Monday, October 12, 2015

Bandaids

Evening falls and the air is crisp as I pull into my garage after a productive day.  I am nonetheless very happy to be home and it feels good as I walk into my home.
As my day bag is set down, and my keys hit the top of my dresser, I can hear the faint sounds of my daughter.   I follow the sound and it leads downstairs to her bedroom.  As I make my way into her room I find her crying and holding her hands cupped and close to her chest.  Alarmed, I rush to her side and sit on her bed and begin to stroke her hair.   "What's wrong sweetie?"
Her reply comes as she holds out her hands..."I fell off my bike."  I take her hands softly in mine, and inspect them as I see that she has covered her wounds in bandaids.  I ask her what happened, and as I hold her hands in mine, I can see that there is still dirt and grime on her hands.  After listening to the mishap and how and where she fell, I ask her... "Sweetie, did you wash your hands and put anything on your cuts before you put on bandaids?"  Her reply can timidly in that she hadn't thought of it.
Parents...you know what's coming next.  Although she did a good job in putting on bandaids, she needed to treat the wound properly before the protective covers of bandaids should have been placed.
The next part not only hurt her, but hurt me too as I removed the bandaids only to find little rocks and dirt still inside her cuts.  She cried and faced the task with bravery and courage in seeing why this was necessary.   Allowing someone that loves her dearly to open the covered up wounds, clean them out, apply Neosporin, and then cover them again.  If left untreated, the wounds never can heal properly, and the rocks and dirt left inside have far more damaging affects.  Applying the bandages again after cleaning her wounds, she healed up nicely and was back on her bike in no time.

A parent can do this with his/her child and take ahold of the situation and, with tender caring wisdom,  treat the wounds of a child so they can heal properly... I wonder how this can be done as adults!!!

The emotional cuts and deep wounds that we all experience in our lives, DO cut deeply and have such lasting affects throughout the rest of our lives if they're left untreated.
I see this SO much as I encounter people from across the world, and I also have seen it in my very close circle of friends and loved ones.

When people trust me with information about their deepest cuts, I find that these wounds have never been treated, but only covered up with the bandaids of life.  I also find that most haven't ever learned basic skills of how to treat emotional wounds and/or cuts.  Only told to ignore them, cover them up with something that will alter the emotional pain, and eventually they'll go away.

If you've ever heard of the book, "Feelings buried alive never die", then now you have!  I can't say it better than the title of this book explains.  When we bury our feelings and wounds, before looking at them, understanding them, and forgiving ourselves or others before moving on, then they WILL haunt us for the rest of our lives.

There are some pretty cool bandaids out there!  Work, substances, we can always ignore and pretend, trips and getting out of dodge to simply avoid looking at things!  Out of sight out of mind...  Whichever bandaid is your preference, please remember it is still only a bandaid, and will only cover up the real issue.

When we dangerously involve ourselves with someone else and quickly "moving on"... Anger is the typical emotion that will surface often if our wounds go untreated.  Things that happened to us as children sometimes haunt us so deeply and we carry those experiences for so long.  What great lengths we will go to in order to NOT face things inside ourselves!  We will blame others and be angry with them and try to defer the attention away from our wounds and quickly point out the flaws of other!
Truly, its US that needs to be examined.  That takes extra courage and bravery!  That takes us to stop, admit there is some cleanup work to be done, and then SHOW UP for on a consistent basis with a professional that CAN help clean the wounds.  This requires you to open up the doors, pull back the curtain, and truly allow someone else to see inside.  I 100% believe that until we can pull back your our curtains and see whats inside of ourselves and see things for how they truly are, then we will NEVER be able to connect with someone else and truly learn intimacy.  Intimacy... is to open up and be vulnerable.  "Intimacy"   =   "Into-Me-See"...

We must start with looking inside ourselves, cleaning up the wounds and cuts from so so long ago, accepting and loving ourselves, and letting go of shame or blame.  Unless this can happen, then we won't ever truly and fully be able to share ourselves with another.  We are too hidden and afraid to pull back the bandaids.  Too afraid that others won't love and accept us if they truly see us, because we don't even love and accept ourselves!  How could others love and accept us when we don't even love or accept ourselves?  Finding ways out, fault finding and blaming, fighting without any real cause, and never allowing anyone close enough to really see deep enough...this will be our fate unless we can take off the bandaids, clean up the wounds, and heal properly.  I recommend finding a professional counselor that you click with...that gets your vibe!  Prepare yourself for a journey!  Heavy lifting is ahead of you and most people really aren't up for it!  Never will be!  The bandaids are too easy to put on to cover up the wounds.  Dismissing the reality of what those deeply imbedded rocks will eventually do to your heart and soul.

