+254722457898There is always a strong link between mental wellness and living a peaceful life characterized with contentment. Inevitably, where there is peace and contentment, joy abides in abundance. That said, it is also true that emotional baggage and unhealed trauma(emotional wounds) can be a barrier to realizing mental wellness as they suck peace and calm out of us.
Emotional baggage/trauma manifests in many shapes and form but mostly, in terms negative emotions emanating from things we did or shouldnt have done which caused harm/hurt/heartache to significant others. In addition, it could also be as a result of an injustice/hurt meted on us.
Such emotions can be guilt, shame, embarrassment, disappointment, anger, jealousy, bitterness among many others. They are mostly triggered by a memory of the incident and can be very disruptive.
Sometimes, you could be a enjoying a cup of coffee/tea, laughing with a friend and you are really happy then boom, from nowhere, the memory flashes across your mind and the overpowering emotion gets the better of you.
Immediately, you start replaying the whole incident and for a moment it robs you the joy and peace you were enjoying before.
Mostly, the feeling and the resultant mood could be short-lived but in some cases it can hover around for quite sometime. If you experience a chain of such memories, you can imagine how discomforting reliving the past can be. You can spend a whole day feeling utterly rattled, sad, disappointed or bitter about things which happened 10 years ago.
Clearly, emotional baggage when not addressed can be a robber of joy, peace, contentment and our general happiness.
We must work through such emotions/traumas if we are to achieve peace and contentment. You will never know peace of mind unless you have a clean conscience and the starting point is remedying that which you did wrong or didn’t do or letting go the hurt you were subjected to by another.
Often, we tend to underestimate the power of our past. We always imagine that the past can be compartmentalized into some hole and we leave it there. Sadly, that’s not possible. In fact, alot of what you do today is shaped by the experiences of yesterday.
In a nutshell, the point I’m trying to pass across is that you must go back and make peace with your past. If there are people you wronged, seek forgiveness. Have the courage to accept that you were wrong and that might just set you on the trajectory of peace. If you were the victim, again, let it go.
Otherwise, that emotional baggage/wound you label demons will always haunt you. No amount of selfcare can fix that. You must address these things one after the other.
When we talk of emotional healing, we mean such steps. So yes, even those of us who think we are okay because we are not in a mental institution somewhere are not after all. We are sick emotionally. If you want to start fixing yourself and don’t know how to start, see a therapist/counsellor for guidance.