Rather than slapping band aids on our gaping wounds, therapy pushes into the pain. This process is mind-boggling and counter-intuitive to many. Therapy strives to dig to the roots of the heartache rather than masking it.
Nowadays our culture has some unhelpful ideas about mental health treatment.
Let’s talk about what real healing looks like; what it means to dig into that open sore, clean out all the yuck and infection, and give the soul everything it needs to become whole again.
Faking “Strong”
A lot of us learned to survive by acting strong. For some of us as Christians, we throw around all the platitudes: “I don’t know why this is happening, but I trust the Lord!” “Life is hard but God is good!”
In reality, the strength is just a facade, a mask we show the public to protect ourselves from being seen as the weak and frail beings we are.
We have faked “strong” for so long that we’ve shut down whole sections of our souls. And what alternative do we have? The alternatives seem unlivable. The pain would swallow us whole, we’d drown in a tsunami of tears, we couldn’t function. We’d let down all the people we’ve fooled into thinking we’re pillars of strength.
Giving the Feelings a Voice
Therapy disrupts the cycle of masking pain and faking strength. Here we learn that feelings aren’t the problem, but they point to the problem. Feelings are signposts that mark the twists and turns of our complex hearts: “jaded by repeated loss”, “afraid of failure”, etc. We learn to attend to what the hurt is trying to say. We are invited to believe that if we travel directly through the swamp of feelings, not around it or over it but directly through it, there will be healing on the other side.
Why the Past Matters
Many people want to leave the past behind, seeing no point in dredging up painful memories. And indeed, “forgetting the past” would make sense if it were truly dead and gone. But too often, the past is alive…and creeping into the present. In this case, if we turn a blind eye to the past, it will actually control us without our knowledge or permission.
Part of my work as a faith-based therapist is to gently guide my clients into reprocessing past experiences that spoke false messages over them about the nature of God, the world, or themselves.
When we pinpoint the circumstance that led the client to unconsciously adopt a long-held core belief, the client is suddenly set free. What they had held onto as an objective truth is suddenly revealed to be nothing more than the desperate meaning-making of a child who was just trying to survive.
Learning to Feel Again
The vulnerable relationship between therapist and client creates space and a voice for nagging heartache, rather than anesthetizing it. Thought this process feels scary, the work of therapy transforms us unto people who have enlarged hearts. We become more robust bearers of God’s image, capable of giving and receiving love.
Jennifer Camareno, MFT 