This HAS to be a choice that someone makes.  I have learned that looking inside is not something one can sell or coerce another to do as a favor.  It HAS to be a choice if true healing is to occur!

As a parent, we can take our child and almost force children to remove the physical bandaids so we can clean their physical wounds... However, adults have to choose on their own to remove those emotional bandaids, and do the work for themselves, which in turn WILL help serve those around them by virtue of having a much more awake and whole YOU!

Don't be afraid... Have faith!

My Mother use to say:

"We must all be in the pursuit of Self-Mastery.  It is a lifelong pursuit"
Javice H. Davis

#prayers









7 comments:

  1. My computer acted oddly when I tried to post before, so my apologies if this comes up twice.

    When I first started reading this, I thought about how some of the trials in our lives could be likened to God taking our bandages off and cleaning our wounds so that we can heal.

    Both perspectives have given me food for thought. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matthew,

    This post is beautiful and full of tenderness ! Thank you for this exchange !
    It reminds our consciousness the need to carefully care of us, of those we love, but even in an emergency, keeping the effective healing of a future vision for treated in the best way possible, by making the right choice here and now !!
    You knew, again, excite my curiosity and I admit that when you decide to express your feelings, you captive my thoughts, so I never get tired of reading and rereading your blog , so rich in emotions !
    I fully agree with you when you write that we must look within ourselves and with your approach to reality of consciousness by the "Intimacy" = "Into-Me-See" what wisdom Matthew !! Thank you ! ☺
    It made me want to write my feelings through a few words about the internal injuries that can insidiously undermine our balance and our quality of life as well as our relationships with others.



    The internal injury ?
    When our dignity is reached ...

    The Man's dignity is measured by its humanity. It thus appears that for each human dignity remains a requirement regardless of age, physical, mental, intellectual or her illness, and certainly based on the judgment that others relate to him.

    Self-image is so strong in this world she does believe that when one is seen, it is necessarily recognized ; I speak here of social visibility that society imposes on our minds through numerous styles (aesthetic) and stereotypes of life, and which will form the image that we want to then give to others may be a little conscious, and largely unconsciously no doubt. But I am convinced that this social picture is different from that which makes up our most intimate nature and we seek all our lives to change because the latter does not seem to me to conceive through a brutal revelation that could reveal a certain age, because it is built from others and experience.

    When we find ourselves in a situation of distress, so fragile, we can sometimes temporarily and legitimately lose self-esteem, may end up doubting our dignity because we are facing so the look of the other as a final judgment.

    Alexandre Dumas wrote : "All I have left to the world that my dignity ; This strength is my reason for living ! "

    Our self-esteem is achieved when something is hurting this dignity, since this dignity refers to all the efforts we have made to become what seems noble and praiseworthy in our society, given the collective consciousness or may be a form of education model.
    The example of the bandage that you take and you describe so Matthew, is transposable to the wounds of the soul that put us in front of two choices: either to ignore their impact on ourselves and hide the injury but never do anything to heal, or to face the effects that reality and we needed that constitute the final experience that it is better integrated in our life journey with mindfulness, reflection followed by actions that may awaken in us be a new vision of ourselves and thus self-esteem strengthened.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The most common injuries and "MASKS" which can generate:
    The dressing placed to close the wound that has not healed equivalent to a mask. We do not wear a "mask" that if we want to protect ourselves, or hide something. This mask is not final, fortunately; it is enough that we decided to move, to think differently in order to act for our good, so that the mask disappears.
    The will is off the masks we can unwittingly create when our wounds are deep and slow to heal.



    ReplyDelete
  5. ABANDONMENT creates a mask of DEPENDENCE :
    When we felt abandoned in life by a parent, a friend, the protection is often encountered dependence.
    When we are rejected we often feel the need to support, and we feel a void when we are not surrounded. When this fear of being abandoned again persists, fear of rejection in relationships is very present, and if we often fear loneliness, this may be because an injury from abandonment remains to be analyzed by an effort staff and deep thought.

    TREASON creates a mask of CONTROL :
    As to avert the fate of betrayal, we often notice that people who have suffered such an affront try to have a significant CONTROL themselves, to put a point of honor to scrupulously respect their commitment to a serious and a requirement with respect to themselves and others sometimes taken to extremes. As if they lived in a permanent doubt, envy to other test drives them and they often impose their opinions to others with little tolerance towards any of casualness they discover in others. Doubt makes him want to control their future, and it is not comfortable with the unexpected or those who simply decide to try instead to decide to want to succeed and, as for the one who was betrayed, he still more can be taken up and it remains dependent on certainties for balance; But life is made of hazards, not everything is foreseeable, and subconsciously he knows, and prefer not to engage at times rather than risk that the other can disappoint or frustrate his plans.

