We learn how to care for ourselves and care for others from receiving care from them.
When others express empathy for us, we are better able to endure emotional pain, understand it, and move toward healing.
As a counselor, I am mainly concerned with the alienation of adult children from their parents. I've discussed this with many people who have received counseling and have learned more about themselves.
Most of these clients are parents who are reluctantly alienated by their children. They often talk about the missing things they had in their childhood and how much they did to raise their children in a different way than their parents.
These parents know that their own childhood is missing. In some cases, they can even list which of their emotional needs have never been met.
However, despite the knowledge gained in counseling and the fact that they have learned more about themselves, what they do not want to see – the alienation of their adult children – can still trigger the same feelings of rejection, inferiority and unfounded shame in themselves.
Image source: "Please Answer 1988"
01
Understanding your own pain may not be enough
Understanding is of course important. Understanding helps us feel better about ourselves, but it's not the same as healing.
A temporarily closed wound looks like it has been healed, but it won't be long before any new wound can easily tear the wound again. Similarly, new psychological injuries, such as the estrangement of adult children, can expose emotional wounds that have not healed.
It is not the lack of understanding that causes suffering, but more the need for healing.
When you understand your own suffering but don't feel better about it, you may be confused: you have made the contents of the unconscious part of consciousness, you have been able to understand the source of your suffering, so won't these sufferings gradually disappear?
The answer is, no.
Once you understand yourself and your past from a rational perspective, the best way to make progress in counseling is to consciously revisit and experience unhealed emotions in a supportive, nourishing environment.
Image source: Melrose
02
The most important thing in healing is feeling
When you first felt hurt, and countless times since then, who noticed your pain and gave you care and kindness?
We learn how to care for ourselves and care for others from receiving care from them. When others express empathy for us, we are better able to bear emotional pain, understand it, and move toward healing.
And when our caregivers don't notice, or respond to, our pain in a proper way, we learn to push it away.
However, the pain of being ignored or suppressed tends to become more intense.
We can look back and give our childhood selves some compassion; we had to put aside our pain and move on.
But the only way to heal wounds is to let them come into our sight and pay attention to them with kindness.
Not only with the mind to understand, but also with the heart to feel.
03
Feelings require compassionate witnesses
One of the most powerful tools for a qualified counselor is a willingness to live with the pain of the client.
Not to push the pain away, nor to rush to rationalize the pain, but to stay with the pain and care about the person who feels the pain in front of him.
When the counselor becomes a compassionate witness to your feelings, you learn how to support yourself in times of pain. Their gentle and receptive approach to pain creates a mental model for you so that you can treat yourself and others in the same way outside the counseling room.
Feeling, not understanding, is the key to healing.
Having a counselor help you experience your feelings safely can be one of the biggest benefits of counseling.
As mentioned in the article, having a counselor help you experience your feelings safely can be one of the biggest benefits of counseling.
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