by Tamara Kulish from https://tamarakulish.com/

Pushing beyond the stigma of “Self-healing” or “Self-help”

Kathy – K E Garland – has been quite frank in her book, In Search of a Salve, Memoir of a Sex Addict about her own self-healing journey from sexual abuse and subsequent sex addiction. She did the very difficult journey of healing, later wrote her book and created a blog to share snippets of her lessons.

Mental Health Matters: How I Healed Myself: What the Experts Have Told Me (PART III)
Mental Health Matters: How I Healed Myself: Years of Self-Therapy Strategies (PART II)
Mental Health Matters: How I Healed Myself: Chiron and the Concept of the Wounded Healer (PART I)

Sometimes, I get pushback from lay people about the idea of self-healing/self-therapy. There are a few implications:

  • Everyone needs a mental healthcare professional to guide them through a process of healing or life, in general.
  • I am not equipped to figure out how to resolve my childhood trauma (i.e., I may be able to read, but I am not licensed to heal myself).
  • Paying for a therapist is the only way to heal unresolved trauma.

But licensed mental healthcare professionals have said the opposite.

There is a place for licensed clinicians in some folks’ healing journeys. But whether you are a wounded healer or not, you are central in your healing. While some people need psychotherapy, others can use alternative methods to achieve the same goal. Neither is more valid or worthy. Finally, I don’t want to be irresponsible in my message. Some mental illnesses cannot be resolved independently and require professional guidance and medication; however, self-therapy should not be discounted as a valid method for many mental health issues. It is possible to take your mental health into your own hands.

Mental Health Matters: How I Healed Myself: What the Experts Have Told Me (PART III)

Self-healing has been given a very bad reputation over the years, I’m sure it’s because it is exceedingly difficult, gut-wrenching, and many give up when the pain feels overwhelming. (I’m not talking about mental health issues that require a diagnoses and treatment plan. For those things, going through a qualified and empathetic therapist are necessary.)

Once we start on that path, it can feel like we’re ripped wide open and our minds go into survival mode to protect us from further damage, so we often feel we hit a wall and can go no further.

Like Kathy, I worked steadfastly on my own healing, and like her, I wrote about how I did it, not in the highly polished language of medical professionals but from our own understanding.

Like her, I was sick and tired of feeling depressed, anxious and constantly beating myself down. I was sure there was a better way to live, but the path I had to take to get there required a total honestly with myself, a state of mind that can feel quite terrifying when one has experienced a life of criticism, so we often avoid it.

What she did took a LOT of courage and persistence. It feels awful to feel broken and yet still try to project a “normal” facade, when the inner parts of the heart are raw and hurting. The prospect of staying in that state is so overwhelming that self-medicating to try to drown out the pain seems like the only alternative, especially when there just isn’t the money in the budget to pay for therapy, and let’s be honest, even with health insurance, the out-of-pocket expenses can be staggering.

We’re both in our own ways doing our part to show people that a new alternative exists, but it isn’t going to be easy or pain-free, but the results feel fantastic!

What are the best ways to approach self-healing?

  • GO SLOWLY!
  • Take baby steps!
  • Don’t try to heal from the past right away, start with retraining your brain to think differently about yourself – see posts below for guidance
  • Learn what healthy boundaries are and slowly start to implement them in your life
  • Don’t announce your intentions to everyone! Remember, there are probably a few people in your life right now who will sabotage your efforts, because they need you to stay exactly where you are, otherwise their own lives will change, and that’s just to scary for them

I have written many, many posts about what these first steps look like, plus I have tons of short, soul-nourishing affirmational posts that give you a nugget to chew on and to allow to percolate into the fibre of your being.

The damage that was done to us happened over the course of years, often reinforced by the lack of support we got, even criticism from other people, which left us feeling betrayed by the people who were supposed to love us.

This emotional and physical betrayal hurts us deeply and our sense of injustice becomes part of the wall we build to ty to further protect ourselves.

