How Self-Reflection Can Start The Path To Healing
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Mental Health, Writing, Self, Trauma, Healing

How Self-Reflection Can Start The Path To Healing

Healing the consequences of dealing with trauma starts with self-reflection

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I’ve never been in the military. I’ve never seen an actual physical battle. I’ve never been to the ER. I’ve never seen blood, broken bones, and had the pressure on me to save people’s lives. But, I’ve been in other intense work environments. I’ve had extensive pressure on me. I’ve felt physical danger from being at work. I’ve experienced extreme bullying and its psychological effects. I’ve experienced gaslighting in many shapes and forms. I’ve fought many wars on the mental health front. I’ve fought many wars on the intellectual front. I’ve fought many wars on the relationship front.

Where ever you come from, whether you want it to or not, your experiences color the way that you relate to people. Often, when we are in the throes of dealing with our problems, we think that people can’t relate at all.

We don’t want to talk about it with people who have never gone through it.

You are right. Your experiences are unique. Even if you are a surgeon who saves lives, the way you experience a surgery failure that cost someone’s life might be very different from another surgeon. The psychological impact it leaves you may be very different from the next person.

This is what I do when I feel like I can’t talk to anyone.

I walk; I run; I climb mountains; I engage in repetitive activities. It is a form of moving meditation. The truth is that not every problem can be solved. After I dealt with my PTSD, I realized that certain things just cannot be unseen in life. Once you have seen it, it’s not even possible to block it out. The memory of it stays with you for a lifetime.

Sometimes, coping mechanisms are the only savior. That is okay.

Coping mechanisms can usually shift my mindset from a negative one to a positive one in a few hours. Often, that shift of a mindset is what saves people from any other forms of self-destruction. Every person has different types of coping mechanisms.

You should choose a coping mechanism that takes your mind off those negative memories with a minimum amount of work.

I met this woman once. She told me that having a pillow fight with her children always made her feel alive. It took her mind off all her single parenting worries from day today. She made it a ritual to have a pillow fight with her children before bedtime each day. When they go to sleep, she can refresh her mind to deal with many worries that creep up.

A surgeon once told me that he uses humor in his operating room to foster team spirit in his team. Even when things are intense in the operating room, he tries to make light of the situation so that every one of his team members can detach from his or her emotions and carry on the work with precision.

When coping mechanisms fail, you choose self-destruction. Recognize your actions. Stop feeling guilty about your choices.

Everyone’s life has ups and downs. Everyone has problems they deal with day to day. The magnitude of these problems is different for everyone. The way you feel about the magnitude of your problems is different from the next person. For people with certain types of mental illnesses, just getting out of bed is a difficult task.

If you are mentally healthy today, after an extensive amount of time spent living a highly stressful life, you might break psychologically, too. Tomorrow, you might be this person who just can’t get out of bed. Your greatest accomplishment for that day might be just to eat a bowl of cereal.

When you let negative feelings take over and act on your self-destructive impulses, recognize the impulses for what they are and the destructions that they cause.

You are a normal person who is under the weight of life. You may have an illness that needs to be taken care of. You may have issues in life that you have to work on. This is why you have chosen to self-destruct. Self-destruction takes many forms.

It could be wasting money. It could be stress-eating. It could be laziness. It could be quitting a job. It could be cheating on your spouse. It could be driving recklessly. It could be failing intentionally. It could be inflicting physical pain on yourself.

When self-destruction happens, just recognize the actions and the consequences will help you see that it’s your negative emotions that are causing you to choose this path.

Recognizing your actions as self-destructive behavior can help you take the first step toward healing.

Sometimes, the path down self-destruction is uncontrollable. But, once you have self-destructed, you have all the time in the world sitting in this dark abyss and stare at your behavior. When I am there, sitting in my hole, this is when I realize that I should talk to someone.

When the pain I have inflicted on myself outways the act of reaching out to someone, I reach out.

When we go through traumatic life events, allow yourself to process the shock. The process might take some time. Give yourself time. During that time, if your shock leads you to negative emotions that force you to act out. That is okay. You are human.

The difficulty lies in living with the consequences and shifting your mindset.

When you realize that negative consequences your self-destructive behavior has caused, you will begin to tackle your internal problems. Often, this is when most people who want to get better reach out for help. Talking to a therapist is a great way to process your traumas when you feel that no one in real life can relate to your circumstances. Writing in a journal is another therapeutic way to reflect on what you have experienced to help you process the events.

The exercise of being my therapist.

I have an exercise that I started years ago when I was dealing with my own PTSD. I use my journal to have an internal dialogue with myself. I play the role of my therapist. In one voice, I write down everything I want to tell my therapist. Then, in another voice, I analyze everything I just wrote and pretend it’s written by a third person.

I call this process “re-parenting” myself. But it is simply an elaborate way to self-reflect on the problems that I have.

Self-reflection is simply a giant hug you give yourself.

People tend to have this critical voice in their head. Their internal therapist is mean and hurtful. That is not the objective of self-reflection. Self-reflection is a “mindset” change process. It helps you to get from a negative mindset to a positive one. That is why self-reflection should be a giant hug you give yourself.

What’s the most yogic self you have? You know that one where you are most detached from your emotions. I picture “Yoda” from Star Wars. “Yoda” is my internal therapist on many of my therapy sessions.

My “Yoda” has pulled me out of many deep dark abysses. My “Yoda” helps me to sit with the consequences of my self-destruction until I can own up to my own mistakes. My “Yoda” helps me to get to the point of motivation where I can fix the consequences of my own mistakes.

Who is your “Yoda”?