Healing Emotional Distress

People have been chasing how to elevate human suffering since the beginning of time. From spiritual advisors, shamans, wives’ tales to self-help books, life coaches, counselors, and doctors, humans seek the answer to healing emotional distress. Emotional distress is experienced on a spectrum of intensity depending on many factors including the event that led to distress,developmental, environment, cultural, and social trauma. Some in the field of psychology take the perspective that long-term moderate to severe emotional distress is a result of complex trauma. Nonetheless, the experience of life creates normal sensations of sadness, worry, and heartache. Without experiencing these emotions, we wouldn’t know what joy, happiness, and pleasure is. When sadness and worry turn into something long-lasting and create difficulties in our relationships, work, and daily tasks it’s time to address what is going on.

“Don't trade your authenticity for approval.”

-Unknown author 

What if I asked you to stop what you were doing right now to reflect on how you relate to the world? I know you are probably asking yourself, “What does this have to do with emotional healing?” We can learn a lot about ourselves when we understand how we make sense of the world and how we respond to the experiences of being human. We may begin to identify patterns of behavior such as drinking too much, spending too much, overworking, poor boundaries, perfectionism, and people-pleasing (the list is endless). These old survival strategies are signals and information for us to look closer at how we relate to an often-chaotic world at times. We learned, particularly those of us who experienced complex trauma as a child, that who we are is too much for the world and we trade our authentic self for approval and connection. We give up the core of who we are to fit into a world, community, and family for the sake of connection to others. This leads to coping strategies and moves us away from our core values and spirit.  Some of these strategies are often untapped strengths. For example, someone who overworks may be driven and reliable which is a great strength to teams and communities. It is when this asset becomes a distraction from what they could be avoiding that is an unhealthy adaptive strategy. Sometimes we get so lost in the seemingly helpful action that we don’t even realize it’s a problem until of course the discomfort becomes too great.

Continuing to act on old survival strategies can fuel thoughts and emotions that lead to a hamster wheel of emotional distress, depression, and anxiety. By noticing our strategies and becoming aware of how we respond to the world we are better positioned to try new ways of interacting with our environment. Is there a behavior or mindset you feel keeps you stuck? What causes emotional distress for you? Imagine for a moment if you could hold in your hand this thing that keeps you stuck.  You can look at it from all angles, each crevice. (Try to adopt  a non-judgmental stance when examining your relationship to the world, without criticism…just notice with curiosity.) How did this behavior keep you safe in the past? Do you still need it? What is waiting for you on the other side? How is it blocking you from getting what you really want? Once we have access into how and why we relate to the world we are better equipped to make changes, become gentler with our self and heal.

The work to healing can require a trained professional who can guide you through the process. If you have been working on healing without the gain you would hope to see, reach out…I am happy to explore what is holding you back from the place you want to be.

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