain and discomfort of this experience that it is much easier in the long run to tend to a wound carefully when it first occurs, than it is to neglect it and have to deal with a more serious situation later.

This pattern of denial occurs even more frequently when it comes to our emotional wounds. They are less visible than a cut or bruise, and easier to hide.

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