How Do You Heal Emotional Pain and Heartbreak? by Psychic Jenna

There are few harder things to cope with than a broken heart or emotional pain. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, coping with a failed marriage, physical or mental abuse, or various other kinds of emotional wounds, coping can feel difficult if not impossible. You may feel stuck, unmotivated, or a prisoner of your own emotions. It can feel like an unending daily struggle, which leaves you feeling fatigued and unfulfilled at the end of your day. However, regardless of how deep it is, where it originated, or how long you have carried it, there IS relief and there ARE methods you can utilize to feel better immediately, heal, and move on.

There’s No “One Size Fits All” for Healing and Coping

It’s important to remember that your path is yours alone. It may resemble other people and their paths or journeys, and you may find inspiration or help from their experiences, but your journey is as unique as you are. Some things that work for others may not work for you, or things that work for you may not work for someone else. How you heal and cope will depend on what motivates you, what brings you comfort, what strengthens you at your core and what brings peace to your heart.

There are a lot of techniques and methods for healing and coping listed within this article, you may utilize all of them, or just one or two. It’s okay to experiment and see what works, and what doesn’t! Keep in mind that the key element involved in healing and moving on is the intention and desire to feel better, heal, and move on to live a happy, fulfilling, and healthy life. As long as that is where your intention, desire, and destination is, there are ways at achieving it!

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Table of Contents

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Have You Been Emotionally Hurt?

Just as there isn’t a “One Size Fits All” when it comes to healing, there isn’t “one size” of emotional pain, or only one kind of emotional trauma. No type of heartbreak is worse than another, and how you respond to it depends on how much the event or the situation impacted you. Here are some examples of things that can cause emotional pain and trauma:

• The loss/death of a loved one
• Physical, mental, or emotional abuse
• The failure of a marriage
• Career failure
• Toxic or Karmic Relationships
• Long term instability
• Financial Disaster or Hardship
• Lack of self-worth, self-value
• Dysfunctional or unhealthy family dynamics

Symptoms of Emotional Trauma

Many symptoms of emotional pain are similar to the stages of grieving. Personality changes, tendencies towards isolation, increased agitation or anxiety, emotional instability, lack of self-care and depression are all indications of emotional pain.  Other symptoms can include:

• Feeling like you’re breaking down on a regular basis
• Difficulty managing or dealing with your emotions
• Angry or sad outbursts
• Feeling a loss of control
• Being risky with certain behaviors
• Acting out of character
• Having repetitive triggering thoughts

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The Impact of Emotional Pain

Emotional pain and trauma go way beyond our feelings and emotions. How we are feeling and doing internally (emotionally) has a direct effect on our physical health, our mental health, and our energetic health. Each part of ourselves – our physical part, our mental part, our emotional part, and our energetic part, all work together synergistically to make up who we are. None of our parts or pieces functions completely independently, so when there is an issue in one area, it tends to affect some if not all the other areas.

Emotional Pain and Emotional Health

When dealing with emotional pain, our emotions are hard enough in and of themselves. Depression, anger, overwhelming sadness and despair, frustration, hopelessness, and loneliness are extremely difficult emotions to manage and cope with. In addition, it’s easy to feel like your emotions are controlling you as opposed to the other way around, causing you to feel moody, have difficulty with being “snippy” or easily irritated, or feeling emotionally unstable altogether. The trauma associated with all those emotions, however, doesn’t only affect that area of your being.

Emotional Pain and Mental Health

You may notice changes mentally when you’re dealing with emotional pain. For example, you may have difficulty concentrating or getting work done. It may be difficult for you to solve complex problems or make decisions that normally don’t require much thought. You may encounter brain fog or difficulty focusing, or feel detached and unaware. Or you may feel overly aware and scattered, unable to control where your thoughts are going. It’s common to also encounter intrusive thoughts or have problems with “spiraling” – in which each negative thought leads to a worse thought, spiraling out of control and furthering your anxiety and distress. You may also experience periods of time where you obsess over the trauma or its cause and have difficulty with pulling your attention towards anything else.

