How a change of perspective can help healing

A lot of us harden when we go through a situation that was painful or traumatic. We create defence mechanisms to avoid going through the same pain.

The defence mechanism can be a belief:

• All men are bad
• All women suck
• I’m better off alone
• I don’t deserve love
• I’m not worthy
• I hate people

And just like that, we’ve closed our hearts and become fearful.

One day, the perspective seeps in and becomes our truth if we aren’t careful.

Our vision gets skewed as we live in accordance to that illusion and it can get difficult to decipher what’s true and what isn’t.

As a rule of thumb, the only beliefs to live by should be absolute truths:

• All humans are going through their own journey
• People are hurt and act out of pain
• I am responsible for my contribution to all situations
• I am always in control of how much I tolerate and how long I stay
• Nothing anyone ever does to me takes away from my innate goodness
• Nothing anyone ever does to me takes away from their innate goodness (even if that brings up resistance)

These beliefs will always be true, no matter what. Review the beliefs you have in place and figure out if they fit under the absolute truth category or the defence mechanism belief category. If it leaves a knot in your stomach when you think about it, it’s probably the latter.

The blame game is a losing one.

It’s easy to blame someone for hurting us.

It’s infinitely harder to look at the reason why we stayed, or the role we played. It can also be hard to accept that traumatic things happened to us but that those things weren’t necessarily our fault. It could be a parent/child dynamic simply out of our control.

Using others or situations as a scapegoat just prolongs actual healing, as no energy expended can ever change the past or change a person who isn’t willing to change. So long as the finger is pointed outward, taking ownership of our own internal world takes a backseat and we live at the mercy of our memories.

What can we focus on then?

Well

What is the truth?

• In a crummy relationship, maybe I didn’t feel worthy enough to leave?
• Maybe I was afraid of being alone?
• With a crummy parent, maybe they did the best they could with the tools in their toolbox at the time?
• Maybe I could have set clearer boundaries?
• Maybe what happened to me was so totally unacceptable and nothing I could have done would’ve changed anything. But should that be a death sentence to my joy?

Blaming is like putting all of your power into a glass bottle and chucking it into the ocean.

• So how can I not let someone else’s actions mean something about who I am?
• How can I love myself deeper?
• How can I reclaim my power?

Healing happens in an instant. It’s a choice. And if it doesn’t feel like a choice, check your beliefs again and see where you’ve given your power away.

We can spend 100 years healing the same wound if we keep seeing it from the exact same perspective.

It’s important to know that we are in control of our healing, and in any moment we can choose to view things from absolute truths, instead of burying the truth and looking through the lens of our pain.

You can’t heal from the perspective that you created as a defence mechanism against the trauma you’re healing from.

Photo by @tyler_spangler on instagram