Are you wounded?
Have you ever tried to put some water on a fresh wound? If you have, you must have felt some pain. Water, which can never harm you if you were not injured, has just made you feel some pain when it touched your wound, simply because when we develop a wound we tend to become over sensitive to factors that didn’t bother us before.
The same goes for emotional wounds: What if you have some emotional wounds that are making you over-sensitive to factors that other people don’t even notice? All of these small things that are bothering you may be harmless on their own, but they hurt you because they touch your wounds just like the water did.
Emotional Wounds and Emotional Pain
Why do you think you felt that bad when they didn’t call you? Is it because they are bad people? And why wasn’t your friend, whom they also didn’t call, bothered the way you are? It’s because he is not wounded. Your wound in this case may be social approval; you may have been wounded before by people who didn’t approve of you and so whenever someone ignores you again it hurts, not because it should hurt, but because it touched your wound and reminded you of the past rejection.
How many times do you find a girl asking her friends for reassurance of her good looks just after breaking up? Why did she feel pain? Did she love him that much? No, it’s just that she was wounded before. When she was young, people always used to make fun of her because she was too slim; now whenever someone rejects her, she feels bad, not because of the rejection, but because this rejection touched her old wound.
Why do you think a guy may feel broken and devastated when he gets a rejection letter? Is it because he really wanted the job that much? Not really. If he wanted it that much, he would have felt bad about the rejection but not broken; it’s just that this rejection touched an old wound. As a child he was seldom encouraged by his parents and so he grew up lacking self-confidence in his abilities. Whenever he gets a rejection letter, he feels much pain, not because of being worried about his future, but because of his old wound that hasn’t yet healed.
Those Wounds Are Making You Vulnerable
Those wounds are making you vulnerable! Things that others usually don’t pay attention to may prevent you from sleeping just because you have some wounds that haven’t healed. The more wounds you have, the more you’ll find that small things bother you and eventually become over-sensitive to every critical comment even if the other person didn’t really mean to offend you.
The more wounds you have the less time you will feel happy, because every now and then, something will touch your wound and make you feel bad, just like the water touches your wounded hand in the example above. Some people think that they can heal their wounds by forgetting about them or by keeping themselves busy, however, this strategy always works against them.
Happiness can’t be really achieved unless you get rid of your emotional wounds or at least start dealing with them. Heal your wounds, face your problems, stop turning your back to them and you will kill depression.
How to Heal These Wounds?
Before you can heal any of these wounds you should first identify their location, or in other words, know the reason behind that wound. Don’t just be passive; seek your answers and trace your wounds to their origin. If critical comments bother you, then don’t just stay like that. Search the web, read more, think and analyze until you know the root cause and when you finally know the cause, healing the wound itself becomes much simpler.
Reading in a website like this may let you discover the cause of many of your wounds and so help you to recover. Remember, if you try to just escape or forget about these wounds, they aren’t going to leave you alone, they will remind you of their existence with each rejection, critical comment or whenever you get dumped or ignored. Don’t leave your wounds like that, heal them and eliminate some of your weak points.
Have you healed emotional wounds that were causing you pain? Please share your experiences in the comments below.
Photo by Lovely Petal
This is a great post… Just tweeted it because I think a lot of people can really benefit from reading it. Thank you for sharing this!
I appreciate your focus on taking care of these areas in our lives where we get stuck by reading, contemplating, etc. It helps to have a huge amount of compassion for ourselves during this process. It is also very useful to remember that we are not essentially wounded. Yes, challenging things may have happened that cause pain and unhappiness in our lives, but what is really true is that we are whole, loving, and lacking nothing. It is our minds that have come to believe false stories based on our experiences. When these stories are seen through, our natural, radiant nature can shine.
@Christina Mwaro, I felt a lot of pain in my heart that spread all over my body, so i began to search for a website that could comment on my hurt feelings. Thank you for this website, i feel much better and will definately read more if only to understand why i always end up getting hurt in relationships.
Hi, Farouk (and Peter, too) –
I really appreciate how you are encouraging people to do their own homework in order to find answers. While therapists and counselors can help with guiding us in a helpful direction, we each have to do our own homework.
I have found it to be true in my life that I become less sensitive to “triggers” once I understand the origins of the triggers.
Great post! Thank you!
– Marie (Coming Out of the Trees)
My husband, Donald, and I are both in the process of healing. Sometimes, during the process of self-improvement, we come across wounds that we didn’t know were there. Your post highlights the importance of recognizing them and then figuring out how to deal with them adequately to allow forward progress. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I read and heard something which made me contemplate deeply and I did “get” it for a few blissful moments! Buddists I think believe this. We have to take those hurts and burn them in the crucible of life and turn them into gold for our hearts. We have to remain joyful and serene even in the midst of great suffering and pain. Make gemstones out of those emotional hurts so we become really rich inside and people will see that amazing compassion walking before them. I am working on this…..!
An encouraging article. An eye opener, but ending can be more helpful. I request the writer to don’t stop the flow of a great thought and write some more about tackling and healing the wounds.
Have you heard of EFT it is a really great way for clearing old wounds and pain even if they’ve been troubling you for years. I find the more you clear the better and more free you feel and the more power you have to resist new wounds
Dear Anne,Daphne,Marie,Gail and positively present,
I am really happy with your comments and feedback :)
The healing process is not easy and i believe this is something that we all know but as long as we have a plan that we trust our emotional wounds will hurt less even if we didn’t get rid of the emotional wounds yet.
Keep in touch everybody:)
Dear Atul,
thanks for your comment
Dear Faramarz,
Techniques that are based on changing the perception won’t work if the problem is with the reality, if you are over weight and hate your looks then being emotionally free won’t help as much as losing weight will do.
