Love the Hurt
I saw a meme the other day that said, "Don't focus on the hurt, focus on the lesson". It sounds fair enough, but it got me to thinking. Why not focus on the hurt? The hurt is the lesson. If something is wrong, if a child is hurting, or anyone for that matter, don't we want to alleviate their suffering?
Stop crying! Snap out of it. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Don't focus on the pain. Stop whining about it. Just put a smile on your face. Don't be so negative. Be positive!!
Some of these things are good to do, but it's hard to manage and sometimes impossible until the hurt is addressed. Even the more positive sayings can turn into a meaningless mantra, and feels more like emotional, or spiritual abuse, rather than good advice.
Shamed for feeling hurt can only compound the problem. Negative feelings are repressed, and buried.
To be silent on how one feels is not to heal. To force oneself to put a smile on your face when your heart is breaking, fractures one's sense of reality, to the point, that there is little conscious awareness of how one really does feel.
A pattern begins when the sensitive child is in pain, and told repeatedly, "Oh, you're fine. Stop it!" The child's normal and natural feelings of pain, sadness, and loss are invalidated, and they begin to feel ignored, and invisible. In other words, they get the message they are unloved because their feelings don't matter.
And if the strong child, dares to express his normal feelings of anger at an injustice, or hurt from abuse, and is met with anger, and/or ignored, by the parents, or primary caregivers, the child begin to abandon her/himself. The child learns to become ashamed of anger and suppress it. These patterns spawn the attachment traumas.
Almost everyone has some type of attachment trauma, whether large or small extent. And we could all benefit from an introduction, and education of these traumas. This is not to blame our parents or not take responsibility for ourselves. It's simply the beginning of awareness.
Of course, nobody is perfect and parents are only human, and everybody is doing the best they can at any given time. But education brings awareness and gives a choice to change our behaviors and the ability to change our patterns. We can learn how to heal and take responsibility for ourselves. We can learn how to reparent ourselves at any age. Here is a brief summary of the trauma attachments.
(1.Brickel and Associates foot note below)
When we're born, we depend on people. We have to belong to somebody to survive, and our earliest moments determine our life's outlook on how loved we feel and who we can trust. We attach to whoever is close to us.
The ideal attachment is the secure one. The baby feels, secure, loved, cared for, listened to and understood. This is shown and felt by the child through nonverbal communication. This fosters good relationships throughout our life.
However many of us have one of three following attachment traumas to some extent, from mistreatment, abuse, getting attention for bad behavior, or abandonment.
1. Anxious- Preoccupied results in needy, anxious, love craving, manipulative behavior. Constant contact need for reassurance and fear of abandonment.
2. Dismissive Avoidant results in emotionally distance types, that are dismissive of their partners and don't crave love, but run away from it. Uncomfortable with deep feelings and intimacy. A tendency to hide things from their partner. Noncommittal, and idealize past relationships.
3. Disorganized results in, hot and cold attitude, lack of remorse, selfish, addictions and abusive recreations.
These types are products of erratic fear-driven adults, unable to self soothe.
Once we recognize our pattern, we can begin to have compassion for our defects, not shame. And we can re-parent ourselves in that loving manner that we desperately needed as a child. We can love the hurt until it's gone!
1.https://brickelandassociates.com/understand-attachment-style-heal-trauma/
Stop crying! Snap out of it. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Don't focus on the pain. Stop whining about it. Just put a smile on your face. Don't be so negative. Be positive!!
Some of these things are good to do, but it's hard to manage and sometimes impossible until the hurt is addressed. Even the more positive sayings can turn into a meaningless mantra, and feels more like emotional, or spiritual abuse, rather than good advice.
Shamed for feeling hurt can only compound the problem. Negative feelings are repressed, and buried.
To be silent on how one feels is not to heal. To force oneself to put a smile on your face when your heart is breaking, fractures one's sense of reality, to the point, that there is little conscious awareness of how one really does feel.
A pattern begins when the sensitive child is in pain, and told repeatedly, "Oh, you're fine. Stop it!" The child's normal and natural feelings of pain, sadness, and loss are invalidated, and they begin to feel ignored, and invisible. In other words, they get the message they are unloved because their feelings don't matter.
And if the strong child, dares to express his normal feelings of anger at an injustice, or hurt from abuse, and is met with anger, and/or ignored, by the parents, or primary caregivers, the child begin to abandon her/himself. The child learns to become ashamed of anger and suppress it. These patterns spawn the attachment traumas.
Almost everyone has some type of attachment trauma, whether large or small extent. And we could all benefit from an introduction, and education of these traumas. This is not to blame our parents or not take responsibility for ourselves. It's simply the beginning of awareness.
Of course, nobody is perfect and parents are only human, and everybody is doing the best they can at any given time. But education brings awareness and gives a choice to change our behaviors and the ability to change our patterns. We can learn how to heal and take responsibility for ourselves. We can learn how to reparent ourselves at any age. Here is a brief summary of the trauma attachments.
(1.Brickel and Associates foot note below)
When we're born, we depend on people. We have to belong to somebody to survive, and our earliest moments determine our life's outlook on how loved we feel and who we can trust. We attach to whoever is close to us.
The ideal attachment is the secure one. The baby feels, secure, loved, cared for, listened to and understood. This is shown and felt by the child through nonverbal communication. This fosters good relationships throughout our life.
However many of us have one of three following attachment traumas to some extent, from mistreatment, abuse, getting attention for bad behavior, or abandonment.
1. Anxious- Preoccupied results in needy, anxious, love craving, manipulative behavior. Constant contact need for reassurance and fear of abandonment.
2. Dismissive Avoidant results in emotionally distance types, that are dismissive of their partners and don't crave love, but run away from it. Uncomfortable with deep feelings and intimacy. A tendency to hide things from their partner. Noncommittal, and idealize past relationships.
3. Disorganized results in, hot and cold attitude, lack of remorse, selfish, addictions and abusive recreations.
These types are products of erratic fear-driven adults, unable to self soothe.
Once we recognize our pattern, we can begin to have compassion for our defects, not shame. And we can re-parent ourselves in that loving manner that we desperately needed as a child. We can love the hurt until it's gone!
1.https://brickelandassociates.com/understand-attachment-style-heal-trauma/
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