As we go through life, we will accumulate injuries, both mental and physical.  Some are minor, like stubbing your toe, and they heal quickly and easily, without any need for action on our part.  Others are major wounds, sometimes even requiring the assistance of others.

When it comes to physical wounds, the degree of attention needed is usually obvious, though even small injuries can get infected and cause serious problems if left untended.  The natural reaction is to do whatever is needed, to the degree needed, in order to take care of it.

Burying Our Mental Wounds

With mental wounds, however, the immediate reaction is generally to bury it, with the depth we bury it being directly related to the depth of the injury.

We then leave these gaping wounds buried inside of us, under layers and layers of distractions meant to make us forget it’s there.  And it often works… our conscious mind doesn’t even remember the original injury.

The subconscious mind does, though.  And it acts upon it, influencing our conscious mind, making us feel certain ways in certain situations and draining our mental resources just to keep it from getting any worse.

If you accumulate enough of these wounds, buried deep enough to be below conscious level, it can completely drain you of your fire within, the fire that keeps you going, makes you passionate about the things you love, the fire that IS you.  When this fire flickers and fades, it can be very difficult to build back up.

And the thing is, your conscious mind knows that your flame is dying, and that knowledge hurts.  So it does what comes naturally, and finds yet more distractions, attempting to bury that pain as well, adding yet another leak to the fuel that keeps the fire burning.

All of these buried wounds aren’t really “safe”, either.  You may not think about them consciously, but things going on around you can still touch them, and cause them to flare up, making you hurt (without even knowing why, if it’s buried deeply enough) and likely making you strike out at either yourself or others.

Much of the time this is undetectable from the outside.  People have no idea how badly you hurt, how weak that fire is flickering inside of you, and so they have no idea that you need help… even those closest to you.  They don’t know why you lash out at yourself or them, but they still get hurt (even hurting yourself hurts those closest to you).

So you are left hurting, maybe dying, inside and hurting those around you, particularly those who are closest to you, without even consciously knowing why, but either feeling guilty about it (which is yet another injury) or feeling nothing at all.  Because that’s the final response to all the pain… shutting down all feelings, good and bad.

None of this sounds pleasant, even if you’ve already shut down your feelings… you still know, in the back of your mind, that you are hurt.  There is something you can do about it, though.

Dig Them Up

What you can do is peel back those layers, and bring the wound back to the surface.  It isn’t painless… in fact, it usually hurts as bad or worse than when it first happened.  It’s like pulling off a bandage that has gotten stuck in the wound… it’s necessary, but it hurts.

Until you bring it back to the surface, though, you can’t heal from it.  Even once you make the decision to start, you have to keep your mind from running back to the distractions, trying to avoid confronting the pain directly.

You may also find that your mind tries to divert you to smaller wounds, keeping you away from the thing that’s really hurting you.  That’s okay, you can deal with those in exactly the same way, and then there will be less distractions for the next time.

Heal Them

So, on to the actual “dealing with them” part… how do you go about healing the mental injuries, so that you stop bleeding away the fuel for your fire?   There are two ways… you can do it by yourself, or you can do it with the help of another.

1. DIY – Do It Yourself

   If you’re going to try to do it on your own, the first thing you have to do is get rid of all the current distractions.  This involves finding a quiet place where you can be alone, with no interruptions.  Once you’re there, close your eyes (having the lights low or our can help too, but isn’t required) and breathe slowly and deeply… the slow part is just as important as the deep part.  Count your breaths… you’ll need at least ten to start relaxing, and thirty is better.

   Now let everything that comes up go ahead and come up… don’t try to stop thinking, or try to bury anything, just let it go.  Keep your breathing nice and slow, and all of your current distractions should come up, get the consideration they want from your conscious mind, and fade away.

   Once they are gone, you can get down to business.  You should know, consciously, at least one source of mental pain… so intentionally bring that pain up.  Let yourself fully feel the pain and whatever emotions go with it… any attempt to do anything else will interfere with your healing.  That pain is going to be there until you let yourself feel it all, and like a loan from a bank, it accumulates interest until you pay off the principal.

   That means that the longer you wait to deal with it, the more pain it’s going to inflict… so don’t give in and let yourself be distracted.  Just let yourself fully feel the pain, and as you do so, you’ll be able to start letting that pain go.  It may take more than one time if the injury is deep enough… just deal with what you can for now, and come back to it in a few days (you need to give yourself some rest… healing old mental wounds is draining).

   You can repeat this process as much as you need… you may find some injuries heal more easily than others, being dealt with completely after one attempt, while others may take dozens of times.

   You shouldn’t expect to be completely healed of all wounds in a week… this is more likely to be measured in years, and is something you’re likely to continue to need as life goes on and you are wounded again.  You should, on the other hand, be able to feel progress after even just one time, as the weight of carrying all those old injuries is lightened.

2. Using The Help Of Another

   The first thing you need to do is to find someone whom you can trust, someone who won’t judge you or criticize you for what you say.  This can be found in someone who does it professionally, a true friend, or, rarely, someone who simply wants to help.  Each type of person has their own advantages… a professional has experience, and so may be able to help you find things you didn’t even know were bothering you, while a true friend understands what you’re saying in reference to you specifically, and someone who simply wants to help… well, that just depends on who that person is.

   Once you find the person who is going to help you, you’ll want to prepare similarly to when you are doing it yourself… find a quiet room, close your eyes, and take a few deep, slow breaths.  This will help to calm and relax you, allowing you to lower some of the walls that you normally have up, which effectively keep the pain inside.

   Again, like when you’re doing it by yourself, you need to have a place and time when you can be free of interruptions… you don’t want to be interrupted when the wound is wide open.  Once you have this place, start talking about what bothers you, mostly a free flow of consciousness… say whatever pops into your head.  The reason for this is that your mind will likely try to stumble around a bit, avoiding the real injury, until all of a sudden it pops out.

   It’s likely that when it pops out, you’ll even be surprised at what the real source of pain is.  Mostly, if something hurts enough, it’s buried so deeply that you have no idea that it’s there, let alone the source of your pain.  The free flow of consciousness allows your subconscious to pop this up from that level to the surface, where you can examine it and deal with it.

   When it comes up, let it bring all of the pain and darkness with it.  Let yourself feel all the negative emotions, and the pain, and let them run their course.  Once they are gone, you’ll likely feel pretty drained, but you’ll also feel like you’ve given up part of your burden.

Whichever way you choose to go, healing by yourself or healing with the help of another, if you keep it up, it gets easier as you go along, because your burden keeps getting lighter and lighter, and so you have more and more mental resources available to deal with the next (and any new) injury.

You’ll also usually find that your life in general just seems better… you’ll react more positively to almost everything.  The people around you will notice, too… the ones who are closest to you may even comment or ask what’s changed.

Maybe you can even help them to start the process themselves… there are very few people out there who couldn’t use some mental healing.