Ever heard people saying, “I can believe that this has happened?“
When we have difficult or bad situations we can get trapped in the shock and then find ourselves in a “denial state” of non – acceptance. This stops and or slows down the healing process and makes us suffer even more and for much longer.
When we have emotional trauma caused by loss or huge disappointment we have to work through a process to deal with it.
The stages of emotional trauma are: Acceptance/Denial / Anger / Sadness and often Guilt too.
These stages will process much quicker if you can accept what has happened and not allow the denial of what happened.
Loss is anxiety and if you are already suffering from an anxiety disorder it makes dealing with the process stages even more difficult and potentially can cause breakdowns, depression and other mental illnesses, so finding ways to get through the processes as quickly as possible are paramount.
Ways to find acceptance and to get through the other stages as mentioned above are to stay in the present moment without judging or blaming yourself. Bad things happen and so blaming yourself not only serves no purpose but causes a lot of unnecessary pain.
Know when you are powerless. Things happen that we have no control over and can do nothing about, so look for a positive in the negative as hard as it might be, because as hard as you might find this to believe, there will be something – there always is.
Anger is common, so either find an activity that allows you to vent instead of hurting those around you or use havening. Havening is a really good way of releasing your feelings – Rub your arms from your shoulders to your elbows in a stroking fashion up and down and speak out loud all your feelings and thoughts with freedom of speech. (say it as it is) until you just can’t do it anymore. You will find that you run out of things to say and will feel so much calmer.