Lately there’s been a common theme with a lot of my patients. Of course by the time folks come to see me they’re usually in a pretty bad place. It’s usually the discomfort of being in that painful place that ultimately gets them out of their beds, into their cars and onto my couch. Most of us don’t like being in pain, especially emotional pain. We will do a lot of things to avoid dealing with emotional pain…we will try to eat the pain away, drink the pain away, sex the pain away, drug the pain away, video game the pain away, sleep the pain away, fight the pain away, pray the pain away…we will do a lot of things to avoid dealing with that pain before we will sit down and talk to someone like me to discuss the root and source of their torment.
Most of us don’t want go through the process. We think to ourselves…what good is talking about it going to do…that won’t change anything…the past is the past. But, we think about it or do a lot of things to avoid thinking about it instead of talking with someone to get it out of our heads and off of our hearts. Most of the time we don’t want to talk about it because we don’t want anyone to know our dirt. We don’t want anyone to know our secrets, the things we are ashamed of…you know that something that happened to us or that we did or wanted to do. So we just dwell on our issues and dissect what kind of person they make us…ultimately letting those issues define who we are. We will do just about anything to avoid going through the “process”.
We get angry. Most of us are really familiar with anger. That’s one of our “go to” emotions; Love and anger. When things are going great we love. And many of us can do that love thing pretty well. But when things go bad…we can quickly grab onto anger. And we can usually do anger equally as well, if not better. We will wrap ourselves in anger in an effort to protect ourselves from future hurts and transgressions. We foolishly think that if we put on an “armor of anger” we can buffer ourselves from the pain of the world. This type of behavior further demonstrates that we will do just about anything to avoid the process.
What is the process…the process is the act of sitting down and dealing with your mess. It looks and feels different for each individual. For some it may be praying and seeking spiritual guidance along with putting a plan in effect. After all, you don’t want to fall into the faith without works trap. For others it may be going to a therapist, and for others it might be starting an antidepressant. Different strokes for different folks.
With absolute certainty I can tell you that process is not avoidance. And it is not comfortable. You’ll know you’re in the process because it is usually painful or at the very least uncomfortable. But, when you can find peace in the process you can rest assured that you are on your road to recovery. Your healing is just waiting on you.
“Life is about relationships. Your relationship with God. Your relationship with yourself. And your relationships with one another.” – Dr. SOS