“I just want to get rid of this anxiety,” is a familiar refrain in my consulting room. It’s natural that when we are in distress, we fantasize about a surgical approach to mental health. However, a more holistic perspective can better serve.
One definition of healing is “to make whole”. Within this framework, symptoms like distressing emotions are not just annoyances to excise, but promptings for greater awareness. We learn to bring compassion to those parts that are suffering, rather than blame ourselves for feeling mad, sad or afraid. We begin to turn toward these self-states like a good mother turns toward an upset child. Ultimately, we reintegrate dissociated sensations, emotions, memories, or aspects of ourselves, so that our life force can flow freely through our systems.
In approaching your own healing, it’s important to acknowledge that you can’t do it on your own. The rugged individualist mentality simply does not serve here. See, most of what ails us emotionally was created in a relational context. For instance, as I wrote in the “Not Good Enough” post, nobody is born feeling ashamed. That’s usually a by-product of failures in one’s early relationships with caregivers. When you can re-experience troubling emotions like shame, sadness, anger, or anxiety in the presence of someone who is providing you a more emotionally attuned experience, you are allowing yourself opportunity for emotional integration. Experiences of juxtaposition like this are critical to healing. You are less likely to have such moments all by your lonesome. We are, indeed, wired to grow in connection.
The truth is that it’s easier to discern your unique emotional trigger points when you reflect about your experience together with another who is attuned to you. In my work with clients, once we identify those triggers, we can then employ techniques for processing and neutralizing the emotional charge they bear.
Through a holistic lens, there’s a recognition that healing is not just mind and body, but spirit, as well. Healing ultimately goes beyond reclaiming disowned parts of yourself. Psychologist David Wallin says that at it’s best, good therapy facilitates an alignment between you and your Higher Self; this is the ultimate form of secure attachment. Along the way of therapy or coaching, I help clients pay attention to messages from their Higher Self or Source, such as images or words that give them strength and confidence. They start to better discern what feels light and aligned with their higher good vs. what feels heavy. They learn to trust their guts, and the guidance that is eternally accessible.
Healing is really about remembering that you are already wholly loved, and learning, moment by moment, to love yourself–just as you are.