Psychology and Wellness: The Strange Business of Healing Old Wounds

Healing our psychological damage — or "wounds" as mental health professionals like to call them — can be a strange and often mysterious journey.

The challenge for most of us is that we are seldom aware that we even have been damaged, let alone how we've been damaged. So often, something unpleasant unfolds at some juncture in our lives and we might even be aware that something similar has happened before, yet we tend to shrug off our vague sense of dis-ease with blanket statements like "Oh, I'm fine!"

Even when we sort of know that we're not.

I was introduced to the concept of "self-inquiry" when I was in my early 30s and struggling rather immensely with life, both in the areas of work and relationships.

Somebody pointed out to me that I seemed to react very predictably — and not necessarily in a healthy way — to a particular set of circumstances that would come up regularly at work. As a result, I would end up being "in charge of" tasks and circumstances I actually had no desire to be part of.

The person who made the observation the also wondered whether I had grown up with an alcoholic parent — which I had — and it was at that point that my life changed direction and I embarked on a lengthy "healing journey."

Whereas I had been in conventional therapy several times, this idea of "self-inquiry" was a new one to me... both in the sense that it was fairly self-directed, and in the sense that it wasn't just about a person's psyche but also about their spirit.

Of course, you have to be willing to "get uncomfortable with yourself," but in my case that felt like a lesser evil than being uncomfortable with living!

Mostly, that "discomfort" takes the form of accepting that we do possess certain unpleasant, shameful or outright ugly traits we'd rather the world did not see, perhaps because we feel they are "socially unacceptable," or something similar.

There are a lot of things "conventional psychological wisdom" suggests we should get rid of, but sometimes the better approach is to understand the dark corners of our psyche, make peace with the fact that they exist, and then proceed through life with a deeper sense of awareness and mindfulness.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

How about YOU? Have you ever engaged in psycho-spiritual healing? Have you been part of a self-directed mental health program? How did it work out for you? Or do you prefer conventional psychotherapy? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20211023 00:27 PDT
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