Understanding Psyche Wounds

Comprehending and understanding the intricacies of psyche wounds is an indispensable first stride, forming the bedrock for healing, personal growth, and the attainment of mental and emotional well-being. This understanding of psyche wounds empowers us to delve beyond mere symptom management and instead address the underlying root causes, thus boosting a more profound and enduring process of healing.

Understanding the dynamics of our wounds

We tend to think of a psyche wound as the original emotional negative experience, like the “THING” that happened to us. This is not true. The psyche wound is the disempowering belief that we have developed and maintained as a result of the original emotional experience.

In our quest for emotional equilibrium, our natural reaction to any negative emotionally charged event (i.e. anything that we experience as traumatic) is to make sense of it. We “make sense” of things by creating beliefs. Beliefs that we develop in reaction to emotional negative experiences (i.e. often out of context) are ‘Toxic Beliefs‘ and toxic beliefs are tremendously disempowering and painful, and it is these beliefs that evolve into our psyche wounds, that eventually control and dominate our life.

The reason many people fail to heal is because they try to heal the original emotional negative experience and not the ‘Toxic Belief‘. When we realize and understand that psyche wounds are the ‘Toxic Beliefs‘ that we hold about ourselves and/or the world around us, then we could gain and have the power to heal ourselves and free ourselves to control, rather than being controlled, by our psyche wounds.

When a child experiences him-/herself as rejected and abandoned – for example – that child forms certain beliefs around abandonment to “explain” why s/he was rejected and abandoned. The child may answer the question… “Why?” by creating a belief that s/he was not good enough. Therefore, the abandonment is not the wound. The wound is the belief of his/her unworthiness, as a result of the abandonment. In this particular case, healing implies the release and “let-go” of the ‘Toxic Belief‘ of unworthiness.

Realizing that ‘Toxic Beliefs‘ promote emotional wants

Toxic beliefs always establish corresponding emotional needs, which must be met for the psyche wound to heal. However, the catch is, that a toxic belief also creates an invisible barrier that keeps the emotional need from being met. For example… when the toxic belief is “I am not worthy”, it often translates as an emotional want “of feeling worthy”. When we could experience/feel/accept unconditional worthiness, the psyche wound would heal. However, the problem is, when we believe (i.e. being convinced) that we are not worthy, we will unconsciously block all feelings of worthiness, because it does not align with our present beliefs about self-worth. This is why healing psyche wounds are extremely challenging. We tend to seek our need fulfilment outside ourselves and therefore try to measure up to some externally driven concept that would indicate ‘being worthy‘, external indicators such…

• as beautiful as…,
• as thin as…,
• as rich as…,
• as popular as..,
• as famous as…,
• as intelligent as…,
• …etc.

Most of the time, something that is unrealistic, out of context and light years removed from our authentic selves.

‘Toxic Beliefs‘ are both self-fulfilling and self-sabotaging

When we have been wounded, we feel justified in holding onto the wound’s toxic beliefs. A part of us is convinced that these beliefs will prevent us from getting hurt again, and the thought of releasing them, makes us feel extremely vulnerable… because, without these beliefs, what/who will protect us? But, toxic beliefs do not protect us. These beliefs are self-sabotaging by being self-fulfilling, because these beliefs cause, attract and help us to manifest more of what we do not want.

All beliefs affect the quantum energy field that creates our reality, but toxic beliefs have an even stronger influence on reality because they are fueled by intense emotional energy. Therefore, when we believe that we are powerless, we attract situations that support that belief and manifest a reality in which we are powerless.

Taking full responsibility for what we can control

An essential condition for real psychological healing is to take complete responsibility for our own lives and our psyche wounds. As long as we continue to blame the outside world for causing our pain, we effectively surrender our power to heal ourselves to outside “forces”. “Forces” that we cannot control… and because we cannot control it, it’s highly unlikely that we will be able to heal… suppress symptoms by medicating, maybe… but truly heal ourselves… NO!

Taking responsibility is not about letting others off the hook who have harmed us. This is about empowering ourselves to be whole (i.e. body, mind and soul/spirit unity) once again. If we cannot find a way to take responsibility for our life experiences, then begin – at least – by taking responsibility for our personal beliefs. Regardless of what transpired in the outside world, we are the only ones who think our thoughts and therefore we are responsible for creating and believing any toxic belief. This means that we also have the power to release or let go of these beliefs, and – therefore – we have the power, the control and we can heal ourselves.

Why are toxic beliefs so painful?

Toxic beliefs effectively disconnect us from who we are, because our authentic self could never truly believe that we are powerless or unworthy. When we accept these disempowering beliefs, we experience separation from our authentic selves, and this disconnection is the primary cause of our frustrations, pain and suffering. This personal pain – frequently diagnosed as some type/kind/form of depression – is our inner guidance system alerting us to the disconnection so that we can be aware of psyche wounds, and heal the wound by releasing incongruent beliefs.

The higher purpose of “Traumatic” experiences

The higher purpose of negative emotional experiences (i.e. traumatic experiences) is to direct our attention to the hidden or underlying beliefs that already exist in our psyche. The “traumatic” experience activates the hidden belief so that we become aware of, address and heal the psyche wound.

The Key…

We cannot heal something that we aren’t aware of. The pain directs our attention to the belief that needs to be changed for us to heal our psyche wounds. Thus, depression is the psyche pain that points us toward a toxic belief regarding ourselves and/or circumstances. Unfortunately, a common mistake that we frequently make is that we have an inclination and tendency to suppress psyche pain with some kind and form of medication, varying from alcohol to drugs …especially legal drugs because it is collectively acceptable to deal with depression as a “physical” illness. Because – generally – we don’t regard “traumatic” experiences as an opportunity for self-actualization and growth.