Healing emotionally can take just as long or longer to heal than physical ailments. When a person becomes physically ill most people usually go to a physician for help. The doctor might prescribe medicine or give a shot and offer words of encouragement that with time, the illness will go away with the proper treatment. However, if a person has been wounded emotionally it is more of a rarity that any form of treatment will be sought.
Emotional hurt is many times more difficult to treat than some form of physical illness. If someone has a deep cut or broken bone a doctor can see the wound and either put stitches or cast to bring about healing. However, emotional pain cannot have stitches or a cast put around it to bring about healing. One of the main ways to deal with emotional pain has to do with the way we think. Something terrible might have happened to us to cause great emotional pain and if our mind dwells on all of the negatives surrounding this incident our emotional pain will be even greater.
We have to counteract negative thoughts with positive thoughts that are grounded in Hope and Faith. One of the biggest myths or lies that is usually learned in childhood is “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Most people know this is not true. At some point probably everyone has had someone else say something negative about us that has hurt our feelings. If a child hears over and over that they are a stupid, good-for-nothing, brat this will definitely affect the way the child looks at him or herself. It can cause them great emotional pain throughout their lives until they are able to counteract the negative words spoken with positive thoughts about self.
One activity I have used in working with children over the years is what I call the salt water analogy. It came from the book, Nurturing spirituality in Children by Peggy Jenkins. This activity can be used to teach how other’s words can truly affect us. Put some water in a bowl I get a salt shaker with salt. Tell the listeners that the bowl is a person and a water inside the bowl is the person’s mind and spirit. The salt shaker is another person and the salt on the inside of the Shaker is the words that come out of the person. Shake salt into the water while saying bad things such as, you’re a liar or, I hate you, you’re not worth anything, etc. Then ask if the observers can reach in and get the salt back.
Of course it cannot be done. Once the salt goes into the water it cannot be gotten out. Likewise, when others hurtful words go into us they cannot be taken back either. Hopefully, the other person will eventually apologize but even after an apology and forgiveness is given the hurtful words are still in our mind. If we go on believing what was said about us it will cause us great emotional pain. The definition of counteract according to Webster dictionary is “to lessen the force of.” Therefore, if someone speaks bad about us we can counteract what is said by thinking good thoughts about ourselves which will lessen the force of what was said. Yes, we still will hear what others may have said but counteracting will make it less devastating.
Many people go to a medical doctor when an illness is affecting us and the doctor will prescribe some form of medicine to counteract the ailment. However many will never seek help for emotional pain. If people believe that there is nothing wrong with going to a doctor to get help in healing physically, then one could think that there is nothing wrong for seeking help from a counselor for emotional pain. In closing it may be interesting to know that there has been at least 130 scientific studies that have shown that healing is brought about faster through prayer.
Originally written in March 1999. TRS.
Rays of Hope 