January 9th, 2021 | Updated on June 9th, 2023
As we move through life it’s expected things may get a little rough at times. Illnesses, falls and accidents can all damage us but over time we heal.
Why is that? Because our body does it for us automatically. When we experience emotional trauma though we don’t have a self heal system ready and waiting to kick in.
This is why we carry the scars of our emotional injuries far longer than our physical ones. Just because we don’t have an in-built system for healing emotional wounds it doesn’t mean we can’t construct one. Here are five steps you can take.
Give Yourself Time To Grieve
This applies for all types of emotional pain, not just the death of someone you care about. You may feel grief at the loss of a relationship, or the loss of trust between you and someone else.
It’s not nice feeling anger and sadness and loss and it’s understandable you want to move past it as quickly as possible.
If you do this by denying it exists or pushing it to the back of your mind and trying to ignore it all you’re doing is postponing it. You need to feel these feelings and face them in order to move on.
Take Care Of Yourself
When you feel terrible emotionally it’s natural to let things slide in the rest of your life. A few examples are:
- Sleeping too much or too little.
- Not exercising.
- Eating too little, bingeing or eating mostly convenience foods.
- Not showering.
- Not getting dressed.
It’s natural but it’s a very bad idea. Not looking after yourself physically will make you feel worse emotionally.
You then feel even less like looking after yourself and you continue to spiral downwards. Make time to look after yourself. Do some exercise, even if it’s only for ten minutes.
Take a warm shower after and enjoy how good it feels. Put on your favourite outfit. Eat your favourite meal. You won’t want to in the beginning but you’ll feel better when you’re done.
While you’re going through this you should also remember to be kind to yourself. Talk to, yourself with love and compassion in the way you would to a friend who was going through this.
Meditate
When feeling bad the last thing you may want to do is sit quietly without distractions. You may worry you’ll get lost in negative thoughts and feel even worse.
Learning to calm and counter negative thoughts is a huge step towards healing though. A quick search of the internet will find you free guided meditations for pretty much every scenario. Try them out until you find one that works for you.
Take It Slowly
Again it’s understandable when you’re feeling awful that you want to get better as quickly as possible.
If you try to do too much all at once though you’ll burn yourself out and end up right back where you started. You will need to make changes to deal with your pain but take baby steps. A possible schedule might look like this:
- Day 1. Sit with your pain for 5 minutes to try and process what you’re feeling. There are no right or wrong thoughts.
- Day 2. Try 10 minutes of exercise followed by a shower.
- Day 3. Get up at a set time and put on your favourite outfit. Try out a meditation in the afternoon.
- Day 4. Exercise and shower, try a meditation and eat your favourite meal.
Add a little more each day if you feel,you can. If you backslide the next day it may have been too much. This is ok.
Don’t become frustrated. Fine tune it and try again. After a couple of weeks you’ll be amazed how much progress you’ve made.
In closing please remember that there’s a difference between dealing with temporary pain and a more long term illness.
If you have any worries at all please speak to someone about it and get help. Even if you feel you are getting through it talking to loved ones is still a good idea. Hugs can make all the difference!
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Information provided by Newszii.com does in no way substitute for qualified medical opinion. Any text, videos or any other material provided by us should be considered as generic information only. Any health related information may vary from person to person, hence we advice you to consult specialists for more information.
