These wounds can go unnoticed for a long time, surprising and confusing you when they surface because they don’t surface in their original form but rather sneak up on you as symptoms.
Symptoms like impatience, intolerance, lashing out in anger, being physically abusive, accepting physical abuse, belittling, bullying, depression, suicidal thoughts, attempting suicide, poor grades, mood swings, food addiction, chemical addiction, alcohol addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, co-dependence, extramarital affairs, inability to express emotions, closed-off or walled up, social anxiety, anxiety attacks, obsessive tendencies, constant fantasizing, mental breakdowns, high blood pressure, shortness of breath, weight fluctuation, being overweight, anorexia, bulimia, distrusting, manipulating, controlling, solitude, lying, compartmentalizing, and the list goes on.
I wish all doctors were like Dr. House, but they’re not. I’ve been lucky to have been treated by true diagnosticians when I’ve been physically ill. Rather than putting a band-aid on the symptom, they searched for the root cause and addressed it on a deeper level rather than a surface level.
Alas, not everyone can afford multiple lab tests to search for the root cause of their physical ailments, so band-aid after band-aid after band-aid is applied to fix one symptom or the other, only for other symptoms to surface, which only leads to greater expenses than if the money had been spent initially to discover the root cause.
Emotional wounds are treated much in the same way. We learn how to deal with AKA and put a band-aid on the individual symptoms as opposed to taking the time to discover the root cause of our symptoms. We take an effective communication class, go to anger management meetings, take medication to calm down, cheer up on a yo-yo diet to lose weight, or go to counseling for 16 years, telling the same surface stories over and over again.
We have internal mechanisms that heal our physical scars, but no such mechanisms exist for emotional scars, so how does one heal?
One of the things that naturally aids in the healing process of our physical wounds is oxygen. You can Google the science of oxygen and wound healing, but suffice it to say that oxygen is required for healthy cell creation and regeneration, and we are made up of cells. The equivalent of oxygen on an emotional level is exposing the source of our wounds, the root causes and expressing their symptoms and consequences on our lives. Lastly, prevention is required to ensure we are not re-wounded in the same ways, AKA by rebuilding our emotional immune system.
It sounds simple, but it’s not easy and takes time. You may say, “I ain’t got time for that,” and that’s just a lie you tell yourself so you don’t have to face your biggest fear, the fear that you are not.
Not strong enough
Not good enough
Not brave enough
Not man enough
Not woman enough
You are enough, but you will never realize that until you stop ignoring your pain and rip off the band-aids. It’ll sting for a bit but it will not hurt you, it will release you.
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