Embracing the Raw, Messy Road To Emotional Healing

Halfway through my fifth therapy session, it all began to unravel.

After the sudden implosion of my marriage left my life in pieces, I was on a mission to finally face the unhealed trauma of my childhood. As an adult child of an alcoholic (ACA), intimate relationships were challenging. Unconsciously following the ACA playbook, I consistently chose partners with unhealed trauma similar to mine, ignoring enough red flags to qualify me as color blind.

Now, with a small child to raise, I found myself trapped under the wreckage of a life I no longer recognized. I was depressed and anxious, and getting through each day was a struggle. My life had become unmanageable, and I needed help.

I found a therapist who specialized in family alcoholism and trauma and began my journey. I had no idea what to expect, caught somewhere between seeking healing and doing it without having to dive deep into the painful details of growing up in an alcoholic home and unhealed emotional wounds.

My therapist eased me into the process. The first couple of sessions were cathartic — I mostly narrated my story unencumbered by self-reflection or accountability. She listened intently while I spoke, taking occasional breaks to scribble furiously in a small black notebook by her side.

After two solid sessions of recounting my version of events, I was feeling almost giddy. My therapist had been remarkably supportive and validating. What I didn’t yet know what that the hard work of healing had yet to begin. My journey was about to take a turn. Storytelling time was over. My therapist introduced me to the cold, hard, truth about taking accountability for my part in the events of my life.

Confronting my childhood demons would take the kind of bravery I hadn’t had before. A willingness to remove the blinders of denial and look at the terrifying, painful parts of my life I’d kept hidden for so long. My low self-worth, the shame of my childhood, and adult codependency would all surface from darkness into the light.

Facing lifelong issues doesn’t come easily or quickly, as we learn to get comfortable riding the terrifying rollercoaster of emotions we face throughout the healing process. Our healing truly begins once we surrender to the overwhelming feelings we’ve carried since childhood.

We aren’t supposed to do it alone. It isn’t easy to embrace our true selves, including the darker parts we’ve kept hidden for so long. Healing teaches us to give a voice to the silence, to step out of the isolation we’ve lived in for so long. Healing happens when we practice connection and vulnerability with others.

Whether you’re well into your journey or just starting out, here are six things to remember:

Have a good support network in place.

Recovery is hard work and requires a great deal of courage. It’s difficult to do without a strong support network in place in the form of a good therapist or specialized support groups. Recovery is deep and personal work. Finding a safe space to practice the vulnerability necessary to share your deepest fears is crucial.

If your history includes childhood trauma and addiction issues, make sure you find support specific to those issues — it makes a huge difference.

Learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Healing from trauma is scary. We’ve got to tear down walls and years of unhealthy coping mechanisms that are woven into the fabric of our daily lives. That doesn’t happen overnight.

Processing shame and unhealed wounds is uncomfortable. We’ll endure waves of tears, anxiety, and breakdowns. But if we’re willing to dive into the messy parts of ourselves, we’ll experience breakthroughs too. And that’s what gives us a chance to build the lives we’ve always wanted.

Things may get worse before they get better.

Tearing open the lid that’s kept our pain and shame hidden isn’t for the faint of heart. We expose ourselves to uncomfortable feelings when we haven’t yet learned the skills necessary to process them.

The learning curve takes time. We may feel like we’re sliding backward before we stride forward. Things improve with support and practice. We learn to acknowledge and sit with our feelings instead of stuffing them away and running for our lives. Over time, we grow self-trust, turning away from shame and isolation, learning to give a healthy voice to our painful feelings.

Learn to lean into discomfort.

The wildly popular researcher and storyteller Brené Brown has spoken extensively about leaning into discomfort.

“It’s he or she who’s willing to be the most uncomfortable can rise strong,” Brown says. “Discomfort: the way home.”

Leaning into discomfort can be a challenge after spending our lives leaning away from it through avoidance, addiction, and other numbing behaviors. The truth is, most breakthroughs happen when we stop avoiding. When we learn to lean into and our scary, uncomfortable feelings — face them and embrace them.

Progress doesn’t happen in a straight line.

We think of healing as a steady recovery and improvement in our lives. The reality is less convenient. While healing has a generally upward direction, it is full of backward steps, sideways moments, and self-doubt — all normal parts of recovery.

It’s important to trust the upward direction of healing while having reasonable expectations. Breakthroughs and larger steps forward can happen at any time during healing. But in between, we’re learning to navigate our daily lives with the new skills we’re learning, and we’re bound to make mistakes. At times we may feel like we’ve regressed. We might even question the entire process.

We’ll be in a better position to navigate temporary setbacks if we accept them as part of the healing process.

Celebrate the breakthroughs that change everything.

We’ve committed to this journey for the breakthroughs that transform our lives. For the moments when we take what we learn in therapy and apply it to our daily lives, feeling our lives change as we heal and grow.

These are the rewards for all our hard work — for laying our tender, broken hearts on the line as we find the courage to face what we’ve spent a lifetime avoiding. This is what we work so hard for — to trade our dysfunctional coping skills for healthy ones, as we realize all the possibilities and dreams available to us.

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Previously Published on medium

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