Last week we were talking about denial and how when life is traumatic, painful or difficult to deal with we push the emotions and feelings inside. When it’s connected to PTSD it’s often essential, as we just couldn’t cope with it at that time. Also if we are young and we can’t understand things in the way we can as adults. The things we can’t deal with just get pushed down, they don’t go away, emotions buried alive just don’t die, they create this inner toxic turmoil that if not dealt with just keeps growing inside you. You might think why does it grow? What was happening back then isn’t happening now and you’re right it’s not, but the habits we create to push it down do grow. Sometimes these can grow out of control and then one day we just can’t keep a lid on it and bang we’re holding the turmoil and all those confusing, traumatic, suppressed feelings again. The better we are at denial, the harder this will be to deal with, as we will not be able to acknowledge what is causing us to feel this anxious and emotional. This then makes us feel out of control and very overwhelmed by what’s happening to us, we can start saying: why is this happening? Where has this come from? If our denial is still in place we will often say we don’t know why it is happening. That of course just makes things worse, denial on top of denial, is a slippery slope into a quagmire of toxic emotional turmoil. Sounds messy doesn’t it, and yes, it is. This then starts sticking to every part of you and the more you struggle in denial then the deeper you sink.
This is not something that happens overnight this is something that has often happened over years. The denial keeps us trying to pretend we’re ok, but this is not a static state within us ,the turmoil is like a gas, it will find any little escape hole it can and will start to surface a little or even a lot. Often when it surfaces it’s not in the same place it was pushed down in, if you have been to the fair you may remember this game, it’s an old classic called “Whac a Mole”. The mole pops its head up and you hit it back down with a hammer and it then pops up somewhere else, often these games start speeding up and the moles head come up faster and faster until you fail to hit it down. This is what your life looks like when your living with denial holding down the turmoil of emotions, which are desperate to come to the surface, life goes by, the pressure continues to grow inside. Our minds know it’s not healthy to hold this, but of course our minds know we’re often too scared to look at it as well.
If you imagine the first mole comes to the surface, in a different place to where you first pushed down the trauma, and if your denial is good and often it is, then you won’t connect on any conscious level with the past, to you this mole is just popping up out of know where. For many people with a high level of turmoil the ability to think about it rationally will be limited as the fear will be driving your mind to feel out of control and can lead you to blow this out of proportion. Often the turmoil of emotions produces a lot of fear and that is like the gas we talked about, trying to escape from any little hole it can find. If our denial is about suppressing a fearful event that we felt out of control with, say we got bullied at school, we then squashed this down and pretended it was ok. Then this fear could appear when you go into say large groups of people or meet new people, the fear starts to escape like the mole pops up in the game and bang, you hit it down. You deny that it bothered you, you try and get on feeling that you’re ok with this situation but you can feel beneath the surface the anxiety and that’s not a great feeling. If we then try and avoid these situations, when they come up again your mind will send the mole up in a different place, maybe it sends up an embarrassed feeling and you blush. Again, your lost as to why you feel this way and your only option is to hit the mole back down again, next time you associate it with being enclosed in the meeting room and then bang up comes another mole and you still have no idea why it’s there. You again hit it back down, then it’s the temperature of the room, the brightness, the inability to leave, people looking at you, being centre of attention, having to speak in front of people, I could go on but I guess you’re getting the picture. All those moles just popping up and you’re franticly trying to hit them all down getting more anxious, feeling more out of control and then not able to hit all the moles down at once.
This is an overload of a toxic emotional state that has been suppressed many times over, the issue, even through it still very important to resolve and come to terms with, it’s the habits of denial and suppression which have become more overwhelming to you. But until you deal with the root cause then you don’t have a firm foundation to build safety and security on. You need this to stop the patterns of suppression you have built on top of it. If you imagine the mole is out of the hole and instead of hitting it down you help the mole out, this is like facing your issues and dealing with it instead of suppressing it. Then with the issue resolved, you can then fill the hole with healing, acceptance, safety and security, thus creating a firm foundation to build a life from a place of safety.
Of course, if it feels too overwhelming to deal with then do seek advice from someone like myself who can use EMDR and hypnosis to help you get to the root of the issue and then help break the habits of avoidance and denial.
Try this approach at home to help you heal, find some meadow music that lasts about 40 mins and midway through there is a river sound, if you have the memory stick from myself you should find it on there if not, do email me for it. Take the time before you start to write down the feelings and issues you have over the first event that triggered all of this i.e. the bullying at school, remember what happened and the feeling you experienced back then. Then make sure you won’t be disturbed and lie on a bed or comfy chair start the meadow music and close your eyes. See yourself in the meadow and connect to the feeling you experienced while being bullied and as you connect to a feeling pick up a leaf from the ground and put all the feelings inside each leaf and then put it in your pocket. Continue doing this until you reach the stream, search deeply within for all that you have been carrying and filling the leaves with every negative emotion and memory you can find. If you need support imagine that a there is a strong powerful phoenix flying above you guiding you to this amazing place of transformation and keeping you safe as you journey towards the river. When you reach the river, take all the leaves from you pockets and say goodbye to the feelings as you throw them into the river and watch the current carry them far away. As the river sounds start to fade, feel yourself moving into the sun light and feel the phoenix sending you the healing as you continue to travel through the meadow. Feel yourself getting stronger and taller as you walk through the meadow, taking in the strength and healing you need. When the cd has finished, allow yourself a moment or two to fully awaken, write yourself an affirmation and put in on your bathroom mirror and read it every day. Maybe it will say I am a strong secure confident adult, pick the words that suit you, make sure there all positive ones and in present tense.
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Well I hope you have enjoyed the journey today,
Thanks for dropping by Sara x
HYPNOSARA 
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