Emotional Pain and Physical Health

When processing and dealing with deep emotional pain, physical issues often present themselves in troubling ways. When experiencing heartache for example, it’s common to feel nausea and experience vomiting, headaches, and fatigue. When under extreme stress or distress, you may experience dizziness, high blood pressure, skin redness, rashes, or even hives, you may feel stomach upset and experience other digestion issues. It’s also not uncommon with any sort of emotional trauma to experience physical pain as a result in one way or another, whether it’s muscle cramps, headaches, or localized pain in a region of the body.

Even if the situation that you’re dealing with is no longer present, emotional pain can remain in your body and cause havoc on your health months, or even years after the incident itself. Your body will literally remember trauma long after it’s left your immediate consciousness. If you’re dealing with long- term stress or long-term emotional trauma, you can experience problems ranging from high blood pressure to diabetes, be at elevated risk for heart attacks, have difficulty with weight gain or loss, experience digestive issues, ulcers, and a multitude of other health complications.

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Emotional Pain and Energetic Health

Your aura is an electromagnetic field that surrounds your body. It is a part of you, just like any organ or limb. Pain that you’re experiencing physically, emotionally, or mentally will show up in your aura. Difficulties emotionally may present themselves as dark colors or “spots” in your aura, or your aura may show more red (pain), black (serious disturbance or problem present), dark brown, or muddy/murky tones. Certain emotional traumas may even create small tears in your aura depending on how severely they’ve affected you and how deeply you’ve been hurt.

If you’re dealing with a great deal of emotional pain, it’s likely that your aura will have been weakened. This can lead to physical fatigue or feelings of lifelessness, and you can become more vulnerable to psychic attacks or negative energies you may encounter. Empaths need to be especially careful when experiencing emotional distress and trauma as they tend to lack strong boundaries and adopt other peoples’ pain and issues. This can only intensify any negative emotions they already feel and complicate the healing process further.

Emotional Pain and Energy Cords

If your trauma relates to a former lover or a family member, it’s likely that you have an energy connection, or an “energy cord” with that person. While energy connections can be beautiful, they can also be troublesome when toxic or difficult situations arise.

Energy cords act as pathways to the energy of the person you’re attached to. If you’re sensitive, or if you’re heavily connected to another person, it’s very difficult to not pick up on aspects of their energy, from their mood, their attitude or how they’re doing to other elements, such as events or intense emotions. Energy connections are often major contributors to intrusive thoughts or feelings, or sudden waves of emotion without matching your thoughts or situation. That is because you’re literally picking up on the energy and the emotions of the person you’re connected to, via your energy connection. When their energy is consumed by heartbreak or loss, you may experience this as your own.

Rushing to Move On

After a loss or heartbreak takes place, the need to move on and move forward can be an intense desire. Coming from a place of extreme hurt, you no longer want to feel the emotions and the pain that accompanies the trauma. However, moving on and healing are not synonymous.

Moving on can occur both before the emotional healing process has finished or during, but it’s advisable to wait before making any huge changes or trying to take any big steps forward. Emotional healing cannot be rushed, and it’s best to take time and treat yourself with patience until you’ve had an opportunity to process it.

It may be tempting to jump into a new relationship right after having your heart broken but distracting your attention from your former partner towards a new partner won’t heal the damage done from your previous relationship, nor will it resolve any of the residual feelings or emotions. Problems from your former relationship may manifest as problems in the new relationship due to lack of emotional healing. For example, you may feel insecure, experience a severe lack of trust, or have difficulty with establishing healthy barriers and boundaries with your new partner.

Moving on, before proper healing has taken place, inevitably leads to more difficulties down the road.

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Coping Behaviors That Don’t Help

There are a lot of challenges that may occur before or during the emotional healing process because of difficulty processing loss, heartbreak, or emotional trauma. Each of these is an example of a negative coping method that brings on more pain than the original trauma or may extend the trauma for longer without helping to alleviate any of the actual pain or address the root problem.

Displacing Emotional Pain and Trauma

One of the most common issues when dealing with emotional pain is the urge to displace your pain onto others. Often, this isn’t a conscious impulse, but rather an emotional response due to a lack of self-reflection and awareness. Displacing your emotions is essentially transferring the negative emotions and pain that you’re feeling to another person or thing. An easy example of this would be if someone stubs their toe on a piece of furniture, and out of anger directs their anger towards the furniture. The furniture is an inanimate object, without consciousness, but in the moment of feeling that pain, the anger is not processed in a healthy manner, and is instead taken out on the furniture. It’s easy to see how this could turn problematic when negative feelings, pain, and anger are displaced onto other people.

