Healing Our Emotional Wounds
The first thing we do when we are in pain is seek relief. That is our human instinct. The more intolerable the pain, the more urgently we seek for an instant solution. Our thoughts become consumed only with ideas of how we can stop the pain, and our fears come into their fullest form as we begin to worry that if we don’t find something to stop the pain, it will never stop. Now if this is a physical pain that has an accessible solution, such as a wound that needs stitches, it makes sense for us to act quickly and impulsively. However, there are so many times we seek the same kind of instant relief from emotional pain.
I’m going to tell you a story about a little girl named Lily. At 6 years old, Lily’s dad decided to teach her how to ride a bike. On her first try, once her dad let go, she fell off her bike. As she started to cry, her dad brought her inside, stuck her on the countertop, and noticed her arm was scratched up but not bleeding. “You’re fine!” Her dad exclaimed. Lily looked up at her dad with tears in her eyes and said, “ I think I need a bandaid.” Her dad put his hand on her face and asked “will that make it feel better?” As Lily nodded her head, her dad gave her a reassuring smile and walked over to their kitchen cabinet to pull out her favorite decorated bandages. After she chose a purple butterfly patterned bandaid to wear, her dad carefully unwrapped the bandaid and stuck it right on her now unblemished skin. “Better?” He questioned. “All better,” she said, as she hopped off the counter and ran outside to try again.
This probably seems like a very familiar story to most of us. Maybe you even visualized yourself as Lily sitting on that countertop, or identified more with her dad who was just trying to make her feel better. The point of the story is that although little 6 year old Lily didn’t know it at the time, she was asking for so much more than a bandaid.
When Lily fell off her bike, she got scared and had an emotional response. She was asking for her dad to pick her up and comfort her. She was asking to get a chance to choose her favorite band aid and proudly wear it on her arm as a badge for her bravery. She was asking for safety and security from her Dad so she could feel comfortable enough to go out there and try again. It was never about the scratch on her arm- she was asking for connection.
What we can learn from Lily’s story is that we often learn early on that when we are in pain, we need to fix it. Although wanting a beautiful bandaid is perfectly innocent at 6 years old, if Lily grew up holding onto this idea that the bandaid is truly what made her feel better, and not her dad, this could form some very destructive habits in her adult life. In adulthood, these “beautiful bandaids” often look like drinking a few extra glasses of wine when you get home from work instead of quitting the job you hate, binge watching tv shows rather than talking to your spouse about how disconnected you’ve felt from them lately, spending hours scrolling through your friends social media page to see all the things they’ve been doing without you instead of reaching out and telling them you miss them, or picking up extra shifts at work just to avoid being alone with your thoughts.
Sadly, so many of us are disillusioned that the things we are using as distractions from our pain are somehow healing us because they are making life more bearable. The truth is that the longer we distract ourselves from experiencing our pain, the further out of touch we are with how to prevent pain.
Learning to embrace our pain is what gives us the courage to heal.
Whether you’re going through a difficult life transition or maybe you’re just feeling stuck and discontent in your life, we all have emotional wounds that need intentional healing. The best place to start with this is by leaning into other trusted people in our lives.
For those of us who struggle with people-pleasing, reaching out for support can be especially challenging. Sometimes the beautiful bandaid we use to cover our own wounds is who we can be for other people. Constantly helping and serving others becomes such a part of our identity that we can even get lost in what our own wants and desires are. This not only creates codependent patterns in our relationships, but leaves us completely ignoring our own wounding to help others with theirs. These types of relationships often lead to self-neglect, isolation, and depression because once we are done serving our purpose for other people, we are only left with an empty shell of ourselves. We are waiting to be filled up by someone else who needs us. The longer this cycle continues, the more pain we inflict on ourselves.
In order to heal, we need to feel. We need to cry, scream into a pillow, or even take a few days off work when our emotions are so overwhelming that we can’t even focus. We need to learn to sit in the discomfort of our emotions enough to truly understand and heal them.
Above all, we need connection. We are not meant to be alone. Isolation is extremely detrimental to our mental health. Whether it’s a friend, family member, therapist, or mentor, we need to be able to process all that is going on internally with people outside of ourselves. When we find the courage to rip off those beautiful bandaids one at a time, we can finally begin to come into a place of healing, strength, and wisdom.
About The Author
Hannah Brooks, APCC, AMFT is an associate therapist at Whole Wellness Therapy and has extensive experience working with marginalized populations in our community. Hannah is passionate about working with teens and adults struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, self-esteem issues, substance use issues, codependency, grief and loss, or any range of challenges that are preventing someone from being where they want to be in life. She is also drawn to working with individuals who are seeking a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationships with others.
