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As you affirm positive messages to yourself, you’ll start believing you’re a valuable person. The pain from the past is just that, the past. As you believe you are the valuable person that you are and deserve all that you want, you can face past pain with confidence. You can look at it, feel it, and let it go. When it’s gone, you’re free to embrace the life that you have always dreamed of.

I didn’t suffer severe emotional pain as a child. My personal growth experiences came later in life.

I asked my good friend, Kellie Carlson Dunlap to share her experiences, she wrote the following:

“Facing the pain is terrifying, but the joy that comes once you have walked through it is indescribably freeing.

The most natural reaction in the world is that of “fight or flight.” Therefore, our first reaction to any pain is to run from it emotionally. We shove it down deep within ourselves and pretend it is not there, or we mask the pain with anger or with substances. When the pain boils up and threatens to make us actually feel it, we tenaciously cling to the way we have coped in the past and shove it down harder into our soul, or burst out in anger, or turn to substances to numb ourselves. Anything to stop ourselves from feeling. However, that feeling itself is the very first step in our healing process.

We can never be free of our past until we first face the pain it has caused us by truly allowing ourselves to feel it for the first time. Feeling and dealing with the pain is the only way to remove it and move on.

I like to think of the pain that used to be inside me through an analogy I noticed in my environment. I once had an experience where I came across a formerly stately tree that had split in two all the way along its trunk and was laying in two pieces on the ground dying. There was no apparent reason for its demise and I tucked the experience away in my list of ponderables.

It was many years later when I discovered that if a wedge is placed in a young tree trunk as it is growing, the trunk will simply grow around it. The tree encases the wedge within itself and seems to grow without any sign of trouble. However, that wedge is a hidden canker ”a sore” within the tree. No one can see it from the outside, but it is still in there and it has still done damage to the tree. Eventually, left un-dealt with, that wedge can split the entire tree from the inside.

I have no idea if that is what happened to the tree I bemoaned that day, but I do know that there was a point in my life when I had a wedge buried deeply inside me. It was my secret pain. I never thought of it. I ignored it. When it threatened to come up to the surface, I shoved with all my might to push it down deep inside me where it couldn’t hurt me. Or so I thought. You see, I thought that as long as I didn’t pay attention to it, I wasn’t letting it affect my life. The truth was that by not dealing with it I was letting it rule my life. It was always there  threatening to make me feel the pain from my past. By ignoring it, I was giving it power.

When I finally realized that, I confronted it. I spent a period of time just feeling the pain. I did this in a safe situation with trusted people in my life (for me it was a therapist and my mother, but for you it may be others). That step was crucial. I was terrified. It hurt so badly and I didn’t even know what events had made me feel what I was feeling, but I had to just let myself feel without trying to explain it or fix it.

Feeling is good. Allowing ourselves to feel is what keeps us healthy. But, when you haven’t felt for a long time, it can seem like the most confusing and scary event of your life. At the time, it seems far more overwhelming than the original event that caused the pain in the first place.

I promise you that once you just let feeling wash over you for a sufficient period of time you will begin to heal. Your heart and your mind will connect in a way that will allow you to start understanding yourself more clearly and making any necessary changes in your life.

Once you push through that first period of time when it feels like the pain you are allowing yourself to feel will destroy you, you will no longer be scared of it. That isn’t because it was any easier than you feared it would be, but because you are stronger than you thought you were.

There is an old adage that if everyone in a room were told that they could put down their trials in life and were invited to go around the room and trade them for the trials of other people,we would all look around and then walk back to our own trials and pick them up. This is because we don’t fear what we know we can deal with. Once you know you can deal with emotion, you will no longer fear feeling it. It will become a welcome friend, a gauge which tells you what you like and what you don’t like about your life and helps you find clear ways to choose your future.”

I have always known that I had a wonderful childhood. When I heard Kellie’s story, I started to devalue my pain. I caught myself, pain is pain, and we all have it. Maybe you are experiencing the same thing. In reality, we must all feel our pain and let it go. When we do, we will all regain our power and create a wonderful life for ourselves no matter what our trials are.

When I confronted my guilt, my pain, it felt to me like a big wave. Having spent time swimming on the ocean, it was fresh in my mind. My guilt felt like the waves unexpectedly slamming over me and pushing my face into the sand. Gasping for air, my nose and mouth filled with sand. Unable to breathe or even lift my head out of the water, I coughed and choked and feared I was dying – then the wave rolled back, giving me time to breathe, shake it off, stand up and get out of the water.

As I faced my guilt and shame, I felt the fear of dying. I still remember the waves of emotion covering over me, and then rolling back. That was it. It was only a short time, I was surprisingly still alive. In the calm, after a few more sniffles, a few more tears, maybe even more waves, it was over.

After I felt it, I could look at the emotion, the experience, with a different outlook.

I continued affirming reality saying to myself “I’m safe, all is peaceful in my world.” I wrote the experience in my journal, as evidence that I made it through, describing what I learned. I knew that I had beliefs that had to be changed. I could look at this guilt as a motivator to change. I knew I could change.

Remember our experiences no matter how difficult, can turn out to be our greatest good if we approach it in ways from which we can grow.

Introspection is the key. Look, listen, and feel what’s going on in your heart and in your mind. Many of us grow up feeling so flawed that we don’t think we deserve any goodness. But we do! We all do! Let go of the past and be free!

Find a friend if you need support as you feel your pain. If you need a friend, I’m here. http://www.lindagraceonline.com