Why Your Emotional Wounds Strengthen You
Concealing the Pain
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” — Helen Keller
Despite your emotional wounds, the hurt will pass and the scars will eventually heal.
To relive the pain reinforces the experience because you cling to the emotions instead of process them.
As time moves on so does the emotional strain, yet you needn’t clutch to your pain story. You can suffer or let go of what no longer serves you.
Many people mask their pain by avoiding it. They rather forget the hurt which only reinforces it.
You must love and acknowledge your darkness, like pain and grief. If you appreciate the sun and wish away the darkness how would you see the stars at night?
Your emotional wounds lead you to experience the wholeness of yourself. It is remiss to emphasise your darkness while identifying with your light since you encompass both parts.
Pain is a powerful teacher that connects you with your inner wisdom.
Without pain, how will you recognise the enduring self that lies beneath the rubble of suffering?
Without pain, you are powerless to embrace the entirety of who you are.
Your emotional wounds do not imply you are flawed, yet show your true character. They are your battle scars that show you have danced with life and lived to tell the tale.
You communicate to others of the struggles that lie ahead, having traversed the path yourself.
Your wounds lie fragmented deep within your psyche. If you have not reconciled them, they grow stronger until you address them. They are the imposing shadow, lurking in the darkness waiting to grab hold if you grow weary.
The mind’s self-protection is an admirable defence to preserve your emotional wellbeing. It stows away the pain when you’re least equipped to deal with it.
Rather than persecute yourself for holding on to unpleasant memories, appreciate that your mind protects you from further getting hurt.
A Return to Love
“When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.” — Rabindranath Tagore
You can become your own healer via loving and nurturing declarations to yourself. This reinforces how it is now safe to face these emotions with openness to heal.
Your emotional wounds call you to connect with your inner child instead of escaping the pain when it intensifies.
To run away from pain is the opposite of loving kindness because you neglect to honour your emotional wellbeing. You must love yourself foremost as you would a friend or loved one who is hurt.
To demonstrate this commitment, consider the vows recited when two people marry: to honour one another through the good times and bad. Make the same commitment to yourself, irrespective of the emotions that arise, knowing you will honour them.
Your emotional wounds strengthen you because they show you have lived a purposeful life.
There is a broader lesson contained within each emotional wound. If you penetrate through the pain, you realise it is a return to love as the American spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson affirms.
So when you experience pain and suffering, love yourself.
When you feel anxiety and tension, love yourself.
When you feel happiness and joy, love yourself.
This simple act of self-renewal permeates into your consciousness, so regardless of the external conditions, your deepest wisdom leads you to connect with your heart.
I’ve noted, when I embrace my emotional wounds, it opens me to a greater awareness of my soulful nature. The shell which conceals the pain is cracked open to expose the loving tenderness beneath. This is the basis for heart-centred living, in contrast to the egoist self.
To fully heal, declutter your life and nurture the child within, while creating a secure environment for healing to occur.
Inner Transformation
“A man on the run finds compassion or love or even pretended innocence his greatest source of danger.” ― Bryce Courtenay
“The transformation process evolves your consciousness from fear to love. That means you have to dissolve the fears and heal the emotional wounds that are in the way — by understanding them. And that means you have to face them, feel them, and decode them, which most of us dread,” states author Penney Peirce.
The saying: time heals all wounds does not hold significance if you don’t make the time to face them. You may store away the emotional fragments of the past, only to have them reappear at a later stage.
To confront your emotional wounds means to honour yourself foremost. No matter what emerges, you trust you will cope.
Everyone is bound to experience hurt and pain in their lives. Unless you’ve lived under a rock, we all carry emotional pain. It’s how we transform the pain to develop a deeper relationship with ourselves that leads to inner freedom.
Your wounds strengthen you because they invite you to be sensitive to your emotional life. You become inquisitive about your emotions and examine them with openness and equanimity.
To be curious fosters a balanced relationship with the wholeness of who you are, rather than dismiss the emotions as untoward. As you connect with your fractured parts, you strengthen your commitment to yourself.
To accept and heal your emotional wounds, release them to invite the power of love to occupy its space. Allow the experience to transform you into an empowered being.
I am drawn to author Dennis Merritt Jones’ message: “Remember, forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting. We may always have memories attached to some of our emotional wounds in much the same way we have scar tissue from a physical wound that happened long ago. That doesn’t mean you have to relive the pain that caused the scar.”
Your childhood wounds are exposed through adult relationships and if you do little to confront them, they can ruin your life. Therefore, they are a gift guiding you to heal within.
Through mindfulness, you learn to be grounded in the present moment and experience any emotions that emerge. This simple act cultivates true intimacy with yourself.
So avoid holding on to your pain. There is no power gained from being a victim, other than to deflect your wounds onto others to appease your suffering.
I leave you with a quote from psychotherapist John Prendergast Ph.D. who states: “If our heart has been closed and then begins to open, we often discover why our native sensitivity originally shut down. Old emotional wounds will surface and ask for our attention. Difficult feelings such as grief, shame, self-loathing, personal deficiency, despair, and fear can arise.”
This statement reaffirms the need to love yourself completely, no matter the emotions that surface.
Your responsibility is not to judge yourself, but to reconcile the pain and integrate it into your experience toward oneness.
