Takes a Little Time
Amy Grant wrote a song called “Takes a little time”. It's really been my theme song this year.
Sometimes it does take time to heal and let go of past hurts. That's what this post is all about.
I touched on this story very briefly in a previous post.
I wanted to elaborate on it more deeply in this post.
I was given a book by a friend titled “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die”.
I never believed this saying to be true until it was proven to me.
The text in bold is from the books “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die” and “The Healing Code”
In 2004 we left our home church because it wasn't working for us anymore. We started church hunting and looking for a different church. We were visiting a friends church in Yorba Linda.
Sunday Morning. Sunday School. 13 or 14 years old. 2005/2006
I was sitting around a table with several other kids. The teacher was explaining a project that we were
going to do. She handed each of us a blank piece of white computer paper and several pieces of all
different types of candy. She explained to us that she was going to put on classical music and that were
supposed to make a picture with the candy of the first thing that came to mind from listening to the
classical music. I don't remember what I did. I just know it must have been awful.
She went around the table saying “good job” to everybody but me. I was very hurt.
I felt rejected, pushed aside, as if I didn't matter.
From the time of conception until we are adults we are strongly influenced by the feelings,
thoughts, and attitudes of others. These feelings and attitudes are supplied to us by those who
love us, by those who teach us, and by those who interact with us on a daily basis.
Those who interact with us include parents, other family members, playmates,
school companions, friends, relatives, teachers and other authority figures,
as well as what we may ingest from observing the media.
When a thought (in this case, something someone said) is fed to us,
and this thought connects with an established feeling that becomes energized by an emotional
response, we unconsciously buy into what the person said as though it were an authentic, actual,
valid truth. Sometimes the thought fed to us may even be a further validation of our already
established, false, or incorrect feelings
I need to digress to say this: this is for everybody but especially for teachers and doctors,
dentists and counselors. Please be really careful what you say, especially to a kid or teen.
They are at an age where they look up to you. You have a chance to either make a HUGE positive
impact on their life, or a HUGE negative impact on their life. You don't know what kid or teen has already
been through. Be nice, be loving, be a support system for that person, be a friend.
You never know when God may place you in a person's life right when they need you the most.
I think all doctors, teachers, dentists and counselors should be required to read the books
“feelings buried alive never die”, “the healing code” and “boundaries”. If they understood these truths
and took them to heart and lived by them it would change people's lives.
If we all lived by Ephesians 4:29 the world would be a better place and people probably wouldn't have
nearly so much emotional trauma.
As a child, when we established a particular perception, we usually had an incorrect reference
point because we were too young to understand and sort out the true picture.
Our own lack of maturity—our own lack of wisdom—produced the incorrect perception.
Therefore, our perception was usually an illusion.
The person who is made to feel that he is continually making mistakes will then automatically
embrace the feeling of guilt for being, as he sees it, so dumb and stupid. The feeling of guilt is
then added to his negative beliefs about himself and thus becomes further validation of his
inadequacies and a sad, depreciating and motivating factor in his life. One incorrect perception
can lead to another, and another, and another, until the majority of the perceptions he has about
himself are so distorted that he feels absolutely worthless. Remember, even if the perception is
distorted and untrue, the mind-body still believes it to be true. When a feeling or a thought
validates what we already believe to be true, the emotion accompanying the validation gathers
energy and becomes more and more indelibly fixed, rooted and ingrained in us.
And this, in turn, is what profoundly governs our daily beliefs, attitudes and actions from then on.
This is why whenever someone would give me a compliment I felt very reluctant to accept it because
I didn't feel worthy of it. This is also why I had no self esteem my whole life until now.
Because so much wrong thinking was instilled into me from the get go and on through the years.
For the first time ever I'm finding confidence that I've never had in my entire life.
I'm now able to accept compliments without reluctance.
In 2008 at age 16 I started attending a new church. Sonlight Christian center in the orange circle.
I got plugged into the church youth group very quickly. But I was very afraid to play any games that
involved drawing because I was terrified that I would be made fun of again. I felt like I couldn't let that
happen. We played games that involved drawing and i would play but I was very anxious about it.
I would shake out of fear. I would get the chills very badly. I would get dizzy. I was having a panic attack.
During this time mom had gotten us kids an art video that teaches you how to draw.
Mom had us kids sit together and draw while watching the video. We had our own little art class in a way.
I drew several pictures with the video but I would have panic attacks while doing it.
When we were done drawing mom would have us look at each other's pictures and say “good job”.
That would send my anxiety through the roof!! I was so terrified of being rejected.
Because I had been rejected for my art when I was 13 or 14. I couldn't let that happen again.
I knew why I was acting this way but I didn't know how to process it and deal with it properly.
It is as if the mind has literally built a fort or stronghold around certain memories.
It does this to protect us from the pain of something similar happening to us again.
It believes that if we aren’t vigilantly on guard, we might be hurt again.
