What if it was possible to manage 100% of your reactions, emotions, and thoughts?
What if you could be in harmony with yourself, and therefore with others in all situations?
What if I told you the key to living in harmony lies within knowing yourself?
You see, we are made up of several “bodies.” All of which are essential to our being and must be balanced. When there is an imbalance in one of them, it will bring conflict within yourself and others.
- The physical body
- The mental body
- The emotional body
- The spiritual body
This guide focuses on the emotional body because it is the most difficult to manage and understand, also because it’s the one that has the greatest impact on anxiety and emotional imbalances.
It is also the emotional body that can make you do anything. It can influence you in making bad decisions, leading you into conflict, make you physically and psychologically ill.
Emotional Wounds have a Powerful Influence
You can have a perfect body physically, and still be a total mess mentally and emotionally.
We do so much harm or damage to ourselves because we are not conscious, or do not take the time to take care of our emotional body. Any type of deficiency creates a blockage, which inevitably leads to discomfort or illness in one of these four bodies.
An emotion is a physiological reaction, lasting about three to four minutes at the most. It allows your body to respond in an adapted way to a stimulus from the environment: the body is put under tension, energetically mobilized to act or flee. Emotion has a bioregulatory function since the discharge of emotion allows the body to return to its fundamental equilibrium (IE: The flight or fight response).
Since emotions are a purely physiological reaction, feelings are a mental construction. An emotional state of a psychological nature, even if a feeling can be an extension of emotion (for example, anxiety in relation to fear, disappointment in regard to sadness).
These feelings are what make you experience an emotion over and over again.
When emotions are intense, you get the impression that your behavior is stronger than you are. It happens when you are faced with certain situations, the brain goes “off,” and it’s the emotions and/or feelings that take precedence over your logic.
Five Emotional Wounds
According to Lise Bourbeau, a world-renowned therapist, there are five major emotional wounds that could potentially affect you at any given time, rejection, abandonment, humiliation, injustice, and betrayal.
These wounds are mostly unconscious wounds that have probably plagued you since childhood.
When these wounds are triggered, you protect yourself by creating a persona, so you don’t feel those previously stated emotional wounds. That persona then leads to behaviors and attitudes that prevent you from fully being yourself and in turn affect your relationships.
- Rejection – Rejection is the act of ignoring or pushing someone or a situation away so that you no longer have them in your life or at your side. The mantra in the life of a person who has the emotional wound of rejection is: “I didn’t feel accepted, wanted, pampered and loved.” Their limiting beliefs lie in the feeling that they don’t have the right to live their life. They have a deep belief (often unconscious) that well-being and pleasure are impossible and forbidden and that others can’t love them. Key emotions connected to that wound are fear and sadness.
- Abandonment – Abandonment is not wanting to take care of someone or a situation. The mantra in the life of a person who has the abandonment wound is: “I didn’t feel listened to, supported, understood, or emotionally surrounded.” Their limiting belief is that they can’t be independent; they need others to exist. They can’t see themselves achieving something on their own. The emotion connected to that wound is sadness and a sense of being empty.
- Humiliation – Humiliation is the act of demeaning, ridiculing, and subduing someone. The mantra in the life of someone who has the humiliation wound is: “I felt bullied in my desires and limited in my need for freedom. I am not allowed to have fun.” They usually nurture the limiting belief that they are not worthy. That they don’t deserve to be happy and that they aren’t a beautiful being. They tend to choose (unconsciously) to be unhappy in life, which is why they can have self-destructive behaviors. The emotions connected to that wound are disgust, contempt, guilt, and shame.
- Injustice – Injustice is feeling undervalued, unappreciated, and not respected for what it is worth. People who have the injustice wound believe they are not getting what they deserve, and their life mantra is: “I lacked everything emotionally. My parents, friends, or people, in general, are insensitive and cold. It’s not fair,” People with the injustice wound have the limiting belief that they have to be perfect to be loved. They also see emotions as something bad. They often embody the victim mindset where nothing is their fault; they feel they don’t belong and that the world doesn’t allow them to be themselves. Recurring emotions with the injustice wound are anger, contempt, disgust, criticism, and jealousy.
- Betrayal – Betrayal is the act of not being loyal to someone or a cause. Those who experience the betrayal wound have the following life mantra: “My expectations were not met, I was lied to, my trust was betrayed, I was used.” They feed the limiting belief that they cannot trust anyone, and they are unable to be attached to someone because commitment hurts too much. Being vulnerable is a weakness for them. The emotion mostly experiences by those who have the betrayal wounds are anger, contempt, mistrust, alertness, impatience.
