Healing The Pain Of The Past

Healing is needed to have healthy relationships with yourself and with others. I know that there are many who were never exposed to what an healthy relationship looks like. As a result, they repeat the patterns of what they saw and it becomes all that they know. In order for true and everlasting healing to be present and active in your life, I believe that certain steps are needed.

1. Be willing to be open and vulnerable. Your heart is hardened because of all of the hurt, pain, and trauma that you have experienced throughout life. You have a wall around your heart, and you don’t allow anyone to get too close. In order for healing to happen, you have to soften your heart. You do so by allowing God in. He is the one person that you will always find safety in. He created your heart. He knows your heart. He knows that you don’t want to hurt anymore. He knows that you are tired of operating in dysfunction. He knows that certain things in your life broke you to the core, but God wants to put your heart back together again. He wants to remove the heart of stone and give you a softened heart (Ezekiel 36:26), but you need to be willing to be open and vulnerable.
2. Go into the healing experience with kindness and patience. Healing is not an overnight thing. It can be a long and ongoing process depending on your situation. You did not receive kindness and patience from the ones that you needed it the most. But God is a God of kindness and of patience. You are going to have moments where you relapse, but do not beat yourself up over it. Know that God is walking with you every step of the way and moments where you are too weak to walk, He will carry you.
3. Invite God in. You have to tell God exactly what has and is hurting you. Let Him know who’s hurt you. Let Him know how they hurt you. Let Him know what happened as a result of that hurt (e.g. you have a hard time trusting people now. You feel like you are never good enough no matter what you do. You feel like you can be very mean and nasty towards others.) Be raw with God. Speak as if the person was there and you could tell him or her what they did and how their actions affected you in a negative way.
4. Now that we have exposed what the hurt is, and we gave a name, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or essay to that hurt, it is time to find the truth.
5. The first step to finding the truth involves finding the root of that hurt. Go back to childhood, and with the help, love, and safety of God, explore when that issue first arose. The only way to completely kill something is by plucking it from its root. Rubbing the wound with alcohol (e.g. by briefly talking about what you’ve been through in generic terms) only touches the surface, and covering it with a band-aid (e.g. not talking about it at all) completely ignores the issue. So let’s explore. Was it because of the absence of a father’s love or a mother’s tenderness that caused you the greatest hurt and pain? Was it that your mother or father was verbally, physically, or emotionally abusive towards you? Did your parents have an unhealthy relationship which skewed and distorted your viewpoint on many things? Were you exposed to things at an early age? Many times, the root stems from what you received or did not receive in your home growing up. Something happened or did not happen to you as a little girl or little boy that caused to walk around with that hurt. And that hurt caused you to operate in dysfunction and brokenness as an adult.
6. Once the root has been exposed, give yourself time to grieve. Do not run or cover it up. Sit in that hurt for a while. Process through your discovery. but do not do it alone. Do it with God. And if you have a trusted person in your corner, invite that person in and talk with him or her. In the grieving process, allow yourself to cry. Allow yourself to express how you’re really feeling holding nothing back. Give a voice to your tears. You may have to cry out loud. You may need to scream. The reason why people repeat dysfunction after they find out the root is because they didn’t give themselves time to process through and grieve the newfound revelation, and you need it. The next generation needs it. So take that moment to grieve.
7. The next step after grieving is discovering the truth. This is where you need ask God to help you learn the truth. Not just any truth. His truth. Ask God to reveal to you the truth of who you really are and whose you are in Him is. Just because certain things happened or did not happen for you does not mean that you are a lost cause. Your mother and father gave life to you but it is God where your true identity comes from. This is the step where Scripture and knowing what the Word of God says is so important. Sometimes opening up your Bible can be overwhelming, so what is a good strategy is to go on Google. Type in the search engine, “Scriptures on Healing” or “What does God say about me?” You will find a lot. This does not substitute you opening up your Bible and getting to know God’s Word for yourself, but it is a great way to start when looking for answers from God. Once you find the truth from God, you will be free from the pain of your past. Every lie that you have heard and believed can be broken with knowledge from God’s Word. So please, get in His Word.
8. Forgiveness. This step is something that I have talked about in a previous post “How To Move On [from a person, habit, or addiction]“. Always remember that forgiveness is not for that person who has hurt you. It’s for you. To release you from the hurt. That person who has hurt you is probably living their life, not even realizing the damaging effects of their actions while you are here hurting. Take your power back, and forgive. It takes a lot more energy to walk around with bitterness, anger, and hatred in your heart than it does to walk around with freedom and peace in your heart.
9. Accountability. For yourself. You may or may not realize it but your words and your actions have done damage to someone else. It’s time to start apologizing for the hurt that you may have afflicted on someone else due to your own hurt. You can break the cycle of “hurt people hurt people” by holding yourself accountable for your actions. Ask God to show you where you went wrong, and believe me when I say He will. In this step, remember to continue being open and vulnerable because God may not show you what you like but it is something that you need to know in order to grow. One of the reasons why I believe many relationships never mend after a fallout is because no one holds themselves accountable for their own actions. They always place the blame on someone else.
10. Be aware. Know when you are shutting down again. Know when you are building up a wall around your heart. Know when your words and actions are coming from a place of hurt and not healing. Instead of pushing it under a rug like you’ve done in the past, talk about it. Talk to God and/or a friend.

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