I have been reading the book The Shack by William Paul Young. I have been focusing upon different words of wisdom in the book that can be applied to survivors of child abuse. See my first post for more information about the book.
Today, I would like to discuss the following quote:
Emotions are the color of the soul—they are spectacular and incredible. When you don’t feel, the world becomes dull and colorless. Just think how The Great Sadness reduced the range of color in your life down to monotones and flat grays and blacks … [Emotions] just are. They are neither bad nor good; they just exist … Most emotions are responses to perception—what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too…The more you live in the truth, the more your emotions will help you see clearly. ~ The Shack pp. 198-199
I spent most of my life running from my emotions. I repressed the emotion of anger so far down that I truly did not believe that I even knew how to experience that emotion. I lived my life in shades of gray. I mostly felt nothing. It was a dark, cold existence.
After I entered into therapy and started healing from child abuse, I felt emotions in spades, and I was not one bit happy about it. One day, I felt such incredibly deep grief that I questioned whether it was even possible to survive it. When I told my therapist about this, he was pleased. He said that I was finally feeling, which meant that I was healing. I was no longer living my life numb.
I was very angry about this. I could not believe that my options were either numbness or feeling such deep pain that death seemed preferable. However, my therapist was correct that my painful emotions would pass, and they did. After they passed, I was finally able to feel positive emotions – things I had not felt in my entire lifetime. I could feel joy and peace in a way that I never dreamed possible.
The key to managing your emotions is remembering that they are transient. No emotion lasts forever. Whether you are feeling very good or very bad, that emotion is going to pass. Learn how to savor the “good” emotions when you have them, and try not to feed into the “bad” emotions – just let them pass through you. If you will allow yourself to “be” with the bad emotions without giving energy to them, they will pass much more quickly.
Although I know the truth of these statements, I continue to wrestle with following my own advice. I recently went through a period of feeling so low that I did not know if I could make it through. Whenever I experience very deep emotions, particularly despair, I have trouble remembering that emotions are transient. It takes a lot of seemingly blind faith to hold on for better days.
As painful as the bad emotions are, I would not trade away the good ones. Unfortunately, you cannot just shut off the “bad” emotions. They come with the good ones. The emotions really are worth experiencing, and they definitely color your world.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Hi Faith,
you’ve talked about this with me before and I remember it when i am having a difficult time handling my emotions. I tell myself these feelings will pass, just hang on. The hard part is letting myself feel my way through it, without going bananas. Instead of stuffing it, and then thinking I’ve made it through. When I was little I would spend hours a day just rocking by myself, humming a short repeating tune over and over. Thinking back on it now. Its just another sign that I meant nothing to them. I still rock to soothe myself. It takes me to a place in my head where I can feel emotions in a very controlled way. Or I can push them away. Not sure if that makes sense.
Only the best wishes for you Faith.
My therapist and I were just talking about this today. She says that the emotion has to be linked to the memory before healing can happen. It helps me to try to remember that… because it really sucks!!
-else
Becoming
I stand. See myself. Arms wrapped around me, holding me together. I rock myself in an effort to soothe the hurting child way down, deep within me. She of a shattered heart, lying in pieces at her feet. Body clothed in bruises, mind silent in its escape. Held tight, pinned in the darkness of her existence.
Around her swirls the hate, anger, fear. The jabbing rejection, pricking aloneness, lovelessness. The pit deep, dug by abuse. She is buried in the lies. The great yawning mouth of them has swallowed her, even as she first experienced life. Life begun to end. A voice silenced in its first drawn breath, its first cry of existence. All of her to stop before she started. All but her eyes. They search, piercing the darkness. Eyes of hope.
She cowers, lowers herself even deeper as she sees the yawning expanse of her pit becoming overshadowed. Watching as it is slowly covered, cringing as the shadow seems to reach for her. Fingers descending. She would scream if she could, but she is voiceless. Voiceless because of a never having been heard. She unaware that she can speak.Entombed in the false safety of her silence.
As the hand descends her eyes follow it. Fear alive, reflected in their pools. She feels it wrap itself around her small body. A gentle touch, cradling, nothing like what she expected. As the hand moves to lift her she gathers the pieces of her heart, the only thing worth bringing up from this depth with her. She lies down as another hand closes over her. To feel new sensations, a rising, the darkness left behind. Rising held safe within these hands.
She knows not whose hands these are, simply that she likes them. They are calloused yet smooth, big in their gentleness. Calmness in their soothing touch. All causing her to let go of herself, to relax. To lie still and just “be”. Fear gone.
