Letting Go: Family Trauma And AddictionChikamu

Feel Your Feelings

Day 2

When you are going through any type of healing process, whether from an injury, surgery, or sickness, you can’t avoid the healing process to get better.

But for some odd reason, as humans, we don’t respond well when it comes to emotional healing. The truth is, the world offers too many quick fixes to help us feel better temporarily. 

If your emotions are sick and we don’t treat them or let them heal, then the truth is, you are walking around sick. It’s just that we are good at hiding it through stuffing our emotions and putting on different types of masks.

Some of the things we hide behind so we don’t have to deal with our emotions include addictions—not only drug abuse and alcohol but also sex, shopping, overspending, overeating…the list can go on. We can even hide behind perfectionism, our college degrees, and our accomplishments.

My wounds manifested in many self-destructive behaviors, and I tried to combat them in my strength, which led to many years of suffering. I thought if I put rigid rules or restrictions on myself, I would be able to stop the behaviors, but what I needed was self-forgiveness and to show myself more compassion.

It wasn’t until I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Finally, I cried out to God, “Please help me. I am scared and I don’t want to live like this anymore. I am tired of pretending everything is okay.”

The key here is that I got to a point in my life where I was ready to heal. I was ready to go to any measure to start feeling better about myself. I truly believe that when we are ready, solutions appear.

The area of my life where I needed the most healing was from my childhood trauma and growing up in addiction.

Everyone’s journey will look different, but I encourage you to take the first step you need to be the best version of yourself. If you do, that hard work will affect everyone around you in a positive way, and you will have no regrets with the end results.

Reflection

Know you are not alone and you don’t have to figure it all out in one day. You just need to say, God, I am ready.

In what areas of your life do you feel anxious or fear failure because you have tried so many times in the past to get healed or delivered from your pain or addiction?