That's why I was so afraid to draw. I didn't want to be hurt again.
Uncertainty automatically presses the FEAR button—fears of any and all kinds, and the mind
can go wild with these fears! This condition is known as a “Phobia.” A phobia is an obsessive,
irrational fear or anxiety which represents the ultimate panic attack.
But a phobic person is mostly haunted by what has happened in the past and living with a
horrendous fear of what can happen in the future.
The unconscious mind works by association.
And... the other characteristic of a phobia is that it flourishes via illusion. The illusion is worry—
what if—and our unconscious imagining takes it from there and runs wild.
I lived in fear of what people might say or do if they didn't like my drawings.
This fear has been stored, for who knows how long, in the subconscious mind which is
connected to the nervous system. When this fear is triggered by a sight, a smell, a touch or a
sound it arouses feelings of anxiety, fright and panic.
6 years later, 2014 still at Sonlight. The pastor’s daughter started drawing pictures and
putting text to it. She called it "sketchnotes". It's a way of visual note taking.
In Jan of 2008 the first day I walked into Sonlight I figured out I was a very visual learner.
I walked into the church not knowing any of their worship songs and
walked out of the church the same day having memorized all of their
worship songs they played that Sunday morning. Thanks to the iworship videos.
https://www.youtube.com/user/IWorship
I knew sketchnotes could be very beneficial for me since I'm a very visual learner.
I knew I wanted to draw again. I really wanted to do sketchnotes. But I also knew I needed to deal with
the Sunday school situation and resolve the core feeling before I would be able to draw freely again
without fear of rejection.
Altering our perception can happen in an instant . . . or it may take time.
We CAN change our feelings by changing our thinking.
We can change our thoughts and this can change our feelings and our actions.
However... if the thoughts are caused by unresolved, deep-seeded feelings that are governing
our existence, the thoughts will reoccur time and time again until we resolve the core feeling.
If we choose to change the effects these undesirable feelings have created in our life,
it will be necessary to simply resolve the feelings.
But this is difficult because, we MUST change our perception of the situation first.
Resolving the old feelings will also change the energy these feelings brought with them.
We, in our subconscious, can go back to where undesirable feelings began and change the
vibration—change the energy of these negative feelings. This process re-programs the
subconscious and literally changes the undesirable programming.
This often happens to me in bed at night. Something all of the sudden clicks and I can immediately
see things from a different perspective. At night my subconscious can process things without my
conscious getting in the way.
8 or 9 YEARS later since the Sunday school incident happened and I was finally emotionally ready to
deal with it.
One night in bed I was starting to realize how dumb the Sunday school situation really was.
How dumb the teacher's idea really was.
I knew I needed other people's opinions on this situation. I reached out to several friends who helped me
think though the situation and process it realistically. I realized it wasn't about me. It was about a teacher's
poor choices. It had nothing to do with my talents, it had everything to do with this teachers poor choices
and poor behavior. I was finally seeing the situation realistically. Seeing it for what it was and not what
I thought it was. I had finally reframed the situation and was able to let go.
Oftentimes, the person I refuse to forgive is not suffering at all from my unforgiveness.
He or she is not giving the matter a second thought. So it’s impossible in this case for
unforgiveness to be hurting anyone but me.
I also realize now that I hung onto this situation for years when the
Sunday school teacher probably never even gave the situation a second thought.
She probably forgot about it shortly after it happened.
I didn't pick up a pencil to draw for 8 or 9 years. Even though the incident involved candy and not real
drawing art. I was so afraid the same thing would happen again. I was reacting out of fear from rejection.
I wasn't thinking realistically or logically. That one situation totally controlled my life for 8 or 9 years.
I will never forget that day. It had a huge impact on my life. I had always had very low self esteem and
the situation didn't help matters. But now that I have dealt with it, and can see the situation from a totally
different angle, it's like a huge weight off my shoulders. After I dealt with the situation I felt so free.
I had finally been able to reframe the situation, see it realistically and let it go.
It is true that “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die”.
I've been doing sketchnotes now for 4 years. I no longer have anxiety when I draw.
I had associated drawing with the incident. That association has been broken!
Drawing is a great way to express yourself. As I look back on the drawings I did as a little girl before
the incident happened, I'm amazed at how well I could draw. Don't let one bad teacher, or anybody for
that matter take away something that you're good at doing. Don't let anyone stop you from being
creative or doing something you love.
Don't wait 8 or 9 years to work though and process a situation. Deal with it right away. I wish I had.
It's not worth carrying around the emotional burden. It's not worth having panic attacks for 9 years
especially when a situation isn't logical in the first place. I had no idea just how crippling anxiety could be.
It wrecks havoc on your life. It plays games with your mind.
If you haven't read the book “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die” I would highly recommend reading it!
It changed my life! It's helped me work through and process a lot of stuff.
I also recommend the book “The Healing Code”.
It goes hand in hand with the book “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die”.