I know in my own life, I struggled with this sense of betrayal. “She’s my MOTHER. How could she do this to me?” Even after I learned of the abuses my own mother lived through, I still struggled. “She knows the pain, so why does she keep inflicting it on me?”

I had to come to understand that my mother had suffered terrible damage, had never healed and so she kept spreading the pain and anger onto others that she still lives with, even today. I came to see her as a very damaged individual, and that helped me to defuse the huge burden of injustice I carried around in my body and mind.

Self-healing wasn’t my overall goal, I just wanted to feel better, and not plunge down rabbit-holes of depression when something happened that triggered the pain and anger I had internalized.

If you’re at this point, please don’t feel that your own pain is too much and too deep to heal from. The best thing you can do for yourself is to commit to working incrementally on yourself, slowly so you have time to absorb and to grow.

Top tips:

  • Please surround yourself with more positive input, and your mind will slowly heal by retraining how you think.
  • Give yourself permission to go with the ups and downs, and not force yourself to keep reading or to keep learning – sometimes we need a break when we’re saturated.
  • Slower is better! Baby steps do more than we realize! Your timetable is unique to you, it probably won’t even follow the same path as siblings or close friends.
  • Keep a notebook to write down the things you’re learning – about yourself, about healing, things you want to remember.

Here are some more posts to give you more emotional food and when you feel ready, check out my books tab.

From Mental Health and Rewiring the Brain – Archived Posts

From Healing and Developing Ourselves – Archived Posts

From Positive thoughts and Affirmations – Archived Posts

You may not feel strong right now and that’s okay, because we develop strength from doing. Look at your healing journey as something similar to going to the gym: you can’t do much in the beginning, but as you do the work you get stronger and improve your stamina and feelings of well-being.

Just like overdoing it at the gym can make our bodies feel very sore and tired, overdoing it with the emotional work will have us feeling overwhelmed. The remedy? Take time to recuperate and get back at in when you’re feeling better.

I believe in you!

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Blessings!
Thank you for liking, sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara

I hope you’ll poke around my Archived Posts Main page divided up into 3 sub-pages: Mental Health and Rewiring the Brain || Healing and Developing Ourselves || Positive thoughts and Affirmations to find a wonderful trove of supportive and encouraging posts!
https://tamarakulish.com/

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Developing Happiness When You Can’t Find It and How to Heal Your Life on a Deep Heart Level are available in paperback and Kindle. Audiobooks are available for the busy person!

Guided Journals help you work on a particular issue by answering questions to help see patterns and to find solutions:

Removing Inner Blocks ||  Anger Journal || Guided Anxiety Journal  ||  Joy & Mindfulness Journal   ||  My Boundaries Journal  || My Inner Thoughts Journal   

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35 thoughts on “Pushing beyond the stigma of “Self-healing” or “Self-help””

    1. For sure. Healing, whether by one’s self or with a therapist, is quite difficult, since we’re having to face many of the lies we internalized about ourselves. It isn’t always what was said directly to us, but what we had interpreted then internalized. We fear what we may face. Once we face those fears we see the work is less daunting than we had originally imagined. How are you doing with training yourself to speak kindly to yourself?

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        1. I’m happy to hear that. I remember you telling me it was something you were struggling to learn to do. It does get better with practice. We rewire our brains every time we choose affirming and supportive thoughts instead of our old go-to’s. I know for me, I still need to catch myself when an old trigger comes up and I get full of self-doubt and start to feel unworthy or unequal to the task. I’m getting better at recognizing it when it happens in the moment, and then go into nurturing, self-talk mode. I recognize that no matter how far I come, there’s still those moments that come up.

          I watched a video of Louise Hay when she was in her 90’s and decades into her self-healing, and something came up that triggered her. In that moment she took the time to recognize her trigger and to quietly do some inner work on the spot. It made me realize that none of us gets “cured”, we just learn new tools and get better and better at putting them into practice.

          Keep going! You’re on the healing and healthy path!

