Have you ever been in a rut? The deep grooves of your life allow you to move forward but toss you all around. You want to change direction and go a different way, but the ruts keep you moving ahead in a direction you’ve always gone before.
If you feel that you’re stuck in an emotional rut with no hope of change, then this post’s for you.
More...
In Part 1 of this post, we covered the first three barriers to emotional healing of our pain:
We Take Comfort in It
We Feel Helpless to Change It
We Feel We Deserve It
In Part 2 of this post we covered the next two barriers:
We Won’t Let Go
We Want Revenge
In Part 3 we covered:
We Think It’s Our Identity
Today we’ll finish this series off with part four:
We Put Our Trust in Faulty Coping Mechanisms
Repetition Causes Ruts
Ruts in the roads we drive on come about by traveling the same path over and over and over again. As time goes by and no road maintenance is performed, the ruts just get deeper and deeper.
If the ruts are deep enough it is almost impossible to get out of them and they begin to redirect our travel in ways that we don’t want to go. If they are too deep, we begin to bottom out and it can cause great damage to the underside of the vehicle.
Now let’s turn the illustration over to our emotions. We have emotional ruts in our lives that I call coping mechanisms. A coping mechanism is a way in which we respond to emotional pain. The idea of coping is that we’re trying to manage, to bear up, to survive, or to keep our heads above water.
The problem with coping mechanisms is that they rarely heal the pain. They just help us get by with the day to day things of life, but in the background, or foreground, the pain still remains.
How We Deal With Pain
In an earlier post, How We Deal With Pain, I mentioned six ways we attempt to cope with pain that never brings healing. It is a way that we attempt to deal with it that keeps us in the deep rut of emotional pain.
Here’s a quick overview of the six ways we attempt to deal with pain:
Ignore it. Something hurtful happens and we seek to think on good things. We block the bad out of our minds with good thoughts, but the pain remains. The idea is if I ignore this long enough it will go away, but it never does.
Stuff It. Stuffing it is different from ignoring. Instead of thinking good thoughts, there is an attempt to stuff the hurt deep down in our hearts so we don’t feel it. This takes a lot of emotional effort. You can’t ignore it, but you also can’t deal with it, so you stuff it. If you can push it far enough away you won't have to feel it.
Accept it. This is where we feel the pain and simply accept it. Our heart is hurting and we don't even try to ignore or stuff it. We may feel we deserve it or feel helpless to change it, so we just live with the pain.
Rehearse it. Some of us rehearse the pain. We allow the videotape to play over and over in our heads. We tell everyone who will listen to us the pain we experienced and are experiencing. The painful situations are never far from our minds or mouths. Repeating pain will never heal it.
Medicate it. Many of us seek to medicate the pain. We feel if we can feel something good, even if it only for a moment, the pain will go away. This is the main basis of addictions of all kinds. We use alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, sex, or work as a way to deaden the pain. This usually causes additional pain and heartbreak. Medicating pain does not heal it.
Emulate it. Some of us choose to emulate the pain that we’ve experienced by hurting others. We were hurt and we’ll never allow another person to hurt us, so we take the offensive and hurt others. We end up doing the same thing that was done to us and sometimes worse. Hurting others will never relieve the pain.
The Futility of Coping Mechanisms
The problem is that none of the coping mechanisms above bring healing. They’re only temporary at best and actually add to the pain in the long run as it keeps on accumulating year after year.
If these coping mechanisms are so useless, then why do we keep using them? Why do we keep going back to them time after time when they don’t bring healing? I think there are a couple of reasons.
The first is that we don’t know how to be healed. We’ve tried everything we know to do and the pain remains.If we knew how to be healed, we would do it.
The second reason is we’re in a rut. From the time we were born we had to learn how to deal with the world around us. From childhood we’ve responded to painful situations in a certain way. We developed coping mechanisms to protect ourselves and they’ve become second nature.
It’s like our life is on autopilot. A painful situation takes place and we jump right into the ruts that we’ve dug into our hearts. We do what we’ve always done, even if it doesn’t work. We’re more comfortable with the known than the unknown. So we just keep responding as we’ve always responded.
Escaping the Rut
There is a way to break free from the ruts of emotional pain. It’s through allowing the Lord to heal your heart. Jesus took your pain upon Himself on the cross and He’s the one who can heal your broken heart. He can restore your soul and bring peace to your mind and emotions.
There is a proven process that the Lord uses to heal your heart. It’s to bring your pain to Jesus. I’ll give a brief overview of the process so you can use it to bring your pain to Jesus.
Set aside some time and go through the following steps with every painful situation that plagues you. Take your time. Be thorough.
Prepare
Set aside a block of time. Be sure to have a pencil and paper handy. Go somewhere you can have privacy.
Ask
Ask the Lord which painful memory He wants to heal. It might not be the biggest issue you are dealing with, but trust Him to lead you through the process of healing.
Remember
Remember the situation. Who is involved? What is taking place? What are you feeling?
Remembering might bring up strong emotions that make you feel uncomfortable. Don’t try to stuff them or ignore them. Examine what you are feeling and write down each feeling on your piece of paper. They might include feelings of fear, anger, shame, helplessness, disgust, regret, etc.
Forgive
Who in this memory hurt you? Whom do you need to forgive?
You might be struggling with the thought of forgiving the person who hurt you. It somehow feels wrong. They caused so much pain, how can you forgive them?
Forgiveness is not letting someone off the hook or treating what they did to you lightly. It is not ignoring, forgetting, or excusing what took place. It is not dependent on them feeling sorry or asking for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is releasing a person from all your feelings of anger, hatred, and revenge and trusting God to deal with that person. Forgiveness is a choice you to release that person and let them go. It is a step of faith and obedience to the Lord recognizing that He will ultimately bring justice.
Be as specific as possible as you forgive each person involved. Don’t give out generic forgiveness like, “I forgive my dad.”
The person who hurt you did so through specific acts. Forgive them for those acts. Say something like this. “I forgive you mom for calling me a loser in front of my friends. I forgive you for embarrassing me. Or I forgive you for always being so negative and critical of me.”
So go ahead, speak out your forgiveness. Don’t just think it in your mind, use your voice to proclaim your forgiveness. Then trust the Lord to deal with that person.
Give
Now give the Lord all the pains that you are carrying. Take the list of emotions and feelings you are experiencing and one by one give them to the Lord. Ask Him to take it and bear it for you. Be specific and press in until you feel it is gone.
Say something like this, “Jesus, I give you my feelings of embarrassment and humiliation when my mom called me a loser in from of my friends. I ask you to take them and bear them for me.”
Heal
Ask the Lord to heal every area of your heart that was affected by this situation. Invite Him to restore your soul. Ask Him to fill you with His life and blessings.
Go through the process until you have given the Lord every feeling involved in the incident and you can look back at it without pain and heartache. If there are still things that rise up, bring it to the Lord until nothing remains but His peace.
Join the Journey and Never Miss a Post
Two courses that could change your life forever!
Are you struggling with painful feelings from past rejection, abuse, divorce, abandonment, or trauma? Many of the coping mechanisms we use to try and get rid of the pain only make matters worse. Healing Your Broken Heart will led you through a proven seven-step process to help bring healing to the wounds of the past. No one should have to live in constant emotional pain.
Do you feel that there are invisible barriers you run into every time you try to make progress in your Life? Are you feeling oppressed in your mind or emotions and can't figure out why? Are you stuck and feel like there is no way things will ever change in your life? The Experiencing His Victory
Self-Deliverance Seminar will lead you through a proven eight-step process to expose and destroy the invisible barriers allowing you to experience life as God intends it to be.