Displacing emotions is destructive in two ways. On one hand, it can be destructive to your relationship with the people around you, and harmful to the people themselves. On the other hand, it is harmful because instead of acknowledging the way you’re feeling, working through it, and finding healthy ways of coping with the pain, you’re avoiding dealing with it by taking it out on things or the people around you. This only prolongs or delays the emotional healing process.

Developing Avoidance Tendencies

Emotional pain hurts on a level that’s difficult to compare. Unlike physical pain, emotional trauma is invisible and difficult to treat. Because of this, it’s common for many people to want to avoid dealing with what’s causing the pain or trauma. When you can’t address, work through, and move on from your pain, it will continue to fester and possibly grow.

Often, avoidance tendencies are somewhat conscious. You’re at least somewhat aware of the fact that you’re avoiding dealing with the problem at its core, or that you’re avoiding a person, place, thing, or trigger. But avoidance tendencies aren’t sustainable long term. It’s very difficult to permanently avoid triggers of your emotional trauma. Hiding or avoiding them is the opposite of healing. By avoiding your triggers, you’re providing yourself with short term relief, but unfortunately you may only intensify your reaction to the trigger (the pain, the grief, the anxiety, the depression) when you’re exposed to that trigger or another one later.

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Reliance on Alcohol or Drugs

A common avoidance tendency for individuals who are dealing with emotional pain is the misuse of alcohol or drugs. Alcohol, when used as a coping mechanism, is an extremely harmful substance. In moderation, and for recreation or specific purposes, alcohol is perfectly fine and, for most adults, not an unhealthy activity. However, it’s often consumed in excess when emotional trauma is present and can worsen symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, and hopelessness.

Alcohol does not help you “deal with” your loss or heartbreak. Neither alcohol (nor drugs) helps you to heal or even cope with your trauma; they only delay healing and can cause more harm long term. Alcohol and drugs enable you to “numb” yourself and your emotions for a short period of time, but any relief will be short lived, and unfortunately when coming off the drug or alcohol, your negative feelings are often intensified substantially. For example, if you’ve been drinking heavily to avoid dealing with the pain of a loss of a loved one, the pain will occur at a much stronger severity once you stop abusing alcohol. While stopping is important and essential towards moving on and healing, the pain that you experience can be intensified because of the neurological and physiological effects of the alcohol leaving your body.

Drugs, like alcohol, are often highly addictive not only chemically, but mentally and emotionally as well. While certain drugs may either stimulate you or relax you, just as with alcohol, the drugs are not helping you to heal or move on from your emotional pain; they are delaying and preventing healing from occurring. If you cannot experience, confront, or work through emotional pain, then you cannot heal from it.

Promiscuity and Rebounding

For many who have experienced heartbreak romantically, have dealt with abuse in relationships, or have been through a traumatic toxic partnership, it’s common to seek relief in the arms of a new partner or in a new romantic encounter. Whether it’s rebounding (moving quickly into another relationship) or seeking casual sex or promiscuity, often the hurt at the source of that action is not being addressed. There are a lot of psychological and emotional effects from sexual encounters, and when sex or the affection of another person is used as a distraction from emotional trauma, it can unfortunately intensify that trauma and bring lots of complications emotionally, mentally, and in other ways.

Often, if you’re finding yourself trying to “get back out there” too quickly after a relationship ends or after being hurt, what you’re seeking is approval, affection, stability and relief from the pain of the rejection or trauma you experienced with another person. However, getting the approval, desire, or affection of one person does NOT replace the connection you had with another person, so usually any attempts in this way will be unsuccessful in helping you to successfully heal or move on. Again, you are only avoiding and prolonging your emotional pain instead of addressing it.

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Repeating Patterns

When we don’t thoroughly address our emotional traumas, we often feel a victim to the things that happen around us, and a prisoner of our own emotions. Because we are still hurting but not healing and moving forward in a healthy direction, it’s easy to fall into patterns of making bad decisions that keep us locked in a vicious cycle.

