The emotional relationship trauma you experienced when a painful life circumstance took place may have been a one-time event or something that continually recurred over years and years. It could have been some sort of abuse. One thing for sure, it left a mark on you and you can’t seem to shake it off.
As long as you tolerate lingering symptoms of emotional pain and trauma, you are allowing the enemy to keep you chained. Have you allowed this painful emotional experience to define your identity? Do the effects and hurts seem to follow you everywhere you go? No matter what you may have endured, emotional relationship trauma is not a final life sentence. Here are some powerful considerations for you to put to work.
1. Be willing to heal and overcome
You may think this one is obvious, but many people continue to hang on to their pain and trauma for various reasons. They may think they want to be free of it, but something on the inside is causing them to hang on to the hurt and pain. It is NOT easy to sort through deep-rooted pain. In some ways, for the short-term, it can feel like living through it all again, but if you determine that you are going to be rid of it once and for all, you can move on. This is the first step, having a deep desire to be free from it for good. You are made as a human being to overcome and be free!
2. Stop the blame game
There is no doubt that words and behaviors of others can cause us pain, and extended exposure causes us trauma. At the same time, at some point, we have to take accountability for our own lives. Blame leaves others behind the steering wheel of your life. To take control back, you have to stop the blame game and re-take ownership of how you approach life and what feelings you allow to have influence over your decisions and direction.
3. Exercise forgiveness
There is no path to a better life when you have grudges and unforgiveness looming over you. When you refuse to forgive someone inside yourself, you are still not in control of your own life, you are still being controlled by the pain and memory of the wrongs you suffered. Unforgiveness blocks every good thing that can come into your life. You do not have to restore the relationship and at the same time, you do need to forgive and give yourself some inner peace about the whole thing. Being unwilling to forgive a person who has wronged us is the most insidious form of resistance. It works against you as you try to build a better life for yourself.
4. Fill the empty space
You have spent a lot of time dwelling and thinking about how you have been hurt. Once you stop doing that, you have to fill up that empty space of thoughts and feelings or the old habits will soon return to their home. This is especially true if this has been going on for a lengthy period of time. It won’t work to just say “I’m not going to think about that anymore,” you have to replace it with something. Sometimes using an exterior stimulus helps such as a vision board or some music to occupy your thinking and emotional processes.
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