One Key to Better Boundaries and Emotional Healing

First understand what you're dealing with and identify the problem. Next feel the feels and process all the feelings and emotions. Finally, only then can you can look at the problem differently. This is generally called reframing.

Let's talk about feeling the feelings and emotions. You can't heal what you don't feel. If you don't fully open up to the reality of your pain it will keep returning, it will keep bringing you back.

Grief for emotional healing follows a slightly different process than other types of grieving.

Grief experts generally recognize these five accepted steps or processes necessary for fully grieving: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptance. It's also generally understood not to always be a linear process but regardless these are the steps.

For those with emotional wounds there's been enough denial, maybe even a lifetime of not facing the hurt and pain. There's also likely been plenty of bargaining with the other person trying to gain favor or love, trying to be better, do better, do more, anything to win the other person's approval. Anger? Likely has been stuffed down or completely ignored and not even recognized as an emotion. You may have even been taught that anger is bad and should never be felt at all so you may have completely denied your right to be angry and hurt. Anger, like any other emotion, is just the bodies signal that a boundary has been overstepped. It's a very necessary emotion that protects us and keeps us safe from harm. There's another workshop on that so let's stay focused. Depression? Hmmm likely spent plenty of time with that one too.

So likely your entire life has been spent in those four steps of grief even if you didn't realize it so it's now time to move on to the final step of acceptance. What do I mean by acceptance?

Acceptance is the hardest step and requires good boundaries. Again that's a different workshop so let's stay focused.

If you've spent a lifetime avoiding the reality, not facing what is right in front of your face it's going to be a challenge to take a good hard look. Likely your reality and whatever situation has taken its emotional toll is not something that should exist. Children should be nurtured and made to feel safe. Adults should respect one another as humans. You may have been bullied and ridiculed and tormented or any number of things that should not exist between two humans. You may have even faced a situation where someone's words to not match their actions, they may express love verbally but physically and emotionally the situation may not be very loving at all. Facing a situation that should not exist but that does is really tough to do.

So the key to acceptance is this: let go of the expectation that person will ever be different than what they are at this moment in time. Even if this person is no longer living fully accept they were who they were and it's not your fault. This person lacks the capacity to behave in a way any different than how they are at this moment. Fully accept that you have no control over others. Read that again. You have no control over that other person and by the same token they have no control over you unless you grant them that power. Read that again too. Let go of the expectation that you're interaction with this person will be any different than it has been in the past. Set them free and in the process set yourself free. Free to heal, free to breathe, free to live. You may now begin your healing journey.

One final note... our sense of smell interacts directly with the memory and emotional centers of the brain it was key to getting in touch with my inner world, recognizing and stabilizing emotions. That's why I became a certified aromatherapist and help other people unlock their inner world. Learn more here

Does EXTRA support for gentle boundaries sound good to you?

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