Healing Through the Pre-emptive Strike

  • Kay Urlich

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
When I was a young mother, I would linger over the morning news and cry over people's suffering. One time I spent a whole weekend sobbing after reading a story so distressing I couldn’t even talk about it at the time.

If you are anything like me, you might ask, what is wrong with me? Sadly when we are feeling hopeless, we think that everything is wrong especially with us! If a good friend was handy they would (hopefully) say how great we are. A really good friend would add a few pointers of encouragement and some gentle feedback on how to help!

With isolation and uncertainty in the world youth suicide and mental health problems have exploded and we cannot always speak to a friend or get the support we need.  What I learned after many years as a single mother who banged her head against a wall in anger and frustration, is to value my feelings. I came to see that anger and sorrow were powerful forces to use either against myself or to motivate me into doing something more helpful that would make a difference. I remembered through those hard years how every little act of kindness had meant so much.

 

In time, I realized that it was myself, who was hardest of all; who berated me most for the things I did or didn’t do. I discovered that talking to myself in that state was a no-win situation. I came to understand also that my healing started with me where most of the unhappiness and anxiety happened because I gave my power to things outside of my control, and the only way out of this pattern was to change how I spoke to myself.

 

When I was alone and feeling needy I learned I must take note of those feelings because they would soon skid to disaster on the trajectory of Self-judgement and blame. This is when I need a pre-emptive strike by laying another track to stop the old momentum. It meant I must plan a new route if I was to avoid the predictable train wreck that was doomed to happen through the same old thinking.

Similar to the relationship video below I started building another line. Through the power of imagination, I began in a small way by ticking which aspects of the energy field illustration I identified with most: which were the strongest or weakest traits I was activating physically, emotionally or spiritually and then I’d paint a picture in my mind of them being a family in me and how I wanted each quadrant to work with the other.

For instance, do I need some physical activity by going for a walk, thereby activating the lower left field; do I need to activate my innocence, imagination, compassion or empathy. Which quadrant is needed most? What image is created? Bringing images to life is vital to our health for we are multidimensional beings who are most alive when energy can flow.

First published Sibyl Magazine

VIDEO: Resolving Relationship Conflict 

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