“I’m afraid if I start crying I won’t be able to stop!”
“If I say how I feel the pain will overwhelm me.”
“Putting it into words only makes it too real and painful.”
“If I just ignore it it will go away.”
“Admitting how I feel makes me a bad person.”
“If I start dredging up old emotions they will never stop.”
I’ve heard these types of comments too many times. We’ve all had painful life experiences and it’s a natural human reaction that over time if we don’t know how to handle and release the emotions we turn them off. It helps us cope and survive, the problem is if we turn off the bad by natural law we also turn off the good. We can become humans living in a very narrow, protected and false state of mid line emotions. The lows are not too low but if we’re honest we admit the highs are not too high either. Heartbreak, abuse, loss, addiction, sin, broken dreams; it does not matter the cause what matters is the result. I’ve mentored too many people who hurt and when they get honest about it, the deepest cost is that it is inhibiting their ability to feel the Spirit and the love of God fully.
With healing, therapy, counseling, etc. there are many approaches or schools of thought. From re-living the past to leaving it alone and simply moving forward. I personally do not believe we have to relive each tiny detail to heal, however feelings buried alive never die. Our experiences create our beliefs, our perception of life, our thoughts. Trapped emotions continue to harm us and false beliefs keep old pain alive and recreate it over and over in new experiences. Our thoughts or beliefs create our emotions which create our actions which create our results…which reinforce our thoughts. Identifying and changing the thought changes the entire process and therefore our results or life experience.
Ignoring or burying the pain does not in fact make it go away, it simply lets it keep living and hurting us. The only way to truly heal and be happy is to release pain and false beliefs through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Let me share with you an example. This is in fact a true story of one woman, however it very accurately exemplifies what is going on in so many of us. Picture a sweet wife and mother. She loves her family very much, is very active in her religion, serves in her community, exercises, eats right, fulfills her callings. Yet she hurts inside. No one knows, she puts on the same happy face many of us do. Yet inside she hurts. Even though she does all the right things she never feels good enough. Her marriage is not as unified and loving as she had hoped. Her children adore her yet she often finds herself feeling inadequate and even keeping them at arms length. After years of saving and trying their finances are still lacking and insecure. Never enough, that seems to be the theme of her life. Never enough money, time, love, joy. But she’s doing all the “right” things; she prays, serves, has faith, so why does she hurt so badly?
During a one on one mentoring session I asked her some questions to figure out why. One of the most painful experiences of her life was her parents divorce when she was a child. As we talked we discovered that as a child the devastation of her family falling apart had imprinted some deeply buried beliefs that she was not even aware of. In trying to cope and deal with the situation her child brain had accepted the beliefs that “families are forever is not true” and “happiness is for everyone else but me.” Wow, powerful beliefs. Powerful false beliefs that conflict with everything she is trying to create in her life today. Can you imagine how such false buried beliefs could be effecting her peace, joy and connection today? Even though she’s forgiven her parents and logically let go of the pain if some part of her brain is still constantly afraid of and waiting for her current family to fall apart then it is literally impossible for her to be fully unified and connected with them or feel peace and joy.
Yet the beauty is that
once she identified this false belief rather than overpowering her or hurting her, it freed her!
As soon as she could clearly see what was hurting her she had the choice to keep that belief or let it go.
She could choose to believe doctrine, to trust the Atonement of Jesus Christ, to give the Savior all her pain and ask forgiveness for her part in believing the lie and acting on it.
The result? Healing, truth, joy, power!
Power to choose her reality rather than having it run by a buried false belief and painful emotion. Suddenly the invisible walls between her and her spouse and children began to crumble.
Each time we face the pain and identify the belief it created somewhere in us and then choose to let that pain and false belief go we begin to heal. We feel more, we open space for the joy and connection we desire, the joy Heavenly Father wants for us. Truly, we begin to become whole. Be ye therefore perfect… Matthew 5 :48. The footnote defines perfect as complete, whole. Whole in Christ. At-one-ment, one with Christ.
This is the path to joy, unity, wholeness. It is also the path, when combined with repentance, to overcoming addiction. When we keep the emotions buried, when we let the false beliefs created during painful life experiences run amok in our heads we are not truly accepting the Atonement. To partake of it we must give up the pain and lies and let Christ heal us.
Letting the emotions out, identifying the lies we’ve taken on and letting them go, replacing them with truth as taught in Christ’s Gospel and then living that Gospel is the only way I know of to heal and be happy. I’ve seen it over and over. Stifling emotions keeps them alive and hurting us over and over, yet if we will let them out, not to blame or relive or suffer more, but to let go through the Atonement that is when they truly have no more power to hurt us and then the powerful emotions of peace and joy and love can truly begin to fill our hearts and lives.
Maybe crying is the place to start. Go to a private place and begin to tell Heavenly Father all about it. Tell Him things you’ve never said out loud before. Yell, cry, whatever it takes. Let the emotions out and when you feel empty, pray. Ask Him to forgive you, to help you forgive others, and forgive yourself. Then ask Him to fill all the space in you where the hurt was with peace and love. One time won’t fix everything and there are other tools too but open yourself up to feeling again because it opens you up to feeling His love and Spirit.
Mindy Heath teaches principles and tools like this one to women and couples in her coaching programs. If you are ready to stop surviving and start thriving in all areas of your life schedule a free mini mentoring session to get clear about how to have more peace, joy and connection in your life!
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