Feelings
Introduction
Bevan's Story
"We cannot heal what we cannot feel" - John Bradshaw
Sometimes clients come to me complaining about their depression or anxiety. In most cases
people do not diagnose themselves, they very well live with depression or some other
symptom or uneasiness, but they do not recognize it.
A client will come to therapy complaining about a child that is making them furious and
turning their world upside down or they will try to get help for the sadness they carry
around which is caused by a colleague at work who is making their lives miserable.
Relationships always bring about feelings - good or bad. Relationships and other people
usually get blamed for these emotions, but usually the other person or the relationship is
just a tool to help you experience the strong emotion you are having so that some healing
can be done in yourself.
If you are able to measure your emotions on a scale from 0-10, with 0 being the lowest and
10 being the strongest, get a feeling of how strong you feel this emotion. If the answer is
7 or more the emotion is not to be blamed on the other person alone - then it is an
indication that this person or something about the interaction, is reminding you about
something that happened to you a long time ago. Most probably you will not consciously
remember or understand this, except for wanting to blame it on the other person or incident.
Look within as well. The strong emotion you are experiencing is your "inner child"
experiencing the emotion.
It is only by healing this inner child deep within you and grieving the wrongs that were
done to him/her that strong emotions are healed. Erasing wounds is impossible, but healing
them so they do not cause emotional reactions in our daily lives is important; healing
the inner child so he/she will not create difficulties in our relationships or in our
day to day functioning.
When the inner child is discovered and healed, unconscious processes become conscious and
help the individual to find freedom; freedom from strong emotions and behavior patterns
that has been holding you back in your relationships and goals.
Bevan used to be calm and in control all the time but a rollercoaster ride of emotions
started when his son was born. Bevan's world was turned upside down.
Usually Bevan could cope with all the problems in his life in a calm way, but the little
baby boy seemed to be more than he could handle.
Bevan started rotating between feelings of intense frustration and anger; he felt powerless
and desperate. Bevan spent less and less time at home, leaving his girlfriend to care for
the baby alone.
When Bevan first spoke about his emotions, the only situation he could identify that caused
all these emotions was the constant crying of the baby. Bevan even said that the baby's
crying day in and day out made him feel a bit crazy.
Bevan started therapy out of total desperation. His girlfriend kept blaming him for not
taking responsibility. She advised him to stop running away and to control his emotions.
That was easier said than done.
Inner Child Therapy was started with Bevan. With inner child therapy it is usually assumed
that the feelings/emotions we experience as very strong are not due to our circumstances but
as a result of unresolved emotions of the inner child.
Bevan went to look for the little boy inside himself that was so angry, powerless, frustrated
and desperate. He quickly made contact with this inner part of himself where he was only
two years old. Bevan recalled playing, with his mother looking at him while crying
uncontrollably. Bevan's mother had an untreated mental illness. She was crying as she was
looking at him and this happened on quite a few occasions. Bevan realized that his mother's
crying was overwhelming for the little boy he was at the time. It made him powerless, angry
and frustrated. And it made him want to run away. As a little boy Bevan went to hide from
his mother when she started to cry. The only coping mechanism for little Bevan was to run
away from her tears.
What happened to Bevan in his adult life was an exact repeat of what happened to the inner
child, although this time there were other role players. The crying of his baby reminded
him of his mother's tears. When the crying began, Bevan's inner child started to feel the
emotions that were never resolved as a child and the little inner child did the only thing
he knew to cope with the situation - he ran away.
What angered Bevan's girlfriend was actually a little boy inside Bevan escaping his mentally
ill mother's crying.
Bevan took all the courage he could find and completed his therapy. He could clear all the
negative emotions that were never resolved. He could make new decisions about healthy
behavior. After a while Bevan was able to stay at home and cope with the baby's crying.
The crying wasn't causing him such strong emotions anymore because the little boy in Bevan
was healed. Bevan could embrace a loving and caring relationship with his son.
So now you can understand that the intense anger, sadness, shame, etc. that you experience
today comes from a time long forgotten. Knowing this, however, will not heal you. Knowing
that there must be something painful in the past, will not heal the pain.
There is no magic cure to erase this and free you. There is also nobody who can do this work
for you. Now is the time to go on the journey within and free yourself from the pain of the
past, with the knowledge that God is holding you tightly in the process.
This is not a short journey or a quick fix. This is a journey of releasing all the tears
that were never cried; shouting out all the anger that never were expressed; releasing all
the energy that is trapped in these emotions within your body; and discovering all the inner
power the child within you did not have access to.
All emotions and feelings not expressed are stored in the body in the form of emotional
energy. It can stay there for many years. In our society we have, in many cases, been
taught to control our emotions and to not express them. Emotions were thought of as
insignificant since it cannot be measured or photographed. As adults we, unfortunately,
have to handle all those repressed emotions from all the years that have gone by. We are
like pressure cookers, trying to force more and more emotion in there. As pressure cookers
do, however, at some stage they will explode - with all that is hidden in there.
All this hidden emotional energy runs our lives without us even knowing it. We use smoking,
alcohol, work, television, cell phones, drugs, medication, sex and any other addiction to
help us control these emotions and keep them repressed.
Just telling somebody that they should stop drinking could be a good thing to do, but it is
more important for that person to go on the journey within to find the inner child and heal
him/her. The hurt of the inner child is the reason for all the addictions. Once the hurt
has been healed, the addictions will disappear as well.
God is a powerful and majestic God. He is not a God of quick fixed and He lets us experience
life on earth so we can grow and learn. Although He has all the power to heal us by a
word, He usually hands us the responsibility to work through our pain. He guides us during
each session and holds us safe on this inner journey of healing.
"Emotion is the chief source of all becoming conscious. There can be no transforming of
darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion." - C.G. Jung
Use your God-given emotions to walk the inner path of healing; the journey to becoming the
person you were meant to be. For one moment see this person in front of you that is causing
you such a strong emotion, not as a frustration, but as a guide to the gift of finding the
lost part of yourself.