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          1. Yeah, it was one of my biggest issues but I’ve seen a lot of progress and am proud of that. I’m glad you’re getting better too, it’s something we may never be a hundred percent free off but we can do our best. It’s important especially on difficult days because you’re already feeling down which makes slipping back into old patterns easier.

            Thank you and you as well!

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            1. You nailed it! Yes, we can manage it one day at a time, when we take care of ourselves. 🤩😎

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  2. Tamara, thank you so much for sharing my posts and about the idea of self-healing/self-therapy! Ironically, you published this on my birthday (and it’s a holiday weekend in the States), so I am just now able to write a proper response.

    It’s always affirming to hear that others did the hard work of digging deep, so they can be a better version of themselves. And although I know it’s probably not true, it seems like a small and special club to be a part of.

    With that said, I totally agree with the advice you’ve given, too. The part about not announcing the endeavor to anyone is particularly critical. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing…like no one! Instead, I just began and two things happened: (1) people began noticing the difference in my personality and behavior and (2) my friend set began to shift.

    Thank you again for sharing my work and yours, Tamara! It’s so important to not only heal ourselves, but also offer ways for others to be healthier.

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    1. Absolutely on point Kathy! Yes sharing with others and offering encouragement to those on the healing path is an important part of the process, at least for some of us.

      Happy Birthday to you! Hope it was awesome!

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  3. Important message, thank you for this encouragement, Tamara! It cannot be said often enough: we are capable of so much more than we think we are. And it takes many, many reiterations on the healing path until we finally “get” something about ourselves. When reading what I wrote years ago to get clarity about my habits and how to get out of the vicious circle, then I realize how far I have come, and how different I live my life today. It is about persisting and using whatever resources are available and are helpful, and of course, figuring it out on our own is a good part of that journey.

    I also like what you say about seeing your mom as someone who never healed – compassion is a game-changer in that regard. It helps to shift perception and to become much calmer and less triggered when being around that person, even if it’s still challenging. I am trying the same approach with my mother, reminding myself again and again that she never got the help she needed to deal with her issues.

    Thank you for sharing! It’s so important to inspire each other, and every healing journey is a very individual one.

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    1. You’re so right on every point! Having to deal with our abusers is quite difficult. When we reach a point in our healing where we no longer seek their approval, we can step away much easier when they turn acidic. We get to set our new healthier boundaries and not let them keep quilting is us into rescinding them.

      Growth doesn’t happen in a straight line, but loops its way all around our lives, so being able to review and see how far we’ve come!

      I’ve personally gone no contact with my mother, after having tried for decades and her now willing or able to meet some basic relationship must haves. I’m now an emotional support for my brother who continues to visit her occasionally to see that certain needs are handled. This way he’s not bringing back the stress to his wife and kids.

      Bravo to us and to all the people who have embraced their healing journeys to create better lives!

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  4. Yet another excellent post, Tamara. I grew up during a time and in a place where psychotherapists were rare and served only the insane (referred to as mad people) in the sole mental institution (known locally as the Mad House) in the country. The very thought of seeking professional help for a nervous breakdown (as we called it) was a taboo in itself. Over the years, as an avid reader, I found help in healing my emotional wounds through self-help books. I find that your articles, as well as those by Dr. Gerald Stein, always offer some new insight about the complexity of human interrelationships in an insane world that affect all of our lives, some more so than others.

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    1. Thanks Rosaliene, so happy to have been of help for you! Healing in an ongoing process, we keep discovering new things we need to work on when life throws us difficulties. I’m always happy to hear of your own healing journey.

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    1. Thanks so much Ilsa! Hope the brain rewiring post explains some new things!

      My mother actually had help multiple times, was prescribed medication for her issues, but rejected everything. She said that since she had gotten to know Jesus, that he loves her exactly as she is, so no need to change. She refused the medication on the grounds that “she didn’t want to depend on it like an addict, for the rest of her life”. *sigh!*

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      1. I’ve been reading The Body Keeps the Score. It talks about medication often only being a Bandaid for a larger issue that requires therapy. I wonder if that’s the case for her. The mind and memories often need to be healed. If it’s a chemical imbalance, maybe that’s different. I’m still learning.

