I was recently asked to write about how sharing your story gives other people permission to heal. (When you buy me a coffee, or in this case a virtual cup of tea or 5 you get to give me a suggestion for a blog topic. If you want me to write on a topic for you go here: https://buymeacoffee.com/trudipavlovsky.
And I was really pleased by my tea supporter Matt C suggesting this topic. Permission to heal, is a topic close to my heart and doing it via story is so relatable
If you’ve been in my circle for a little while you most likely have a pretty good handle on my life story.
For those of you that are new here (HI!!) and haven’t gotten to know me as well, here’s an overview.
As many of us have experienced, I’ve lived through a lot of trauma that showed up in my life as a child. There was sexual abuse, bullying, emotional and abandonment issues, all of the things.
These things showed up even more in my teenager years as I acted out from the trauma, which fed the cycle and perpetuated even more negative experiences (sound familiar?)
As a young adult I had memories resurface while incorrectly medicated leading to a hospital stay in a now closed asylum.
I had massive bouts of depression which resulted in a decade of partying, taking drugs and getting high to escape the emotional landscape that bubbled underneath the surface of my smiling face.
As a teenager I self-harmed in secret and as an adult I had three failed attempts to end my life. Which, now at 47 years of age, I’m OK that that was something that I didn’t succeed at.
And no, I’m not any more special than anyone else reading this blog.
I’ve managed to find the inner strength to keep going and call in the resources that allowed me to recover, expand and thrive.
Which is why I share my story.
And this is for everyone
Every time you share your story from the place of empathy, self-compassion and with empowerment as the driving reason for sharing it, you have the ability to support somebody else to start believing in themselves and taking the action to transform their own lives.
Let me explain what I mean.
There is a difference between sharing your story from a place of pain and a place of healing.
When you share from a place of pain there’s no lesson and there’s no wisdom to be shared because you are “in” the experience. While it is most likely a common experience that people can relate to, when sharing from an unhealed wound, it doesn’t give people a springboard into their own ability to heal themselves completely.
They are sharing only your pain, which keeps them in theirs
When you share your experiences after you’ve had time to reflect and extrapolate the ultimate wisdom, all of the additional learnings, the understanding, self-love and compassion, that’s when you’re giving other people permission to heal.
The stages of healing.
- Recognition
- Forgiveness
- Wisdom
Recognition
I truly believe that things do not show up for you that you aren’t ready to heal. Even if consciously, you may not think that you can.
When you recognise a repeating pattern of behaviour, an ongoing thought that no longer serves, with the right process you can heal and move forward.
Forgiveness
Often other people are involved in our trauma and many people preach that forgiveness is the final step of healing. What it does is leave a connection and creates an inability to truly be free and move forward which is why we need to engage in the 3rd step.
Wisdom
Emotion gets trapped in the body during times of trauma and pain unless you understand how to not hang onto it.
When you go back through the past and pull out the wisdom, get the learnings the trapped emotion leaves and neutralises the event in your memory.
When thinking of the past no longer creates a highly charged emotional response…….. this is healing
This isn’t to say that while you’re in your pain, that you don’t communicate with others or that you don’t share and seek your own healing. That’s not what I mean at all.
It is good to note, if you’re sharing publicly and want to have a positive impact on others, keep in mind how sharing your experience does exactly that.
Are you pulling others into pain or sharing a pathway with a positive outcome?
Part of my process of ongoing healing and expansion is as follows:
I wake up every day reminding myself of how far I’ve come how blessed I am and how glad I am that I have allowed myself to heal.
To not just forgive those who caused me wounds but to pull the wisdom out of that and use those experiences as a way for me to grow.
I believe all of my experiences have allowed me to become the kind of coach that I am.
I make sure I lovingly place myself first in my life
I talk about this a lot when you go into your healing, one of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself is to release the guilt, let go of shame for who you were in those moments.
To demonstrate self-compassion that in all times of your life, you were doing the best you could with the resources that you had.
Keep reminding yourself to let go of any self-judgment and any judgment that other people may have of you for your past.
In the wisdom received from your past experiences and the releasing of the pain from the body, by giving yourself permission, the healing circle is completed.
*****
Remember if you want me to write on a topic for you go here and shout me a few cuppas to fuel the creative process: https://buymeacoffee.com/trudipavlovsky
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