You can suffer from at least two of these emotional wounds. However, there is one that will have made its mark you more than the others. Becoming aware of your main wound helps you to begin the work of healing, and to free yourself from the grip of the wound so that you can finally be yourself.
Healing Your Emotional Wounds
Emotional wounds, at first glance, considerably weaken your personality and even more so when you are not conscious. However, when you lack self-awareness, your defects, faults, wounds, and weaknesses become daily limitations. Even worse they are unconscious, becoming an invisible and impassable barrier, set up by your mind. As a result, your behavior seems automatic and uncontrollable.
The good news is, that you can grow through your experiences.
Your personality is a montage of your experiences built up each day, and each conclusion is drawn by your mind through everyday situations. If the judgment is positive, then the experience will be an asset. If the experience is perceived as negative, the experience will be considered as a wound and as a limitation. It will then be integrated into your behavior as something normal. Since your mind learns something new every day, it can learn to transform negative events into an asset. You can review the limits that your mind placed on you to move forward and build a peaceful life.
Please know that every human being in his or her life has experienced every emotional wound, at least once in their life. Generally, you are deeply affected by two to three wounds. The wound may have been triggered by a single event, or by a compilation of experiences. Although, be aware that you can heal those wounds with simple steps.
Here are five steps to help you do so:
- Step 1: The healing must be a personal commitment with yourself. If there are constraints and obligations, it will not work.
- Step 2: Put your ego aside and accept that these wounds are part of you; they will open the door to healing. It is completely normal and human to have emotional wounds, which can be conscious and unconscious. To be human is to be imperfect.
- Step 3: Take a few minutes to review the five wounds. Listen to your emotions, your feelings, and your reactions. Your thoughts will not help you. It is your heart that knows what is right and good for you. Otherwise, I invite you to observe your physical body, which is generally the first shield that a human being uses.
- Rejection: Your deep needs are to belong, to exist, and to love. The solution is to confront your reality by accepting and embracing your weaknesses and qualities. You can heal that wound by learning to express self-love. Start by telling yourself, “I love you” daily. Learn to say thank you when you receive compliments and compliment yourself for your good deeds.
- Abandonment: Your deep needs are attention, to exist, and to love. The solution for that wound is to become autonomous. You need to discover your abilities to heal yourself and live by yourself. You must acquire the new belief that connecting with others is no longer a necessity, but merely a possibility. You can heal that wound by learning to trust yourself and be your biggest fan. Become proud of yourself by recognizing the daily things you do well and love yourself for who you are. You can also learn to tell yourself, “I love you” daily.
- Humiliation: Your deep needs are freedom and independence. The solution to healing the humiliation wound would be to improve self-esteem by rediscovering that every being is an extraordinary person. You have the right to create your happiness for yourself. You can heal that aspect by encouraging and congratulating yourself every day for who you are and everything you do.
- Injustice: Your deep needs are freedom, intuition, emotion, and being yourself. The solution to healing the injustice wound is flexibility. You need to learn to open yourself up to the world without needing to suffer or create tension. Trust that everything will go well. You can heal that wound by learning to silence your inner critic, become more positive, and express pride toward whom you are. Learn to reconnect with your intuition and emotions.
- Betrayal: Your deepest needs are to be self-confident and free. The solution to the betrayal wound is learning to let go. Accept where you are, respect who you are, and learn to listen to yourself. You can heal the betrayal wound by learning to trust yourself and be proud of who you are.
- Step 4: Forgive and accept that you had those experiences. To better move forward and evolve, be grateful for your past. Take responsibility for it and chose to let go of your role as a victim. Become a leader in your own life.
- Step 5: Chose to move away from judging your past and all the negative or traumatic situations you’ve experienced. Chose to learn from those lessons.
- Let go of the conscious and unconscious emotions related to your past.
- Take a step back to get a new perspective.
- Learn the lessons from your experiences.
- Chose to close the wound and move forward.
- Savor your healing to build a future even better than your present.
- You can do the same for all your wounds.
Digging Deep
If you don’t dig deep to heal those emotional wounds, you will continue to attract the same situations and systematically reproduce the same attitudes, behavioral patterns, and results in your life that feed your wounds.
The goal is to heal these wounds so that you can grow and evolve. Healing lies in looking for the “How do I get better” rather than the “Why do I feel bad?” The strength of the “How” is to transform and move forward.