EFT will work if the problem is a distorted perception, so each tool has a certain place
Thanks for your comment
I’ve had quite a bit of experience with different types of healing to release emotional pain involving modalities like Reiki, Chinese Energetic Medicine, EFT and Theta Healing(I’ve got the diploma).
What has actually worked better for me than all of those techniques is an idea that popped into my head a while back and it was inspired by Eckhart Tolle and his book “A New Earth”.
Whenever I feel any type of negative emotion in my body, whether it’s small or big, I try to understand what it is that my ego is afraid of and can’t accept.
Then when I believe I have a grasp of what it could be I simply make up the worst possible scenario regarding whatever it is I’m fearing or resisting at the moment that would scare me the most or give me the most pain and accept that the very positive opposite of that might not happen.
Then I repeat that to myself while focusing on the negative emotion in my body.
I think the best way to explain this is to give an example:
Let’s say I fear losing my partner. I would then say to myself over and over in my head while focusing on the emotion in my body:
”Perhaps I will not be with my partner for the rest of my life…”
”Perhaps I will not be happy with my partner forever…”
”Perhaps I will not always be loved by my partner…”
…and so on.
I would say those lines, and all others I could think of regarding the topic in the same fashion, over and over until I felt a shift inside where I’d feel calmer, more relaxed and accepting that whatever happens happens and I don’t have to concern myself with things in the past that I can’t change and things in the future that I can’t control.
It’s all about acceptance as I see it.
As I said this method has worked better for me than all others I’ve tried and hopefully it can help other people also but I’m not enlightened, a guru or a doctor so I speak only from personal experience :)
Peace
Hey Emanuel,
This sounds like a good technique too, all our fears are based upon expectations that didn’t happen yet and that’s why our fear is reduced when that thing we expected happen!! of course other emotions might replace fear like sadness and disappointment but the main idea is that fear dissapears when the thing we used to fear happens
the reason your method work, in my opinion, is that you use visualization to make your mind think that the worst has already happened :)
Thanks for your comment
Great article, I understand your your point of view, very deep and inspiring…I also wrote an article on healing words for the wounded heart…this has helped me lots….
Emotional wounds are very difficult to heal and can be healed only when you are ready to find it deep within.
http://mytreasuredmoment.com/healing-words-for-the-wounded-heart/
What a great Article!!! I have found an easy gentle non-invasive process called the Heart healing Technique to clear emotional wounds from your consciousness. There is not even a need to remember “the story” although it may come back to you while you are doing the process. The four major wounds are Abandonment, Rejection, Betrayal and Humiliation. I have posted self help videos for all four on my website. In just 40 minutes , or sometimes less, you can release these wounds and many others. The first video is free so that you can experience the process and the next ones are only $22. for each issue. I was a very wounded person and now I live in peace – NO TRIGGERS!!!
Dear Sharlene,
Thanks a lot for your comment :) i just read your article and commented on it :)
Dear Shondra
Thanks alot for your comment :) i would like to see your videos
@Farouk, They are on my website http://www.hearthealingtechnique.com
@Shondra Johnston, *8years ago i had an experience that left me wounded, i have struggled to deal with the pain all these years. My experience involved my new boyfriend then with whom we began a business and soon after i brought my 20year old niece to work with us. Soon after using very high level of scheming she began to tell my boyfreind all these lies about me and before long i was thrown out of the office, along with other key employees. When i complained to him he became violent, by then our now 7 year old son was due.
What followed were harrassment of all sort, my niece would write text message to him anonmously threating to kill him and this would be put on me by police. My boyfreind is a European and i am an African. All through the many trips to police cells i have tried to plead my innocence but not even the detectives would understand the trick my niece used. What hurts most is that my entire family has stood by her and as a result i have lost entire family. Many times my boyfriend has come to stay with us but if i as much as say anything about something i dont like he reverts to accusing me of these incidents and leaves us. I hurt so much for myself and my son. I have sought help from many sites and people but no one seems to understand the strory.
My boyfriend accuses me of being childish yet i know it was not justified for me and our son to be locked up in police cells for things my niece made up. To this date she runs the office with him. based on the past experiences, i feel trapped rejected. I spend most of my time with muy son not knowing which way forward.
People have told me that i encouraged the affair by accepting him to come home, and that if i put this behind me i will heal…. Most people who kno the story insist the two are having an affair but i am so scared of accepting it as i have continued to be intimate with my boyfirend for the many times he has on and off come back to us.
Is there a chance for my healing?
For me i always felt that the day someone will understand the trick my niece used to blind and fool the father of my son my healing will have began.
ok will take a look dear :)
I believe it is extremely important to determine the deep reasons behind our actions and feelings. Anyone can turn their life around if they do so from the inside out. Thanks for sharing this post.
Dear Nea
i strongly agree, this is what i always try to tell people through my articles
thanks for your post :D
Hey, I am taking a big step of faith right now I’m 33 and iv been married for the last 4 years and I am in a place with in my self trying to heal wounds I didn’t even know where there until just a week or so ago I have never had or felt what I am going through right now especially with my better hf my lovely wife and son a situation arose causing us to separate and sense this I have been going through some serious grief not understanding where or why I am feeling this way my whole life I have never felt this way about any one the way I feel about my wife and then the reaLity hit me really heard that my whole life I have oppressed what my true issues where like rejection, mistrust, resentment towards others and a loss of communication . So I started looking and searching and this is a place I found and I am in a very lonely place in my mind and in my heart. I’m here to eek some advise that I can apply to my circumstances and move past tos inner most painfully wound I have ever had I have identified some but yet have drawn my self to accept them I a in the grieving part and
this is what. Brought this out I would be very grateful for any advise o can get
Thanks. JW Glover