Heal emotional wounds to bring more peace!

Are you feeling a sense of peace in your life? The last couple of years have presented difficult situations with all that is going on in our country and the world. We see that these situations brought more than the normal challenges. When faced with these challenges, people can get emotionally wounded and need to recover so they can go on and enjoy a peaceful life again.

We came across Lise Bourbeau, successful trainer and author. She writes about five common emotional wounds that we encounter. We’ve added our thoughts about the solutions for the five emotional wounds that she identified. If you have experienced some of these wounds, you’re not alone. Everyone has felt one or more of them at some time. As Amy Poehler said, “Sometimes painful things can teach us lessons that we need to know.” So, let’s look at the five emotional wounds to see what lessons we can learn to overcome our wounds. The five wounds we’ll explore are rejection, abandonment, humiliation, injustice, and betrayal.

Rejection:

Rejection is an act that we can do to someone else to make them feel pushed away. We can also feel rejection when someone else pushes us away by what is said, or what is done, or not done. People sometimes feel rejected if their friends are invited to a party, but they aren’t invited. Feelings of rejection often can come from deep beliefs that they’re unworthy or something is wrong with them. If you feel that way, fear and sadness often accompany feelings of rejection.  Controlling your negative thoughts can be helpful. To stop feeling rejection, spend more time being with people who love and support you.

Abandonment:

Feeling abandoned goes along with feeling rejected. It’s easy to feel everyone else was included and that you’re being left out. In ancient societies, and even today, when people feel shunned, they can feel abandoned, sad and empty. The solution here is to recognize your strengths, not compare yourself with others, and know that you are enough now. However, if you feel you need to grow in some area, then take action to be better. As you gain new skills, your confidence can grow.

Humiliation:

Humiliation occurs when someone is ridiculing or demeaning to another. If you feel humiliated, it may be because someone has treated you in these negative ways, Also, if you feel humiliated, you may have an underlying limiting belief that you are not worthy. You may also feel other emotions such as disgust, guilt, and shame. We’ve all made mistakes, and no one is perfect. Forgive yourself and forgive others, too. Work on getting rid of your own limiting beliefs and build your strengths so you can see the goodness in you. Eventually you’ll know that others also see your strengths.

Injustice:

When you feel things are unjust, you may also feel undervalued, disrespected and unappreciated. It’s easy to develop a victim mindset when you feel injustice. It’s also easy to feel it’s not your fault, you don’t belong, and the world is not treating you fairly. Other emotions that go along with feelings of injustice are contempt, criticism, and jealousy. What can help here is to try to understand another point of view and how you can have action plans for similar situations, so you feel it’s more fair. Share with a trusted friend or advisor who can help you learn how you can respond differently to get better results.

Betrayal:

Betrayal is being not honest and loyal to someone or a cause. You may have had some bad situations in the past where someone couldn’t be trusted. Those bad experiences can easily trigger you to believe that you can’t trust anyone. This thinking can also ultimately make it very difficult to commit to someone because you worry that you will be betrayed and hurt. Betrayal wounds also carry the feelings of anger, mistrust, and hypervigilance for what could go wrong. Choose to be with trustworthy people who can help you learn to trust again.

What about you? What emotional wounds are you carrying? We encourage you to use the ideas shared here to identify what wounds need attention and healing. Peter Marshall said, “When we long for a life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made strong under pressure.” As you grow stronger from healing your emotional wounds, you may also find even more peace in your life.

Chanhassen MN residents, Doug and Lynn Nodland are success coaches and owners of The Balance Center in Excelsior. Contact them at WeCare@SharingLifesLessons.com

© Doug and Lynn Nodland 2022 Articles and videos may be shared in their entirety with attribution.