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        1. Indeed, the body does keep score. I’m still working through stuff when my body shows me I need to.

          I have no idea about my mother’s diagnosis, nor does my brother. She told us if we knew then we’d have her locked up! He told her if the authorities knew of some of the things she did when we were kids, that she’d have been locked up, so maybe her guilty conscience was speaking when she refused to give us her diagnosis. We can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.

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          1. It’s really such a shame, isn’t it, that these things get passed down from generation to generation. You would think they’d know better! I’m glad it stopped with you and your brother. I met a woman whose home life was so abusive, she grew up thinking that was normal. She eventually ran away and was homeless for seven years. Unbelievable. Her redemption story, though, is amazing.

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            1. I’m happy to hear that she got out of that situation. Having internalized it as normal creates a particularly long healing path. Maybe for the rest of her life as she slowly unpack everything that got shoved down.

              I was talking with a friend today and during the Silent Generation’s time, the US government was paying the administrators of mental health institutions to be able to experiment on their inmates. Even the Douglas Hospital in Montreal received these moneys, and it was commonly known in the general population what was going on. What happened then was if anyone was experiencing depression or anxiety they shoved it deep down and did their best to mask ot, just so they wouldn’t be thrown into those places. Of course that only served to exacerbate all existing mental health issues in families. If a man was violent he could go unchecked, because he could punish his wife for speaking up by having her sent away and be tortured.

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            2. This scenario played out in many mental institutions across the USA and Canada, creating a deep fear of mental health doctors or even speaking up when one had needs. People turned to alcohol and drugs even more than before to try to cope. We have som much understanding now and can’t imagine being without the resources we have now, bit life was drastically different then.

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                    1. Too true, unfortunately. There’s still so much work to be done!

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  6. Such an inspiring post that allows for all types of healing! I love this tip, “Please surround yourself with more positive input, and your mind will slowly heal by retraining how you think.” It’s amazing what surrounding ourselves with others that lift us up will do! Thanks, as always, for sharing your journey and tips!

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    1. Thanks so much Wynne! Yes, it’s quite surprising how that switch can start to change so much. It astonished me how much of a difference it made in my life!

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  7. I have known people who healed themselves, those who counted on a therapist, and those whose healing resulted from both. The universe of people who do one or the other is like a Ven diagram. The circumstances, the individual, their intelligence, and their will all play a part.

    There are diagnoses like Dissociative Identity Disorder that I would never suggest anyone should attempt to remedy by themselves. Individuals who blind themselves to their self destructive way of living usually don’t see themselves enough to think they need their own or someone else’s assistance.

    All credit to those, like you, Tamara, who have achieved significant self healing.

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    1. Very true Dr. Stein, there are some mental disorders that cannot be healed through self-help, and I should put in a disclaimer.

      Self-help is a very difficult path, and like you said, being able to be honest with oneself plays a key role, but the personality disorders that keep a person masked from themselves are going to prevent them from benefiting from self guided therapy.

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  8. A very well written post Tamara. It gives courage to others with much help. Even to the point of showing it is do-able and not be afraid by taking those baby steps. It takes as long as anyone wants it to be. And the moment that first step is taken, the balance shifts.
    Some days it may not even feel like it, but trust me, they are very powerful steps. And in the beginning it sometimes feels like nothing is happening, but it is.
    Once I saw and began to understand, I looked back and could see purpose. Not a random wander down some road but a perfect path for who I was. And why others don’t fully understand. Yes they can help, as you are doing so beautifully well on here Tamara. And we will attract that very help simply when we feel it is time to help ourselves.
    Take a bow kind lady, in finding that love within, and now shared 🤗❤️🙏

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    1. Thanks so much Mark! Indeed, those first steps are transformative even when it feels like not much is going on. Rewiring our brains from accepting abuse ase a terrible normal to stepping away from the flame, is huge, because we discover a power within ourselves we never knew we had!

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