When we entered this world, we were born with the innate assumption that our parents would always be there for us and they would love us unconditionally; a sort of “unspoken contact”. When we stood before God as husband and wife and vowed to love one another for better or worse, we entered into yet another contract. The relationship between a sister or a brother, or the bond between friends is yet another contract. Throughout our lives, we enter into many contracts, the contract may be written, verbal or even unspoken; however, the disappointment we feel when contacts are broken can have many devastating consequences on our lives.
How do you heal the emotional wounds of a broken contract? Emotional healing is one of the most difficult undertakings in life. Healing an emotional wound is much like healing a physical wound. It is much like a physical wound that has become infected and it will not heal until it has been treated properly. The consequences of living with an untreated wound can yield feelings of anger, depression, hopelessness, sadness, insecurity, etc. These wounds if left untreated can contaminate every aspect of your life. Open wounds affect how you view world, how you relate to others and how you conduct your life in general. I present to you one approach to healing an emotional wound. I say one approach, as there may be other such perspectives on how to heal emotional wounds of our past.
Identify the infected area
Locating the wound requires a certain amount of introspection. You must identify the precise origin of the wound. The moment you learned that for some, love has conditions. It is the moment in a relationship in which you learned that your mate does not have the same level of commitment as you. It is the moment you realize that for some, sharing the same bloodline is not enough to sustain. However painful this step may be, it is a necessary one to begin the path to healing; you must revisit your past.
Clean the wound
Cleaning the wound involves reliving the effects of the event that created the wound. When cleaning a physical wound that has become infected, you must first clean out the wound by applying a wound care cleanser. As such, when healing an emotional wound you must allow yourself the opportunity to express the emotions, the frustration, the disappointment, the sadness and the pain you feel as a result of the wound. You must allow yourself to grieve the loss. This is a process that can be done in solitary, through writing, through singing, through prayer, shared with a friend or confidant or by any means of expression you are comfortable with. Please be aware, this is a process you may have to experience over and over again. There are no quick fixes to emotional healing. There will be times you feel just fine; however, other times you may feel as if the wound just occurred.
Apply bandage and allow wound to heal.
Applying a bandage and keeping the wound safe from further damage is achieved through compassion and forgiveness. Let me point out here that forgiveness doesn’t mean what was done to you was fair or excusable; but forgiveness with the understanding that what happened to you; more than likely had nothing to personally do with you, but that you simply got caught-up in the crossfire of whatever issue that person or individual may have been dealing with. Through forgiveness and compassion, you are putting in position a safeguard for the wound and protecting it from further damage by taking back the power of your life. Through forgiveness, you set new rules to the game; you play the game on your terms. You are empowering yourself by not allowing the person who wronged you, the ability to wrong you again. You stop allowing the decisions they make to further influence how you feel. This is only the start. Let today be the day you stop allowing the past to dictate your future.
Journaling exercise: How has an emotional wound impacted the decisions you have made in your life. Begin the process of going through the above steps in an effort to begin the healing process in your life.