For example, you may have had your trust broken by an unfaithful partner, thus have difficulty with trust in relationships moving forward. If you were unable to process and heal your heartbreak, your ability to trust is damaged and nothing your new partner can do can help with that until YOU heal. From the outside looking in, it’s easy to see how this can impact future relationships because of the hurt you’re carrying from a previous experience. But from the inside, it might look as if you keep finding untrustworthy partners and having your heart broken. You may begin to think there’s something wrong with the way you pick partners or that all partners cheat on you. If you do not address the emotional pain at its source wound, you will continue to experience the same problems over and over moving forward.

Social Isolation

When you’re feeling emotionally hurt, it’s common to feel vulnerable, lethargic, depressed, and completely devoid of motivation. Many people feel a tendency to isolate themselves because of the pain they’re experiencing. They may not feel motivated to participate in regular social activities or may long for solitude due to anxiety or depression. While some isolation can be beneficial in the short term, complete isolation or prolonged isolation are both very unhelpful and even somewhat harmful coping methods.

When healing, it’s important to rely on others and maintain friendships and familial relationships. Communication and interaction with others are vital to our overall health both when we’re dealing with trauma or emotional pain, and not. We pick up on energies from our communities and the people we encounter and spend time with. When we surround ourselves with helpful, loving, and supportive people, our energy can be uplifted simply by encountering these individuals and picking up on their energy. When you go into new environments you WILL pick up and encounter energies that are different than yours. However, when you withdraw and isolate yourself, you’re cutting off a good portion of the higher-vibrational collective energies that you can benefit from.

In addition, too much isolation can cause a multitude of emotional and mental difficulties, ranging from severe depression and anxiety to difficulty moving on, stalled success, and overall feelings of hopelessness. Isolation breeds loneliness, and it’s easy to get stuck in a cycle of not wanting to leave your home or any “safe spaces”, but also feeling unfulfilled and lonesome.

Over Processing and Dwelling

Heartbreak, grief, and other kinds of emotional pain are extremely difficult to deal with. Often, we replay the same situations over and over in our heads or will continuously dwell on negative things we’ve been through. If you’re dealing with romantic loss or grief, you may continuously think of the person you’ve lost or the failure of the relationship. It may seem impossible to move forward from whatever happened, because you are constantly reminding yourself of the person, or the situation.

Processing emotional wounds and traumatic events is absolutely necessary when it comes to self-reflection and healing. However, over-processing is NOT helpful or conducive to healing, and keeps you trapped in the same emotions over and over. Unfortunately, when you ruminate, by continuously replaying the event, you’re not allowing yourself to move on from it, and it will consistently feel like it just occurred, even if it’s weeks or months after it happened. It can even magnify the original trauma and make it feel even worse.

Similarly, when you over-process with regard to a person, such as a former lover or a romantic interest, you’re adding energy to the existing energy connection you have with that person. The thoughts you have, as well as the emotions you feel, maintain your connection. If you add MORE energy and MORE thought to that connection, it continues to feed that connection with the other person. If you’re empathic or sensitive, you’ll continue to pick up on energy from that person or continue to deal with intrusive thoughts and have a much harder time separating and moving on.

Impacts on Other Areas

When we feel down, depressed, or are harboring deep emotional pain, the LAST thing most of us want to do is get up and go to work, or proceed with our normal daily lives. It can feel almost impossible to get out of bed and confront all the people and situations you normally encounter. You may be dealing with a heartache that is manifesting itself physically (such as causing nausea or digestive issues) and causes you to isolate, or you may self-isolate to cope with the emotional pain. However, because of this, OTHER areas of your life often suffer. Your relationships with your family or others may be limited or become strained, you may notice your work performance or attendance slipping, or you may show a decline in progress in school.

If you’re having trouble keeping up with your responsibilities in other areas, it can cause further harm to your life in major ways. You may lose your job, encounter severe financial difficulties, experience a loss of overall stability, or a multitude of other problems.

Continuing to participate in daily activities and maintain regular responsibilities is essential for healing from emotional trauma. However, as you find ways of coping and working through the pain, the difficulties you have with managing your emotions, managing your energy, and persevering become much easier.

When something occurs that causes intense emotional pain, it often takes a combination of time, awareness, effort, and reprieve for healing to take place. Unfortunately, just like with physical wounds, emotional wounds will require patience during the healing process. However, you can learn healthy ways to COPE so that the pain that you deal with is less severe, less overwhelming, and easier to handle during the emotional healing process.

