Healing From the Ground Up
“I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to
Is you. - Erykah Badu
In today's commercialized society, we often are fed glamorized ideas about what health should be. From your over-saturated 'self-care Sundays' to 'clean eating,' each only addresses the 'cosmetic' issues that stem from deep-rooted experiences and trauma. We often neglect the reality that healing is done from the ground up. Ground level, being our most inner and often traumatized self. One must navigate or re-evaluate past experiences that have either traumatized or impacted us in a way that has shaped who we are in the present. It's often the only opportunity to explore the raw and hidden feelings we have swept under a rug for so long.
It's the one time in our lives that we can consciously choose to express our emotions fully and have them valued, as we are revealing them to only ourselves. Now you may ask, why do i need to 'reveal' my emotions to myself? In most cases, we hide and/or shink our raw emotions as a survival tactic. If we deem the realities of our experiences and the feelings evoked to be to our detriment, we quickly put them in a box if we can. Left to collect dust in the subconscious of our mind for years to come. An act that only puts a band-aid on the healing process, leaving the trauma to fester and gain roots in the most inconspicuous ways.
That once-clean bandage becomes soiled with debris, germs, and blood as we continue to take it into the world and drag it around. Soon its odor will perforate our experiences with others, limiting how we engage, trust, and speak to people. Although the original experience was left in that box, how we were once vulnerable and unprotected becomes a precursor to navigating life. Soon we begin to avoid all things that cause us to be vulnerable in those ways, even to our detriment.
Only to become aware of the issue due to internal and external conflict or an overwhelming sense of wanting to be numb. Leading to the end of some of our most revered relationships, simply because that once perforated odor of our trauma became its own biohazard. Trauma breeds more trauma. Yet, how do we address the landmine of emotional and soul-deep issues we have today?
We talk it out. Write it out. Cry it out. Scream it out.
Simply put, we must become vulnerable with ourselves in ways that we limited ourselves from being previously. We must ask ourselves what the root of the emotions caused by the trauma we experienced is. We have to forgive those that may have inflicted this trauma, but most importantly, ourselves for the things we perceived to be our fault or the things we explicitly denied having caused. We must hold ourselves accountable for our actions and forgive ourselves for our feelings to free ourselves from the trauma caused by never addressing our innermost feelings.
That is how you bring healing from the ground up. Remember, healing is raw, intimate, and soul deep. It will require you to walk through the fire of your experiences to be forged into a renewed, healed version of yourself. Take your time, and be intentional with how you handle yourself. You deserve softness throughout your healing process too.