She is learning to rest, something so new. In so doing she grows. He of the hands moves her about within, causing her to feel a touch of love for the first time ever. Gives her the light of His presence, bit by bit, as she becomes used to it. Leans so close to whisper, “I love you, little one, I made you, you are mine; for always, since always. I am your Creator, your God.”
She to not only grow now, but to blossom. Color to come to her. The red of His sacrifice, purple of power, brilliant white His presence. A stunning green of life, blue of peace and yellow vibrant with freedom. A rainbow of love. His love, this God who found her. His hands open now, she safely sitting in the palms of them.
She lifts up her hands, tiny fists clenched. Her eyes of hope asking, “and this?” as she opens them, she looks deep into Him. Their eyes interlocking. “What of it?” He asks. Her voice found, she whispers, “my shattered heart, can You fix this as well?” He smiles, tears streaming for her, mixing with hers. Gently He says, “Look”. He has taught her to trust Him, simply by always being there. So she looks down at her hands, hearing Him say, “I already have.”
I look to see my heart whole, one piece. Pulsating with life.
Ever so gently He takes it, places it within me. I am alive. His life in me, mine His. His power flowing through me. Becoming me. The past swallowed by the present. I to exist in His love.
The child of God became the woman of God.
And so I, Tammy, am learning to “find color”, life. You can to, do not quit, yes it is hard, so hard, but so much more worth the fight. I love you.
I have connecting feelings to traumatic events and i am dissociating during some of the hardest thinkings. Is this common? I carry the 4 and 6 and 7-8 year old me in the forefront since we’ve been looking at those times for what they really were. I cannot seem to be able to hold onto the truths and i work all the harder to find a way to make all of it my fault. Is this how it goes? Will I ever absorb the reality and feel like I can live through it?
I know it is so hard, a hard one can’t begin to comprehend unless they have lived it. Holding onto truth requires first facing truth. To cling to the truth of your present you must face the truth of your past. To hide from it is denial, accept it happened, look at what you endured, speak truth to yourself, to the little parts of you, tell them they were not to blame, they were but children, that you love them so much and they were never alone. Let them be the child, find someone to love them and give them the parental things they never had. Safety, love, accepatance. Then let them go, back into you, for they are you.
For me my link to my God has been the greatest healing balm. To return to the memories and see Him there, know He was loving me then, keeping me during the evil of another’s choice.
See your spllintering of memories, mpd for me, as the gift it was then to help you survive. See it today as the crutch it is, the holding back, to your maturing and becoming fully the man of women you were created to be those many years ago.
I am here if you have any questions, need to vent. You don’t have to agree with me, I will accept you just for you. I am simple sharing what I have survived, am healing from and how I know there is hope because I am living in it.
Doesn’t mean it’s easy, it’s not, just that it’s doable. In that alone lies hope.
Love and prayers.
I know it is different for everyone and the process is not linear, but when attaching feelings to events, and Faith mentioned releasing her emotions in today’s blog ( 1/26/11) how long did it take for you to feel not crazy and to feel not very safe with yourself?
Did it come up and sink down so sometimes it wasn’t so prevalent in your thinking?
Dearest aggiemonday,
It is different for everyone because we are each individuals who suffered our own kind of abuse. Because of this we also each heal our own way. I didn’t struggle with not feeling safe with myself, however the feeling crazy, oh yeah! It came and went, depending on which emotional part of me was front and center. Faith is right, it is a hard truth, but one of the keys is to revisit the memory. Do so remembering you are grown now, those things cannot happen to you again, not now, not ever.
If you chose when to face your memories and do so in a place that is safe to you, it will help. I don’t know if you believe in God or not, but for me this was a key to my healing. I revisited the memories and pictured him there with me. Accepted the truth that what happened to me did because of wrong, sinful choices of my abusers. I listened for what God would have said to me, how He would have shown His love.
It is better if you revisit the memories with someone. If you are not a believer than picture this person there, or someone who did love you as a child, if that exists for you. My husband has abandoned me on this journey, I have little family that care, and none close. I have had to trust God as a result, His people.
He has been faithful.
I want you to know you can ask me anything. I don’t get on the computer much but I will starting now, check everyday in case you respond.
Have faith, tell yourself, tell all the parts truth, you are safe, loved, held of God. Find someone who will give you the emotional things you never experience, experience them now and that will play a big part in bringing yourself together.
One day at a time aggie, just one moment sometimes. You are searching, God rewards that, healing is happening. See the little forward steps and reward yourself.
Love to you ❤
thank you