    INJUSTICE creates a mask of RIGIDITY :
    Whoever suffers an injustice, attempts thereafter to do with extreme tendency to perfectionism, all things himself. The subject who undergoes injustice often displays the mask of a person COLD take a strong physical attitude, often crossing his arms (as if he would not let his emotions appear). He does not feel the need to be assisted and think it better not to reveal too much about it, so as not to risk inappropriately expose any weakness. He often decides that loyalty is the greatest qualities and often judge on the basis of this criterion and did not hesitate to recover itself in question in relation to this, it will be this rigid side that will not tolerate any deviation from commitment in relationships.

    HUMILIATION creates the mask of MASOCHISM :
    As caught in a vicious circle the person who has suffered humiliation and who felt deprived of liberty can keep this secret wound and think shame is somehow part of herself and face the evil desires of others is normal because paradoxically, it feels a strong sense of guilt, as it represses his impulses and hide his personal and intimate wounds.
    He spares his words and feelings thinking that he has no right to fully enjoy his freedom, as if he did not listen to its own needs.

    REJECTION is a feeling that creates the mask of ESCAPE :
    Faced with situations that cause suffering, escape sometimes appears as a sovereign ... Flee not to dismiss or not to risk rejecting others (all means are envisaged by those who feel rejected: drugs, alcohol, sleep, virtual games temporary fugues, etc.).
    As a quest of himself, he who flees seeks, paradoxically, to show that there are (youth who run away by example so that parents or friends notice their unexpressed needs by silence or lack).
    The primary motivation of the escape is sometimes the temptation to find oneself, not to disappear completely before others which, for him, are the cause of his dismissal; by doing this, the vicious circle is obvious because it rejects itself, out of reach of those who are supposed to reject.
    In the life of every day, the one who feels undergoing rejection will not easily give its opinion in order not to risk being rejected more than he thinks to be.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The inner wounds can heal.

    HEAL AN INNER WOUND WITH THE MINDFULNESS !

    An experience that we live in the non-acceptance, is accompanied by the blackboard of fear never disappears completely, regrets that plague us from within and sometimes iterative experiences resurgence due to us throughout life revive pain or old visions because we have not fully healed and we just calm down, hidden for a time the inner wound that we dare not confront more vigorously to finally turn the page, definitely.
    A person who thinks she will never be cured of some psychological wounds may eventually take a "MASK" during his daily because this mask prevents him to show the sensitive part of his soul or talking.

    However, whatever we decide to do entails consequences, but learn to accept it takes a lifetime for some ... However, it is in our interest to become aware of the importance of accepting what weakens us, of try to understand why we think one thing or another, to find the necessary balance when we face a situation that makes us suffer. Otherwise, the "MASK" may appear as an easy way to start, but eventually become a secondary personality and transformation that should succeed awareness will see can never be born.
    Injuries experienced passive ways, internalized, eventually causing great sadness, that's what

    I found when I was caring for some patients who were regularly and voluntarily stays in the center of rest and care depression. There was in these subjects in common: a certain acceptance of their condition, experienced as a normal ... They were always calm and depression had passed almost unnoticed because of this. But maybe they were too quiet! For indeed, I think the anger, indignation or reactivity sometimes just a liberating side and necessary for our balance. The passivity of these people, yet not suffering from any mental imbalance, might be one reason for their inner pain.
    I think that characterology (with tertiary studies in the area) if we have the habit to observe clinically that some characters are not inclined to suffer things but to face them, it also falls within the temperament, so personality sensible change and that we can therefore somehow educate order to be better armed against the vicissitudes of life!
    Suffer a humiliation by becoming humble and discreet to a fault sometimes hide some repressions, an ego that does not find its proper place can be expressed by a sense of superiority overcompensated bringing the individual to the other like children by offering constantly doing things for him.

    We can not control everything in our lives, but by reflecting over things about which we can have positive actions we are strengthening our ability to provide positive energy for ourselves and those around us. This is called being proactive, the linker to simply be reactive.
    Proactive chooses to focus on what can bring positive things because we will act according to our values and an analysis of the present moment and reality thinking by the decisions we take we will not change the past, but that surely we can change our future!
    Then it would be unfortunate if we choose to conceal injuries behind masks that fully prevent us to leverage our capabilities, our inner strengths, values that build our uniqueness as faith that you quote and give us the right direction make the right choices.

    Thank you again Matthew for writing on such a beautiful subject, and open yourself to this exchange so free and smart, on the fact that the way we handle an injury can affect our health, future balance.

    Your mother must be proud of you !!
    God bless you to you and your family !

    ReplyDelete

Translate

Check Out Our Music