Take Responsibility for Your Emotional Healing

I love a good quote and I post one every now and then on social media, be it Facebook or Instagram. Most of them I come across while scrolling, others just come to mind. Today, I came across this one: “You have to heal the broken child in you so the healthy adult can grow.” I read it, and thought, that’s a good one to share later. I scrolled past it, thinking I’d remember who shared it. Well, that almost never works. Trust me, I’ve tried many times and my memory has failed me most of them. I reversed my scroll and immediately screenshot it to share on the blog’s social channels, then tonight, while enjoying a bath, that quote inspired me to do some keystroking.

I used to be mad all the time, and not because anyone was bothering me, but my thoughts were harassing me and sometimes, I believe, I was chasing them. All it took was an idle moment for my mind to revisit a disappointment or feud which sometimes stemmed from family dysfunction, then my mood quickly shifted to sadness. That was mostly during my teen years, but it seeped into my adulthood with new life experiences and a couple times, the sadness lingered and I became depressed. I sometimes even recalled the sadness from earlier in life and I pointed fingers at others because, to me, it was their fault.

There comes a time when we have to take responsibility for our healing and that will sometimes mean taking control of our thoughts to triumph over our trials.

There were times over the past five years when I’ve felt sorry for myself because I was emotionally suffering over repetitive disappointments in a particular area of my life. Last January (2018) I decided to let go and move forward.

Sometimes as fatherless women we too can play the blame game and feel sorry for ourselves because of what dad didn’t do or say.

I saw a clip from the Steve Harvey Show recently and the guest, a young, single mother, sought advice from Steve about dating. She felt her failed relationships with men stemmed from her broken relationship with her father. Are there effects? I certainly believe so, but Steve made a great point when addressing her concern.

“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and it’s 90 percent what you do about it.” Despite what has happened to us, good or bad, we can determine how we respond to it. “You cannot put the energy out there of everything your father did to you,” Steve said. He further explained that when you emit that signal it bounces back to the tower (of our minds) like the way a cell phone works. “If you live your life with the expectations that your father did this to you, your father did that to you . . . you are emitting that signal. The only thing that can come back is that same thing you put out,” Steve explained.

The mind is a powerful force. I heard a minister say if you change your thoughts, you can change your life. We can spend less time sad, mad, broken, bitter, angry, desolate, rebellious and depressed if we change what we are thinking about.

Even as Christians, we can get bogged down in the doom and gloom of life. How can it be that believers are always sad? Don’t we always have something to shout about it? The truth is, we are often dancing with broken souls.

This Saturday, from 10 a.m. to noon, join Tanya Bolton, licensed professional counselor, at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Camden for a two-hour workshop entitled “I am a Christian…Why am I so Sad?” The goal of the workshop is to empower the people of God so they might face those private demons that steal their joy. Are you ready to walk in peace and joy? Get to Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 760 Black River Road, Camden on April 27 at 10 a.m. Whether it’s a private demon from your childhood or your adulthood, you owe it to yourself to begin healing and restore the joy.