Healing is such a nonlinear experience, specifically when you are actively doing the work to repair wounds. Some days can be easy, calming, & peaceful. Others days can feel like everyone has their trigger fingers aimed at you. So many things can begin to come to the surface & the after care of this experience is an important aspect of your healing journey.
First of all, your feelings are valid. Internal validation is more significant than external validation. Create a space for yourself that allows you to be able to feel what you are feeling and it be okay. Welcome your feelings. Name your feelings. You deserve a safe space. Be your safe space.
Part of healing is also redeveloping a relationship with yourself. Getting to know yourself in a space of healing is very intimate and vulnerable experience. Be okay with learning who you are, how you respond to certain things/how they make you feel, being able to identify the things that trigger you and why, etc. It begins with creating a safe space, for all of you. And I do mean all of you. Whether you like it or not. And if there are some things that you do not like, well... we can address that in another blog!!
Another act of care for yourself is choosing love, the love of self. After you are triggered, despite what your initial reaction/response was to the person/thing, it is important that to meet yourself with love, support, compassion, empathy, etc. Regardless of how you allowed the trigger to affect you. Whether you reverted back to your old ways of cursing a muthafucka out, shutting down, going to get a drink, it does not matter. What matters is your after care.
Cry about it. Scream about it. Laugh about it. Write about it. Whatever you choose to do and however you choose to do it, it needs to be done.
Try your best to reframe from self-blame and making yourself wrong for feeling what you are feeling and responding the way that you did. Healing is a process. Healing requires you to learn, unlearn, and re-learn. It is a practice. It can be uncomfortable. It can be frustrating. But it is also intentional.
Generally, a good majority of the things we are triggered by is an offense or harm to our inner child. Think about how could you show up for them. What does the little version of you need from the adult version of you? Do you know how to provide for them? Listen to them? Talk to them? These are also parts of redeveloping your relationship with yourself. She/he needs you, and you need them.
Let's paint the picture. Say that you are healing through abandoment issues. You experience someone ghosting you. You are triggered. The importance of you holding a safe space for yourself, and your inner child, is to heal the wound. The intention is to avoid causing more damage to the wound. Reframe from treating yourself the way that hurt people treat you. You are deserving of more. You are deserving of better.
Reassurance. Safety. Security. Those are your bread and butter. Unfortunately, they may not be somthing that you are familiar with feeling/experiencing. I know it was not a thing for me. And that is not our fault. Nonetheless, it is now your duty to open your heart in order to receive something new. And except nothing less. You are in control.
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