Helping A Wounded Heart Heal

Care Taking

In this happy heart month of February not everyone has a happy heart to share with others. This is a challenging time for many of us for all kinds of reasons. It is an opportune time for some good care taking.

It’s hard to watch someone we love in pain whether it be physical or emotional.

Care taking and bearing witness to suffering of any kind is in itself very painful. I am reminded of that from the blog post 7/17/14, “Let me kiss it and make it all better” which still rings true for me today.

Back then I wrote: “It is painful to watch someone we love struggle through a hard time—it just is. We want to soothe away their distress and calm their fear and worries, but we can’t kiss it and make it all better.”

So often in our care taking we want to fix what we see needs fixing, take away the pain, solve the dilemma.

But as I wrote in 2014: “We can offer support, reassurance and love but we don’t have the power to make the wound go away. And even if we did, the life lessons to be gained from the challenges they face would be lost.”

Actually, we would be doing our loved one more harm than good if we cleared their slate and wiped it all away.

Remember the saying no pain, no gain?

I’ve found it to be true for me in my life. As I noted in 2014: “I know I’ve learned so much from working through the really hard realities of my own inner turmoil”. I do know I would not be who I am today if I had not done all the hard work to be here, to have learned all it’s taken to get here.

“To give that struggle to those we love by simply hearing of it however, takes courage. It is painful to stand alongside someone and simply offer support and comfort.”

Yet that is what we all need on our life journey. The support and comfort we receive from another human being brings us connection. It is the connection that we need. We are not so alone. We learn we are not the only one. This is care taking at its finest.

We all stumble. And we all fall. We all have wounds to heal.

When we muster the courage to share that inner most pain with someone we trust we begin to heal the wound. We do the work. And we learn and grow. Our resilience and strength grow too.

It is hard to experience our own pain from the wounds we carry.

Care taking of ourselves is hard work. Facing pain from wounds takes courage. We might want to avoid the pain, wish it away, drink ourselves numb to it, or try to stuff it deep down inside. But until we take care of ourselves and face it and work through it, the wound in our heart remains wide open.

What care taking might help the wounds in your own heart heal?

Validating our own experience can be a place to start. Writing in a journal or writing a letter to yourself can help you give words to legitimize the pain in your heart and start to face the wounds you carry.

Finding a trusted person to connect with and share of your pain can help your healing journey. Someone you can be open and honest with, who will accept you and validate your feelings and experiences. Someone who will offer support, reassurance and care.

Sometimes in care taking of ourselves it can be useful to give ourselves the opportunity to engage in professional therapy/counseling. This is especially important if we experience symptoms that truly interfere in our daily functioning.

Do remember that you can indeed do whatever it takes to help your wounded heart heal! And importantly, you deserve to do good care taking of you too!

In your care taking Do Contact Me to begin Depression Therapy, Anxiety Therapy, PTSD Treatment, Substance Abuse Treatment, Grief Therapy to help your wounded heart heal!

JD’s Midlife Tools For Living Practices, Holland, MI Offering Heartfelt care, Compassion and Coping Tools!