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Coping Mechanisms That Do Help

Coping and emotional healing are very similar in a lot of ways, but different in that healing indicates improvement in all areas of your energy, while coping is more about managing the difficult emotions and situations you’re dealing with in the moment. Finding healthy coping methods is incredibly helpful during the healing process because healing takes patience, effort, and most importantly, time. However, it’s also important to feel better sooner, rather than later. These coping skills are healthy ways for you to manage the lower vibrational energy that you’re carrying, and help transmute it into healing, useful, and positive energy.

Choose Healthy Distractions

Probably one of the best options for dealing with intrusive thoughts or feelings is mental distraction. Distracting your mental energy from over-processing and consistently facing lower-vibrational emotions is relatively easy to do, and is extremely helpful at quickly resetting your energy, and helping to prevent you from “spiraling” or dwelling on negative or painful thoughts. The best thing about using mental distraction methods is that you can prepare them for when you need them!

Some of the best mental distractions you can use are things that gently stimulate your mind and require focus. Puzzles, word games, and other activities that cause you to focus but are not strenuous are fantastic options. Try to pick something that you can have readily available, either close by or on your phone, so that you can employ it whenever you need it.

If games and puzzles are not your thing, audiobooks and articles are great for quickly distracting your energy. Audiobooks are particularly helpful, because it can be somewhat hard to ignore someone actively reading to you, and it can be easy to get lost in a story or something you’re interested in. Short articles or news stories can also be helpful in quickly redirecting your attention away from your trauma.

While not necessarily a distraction tool, another method you can use to replace intrusive thoughts and sudden unwanted emotions is to have “ready thoughts”, similar to affirmations, and to replace any negative thoughts that come up with ones that you’ve prepared. For example, if you’re starting to feel a longing for an ex who mistreated you, you can replace that thought with “I am whole as a person, and I am limitless in my abilities. I can achieve anything I desire, and I am worthy of infinite love and affection.” Distracting and actively replacing negative thoughts is especially helpful for those who have a habit of self-abuse or talking down to themselves. If you have problems with calling yourself names, or talking badly to yourself about yourself, this is a fantastic option for resolving that negative pattern.

When using mental distraction, you should only have to distract yourself for about 5-10 minutes before feeling relief. This technique obviously shouldn’t be used constantly, as some processing is necessary for healing to occur. But if you have problems with over-processing, dwelling on past events, or finding yourself reliving the same feelings over and over, distraction can help reset your thought processes and help actively train your brain away from consistently revisiting your pain and trauma unnecessarily.

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Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is essentially being fully aware of yourself, your present situation, and your environment. It is not being overly aware or anxious, and not overly reactive. It’s acting with patience and thought, giving effort but taking your time, and not rushing through things or trying to multitask. It’s also considered a state of mind where you you’re able to view things and experience emotions from an objective point of view. When you bring your thoughts and awareness to your present senses, you are bringing yourself into a state of mindfulness.

When practicing mindfulness, you’re actively controlling and managing your thought processes. When negative or emotionally painful thoughts or feelings arise, acknowledge them, but try to replace them with a positive affirmation or a positive image. If necessary, allow yourself a moment to feel the pain associated with the thought or feeling, and then allow it to pass.

A big part of being mindful in your daily life is controlling where your thoughts go, and where your daydreams take you. If you’re consistently allowing your thoughts to run rampant, it’s likely that they’ll return repeatedly to things that brought you pain or caused you trauma. If you allow those thoughts to fester, you’re not allowing yourself to heal and you’re not taking control of your energy. Be mindful and be aware of what you’re thinking and the thoughts you’re allowing to exist in your head. If the thoughts you have are negative towards yourself or self-abusive, replace them with affirmations of self-love and acceptance. If the thoughts you have are memories associated with your trauma, remind yourself of your goals, and what you are moving forward and want to achieve.

A great technique for helping to instill mindfulness in any given moment (as well as being amazing for reducing immediate stress) is to try or practice the “5,4,3,2,1” grounding technique. Easy to perform in any environment, look around and locate 5 things that you can see. It can be anything but locate 5 different objects or items that you can see. Then, find 4 things that you can touch or feel. Once you have identified 4 things that you can currently feel or touch, listen for 3 things you can hear. Once you’ve identified 3 things that you can hear, try to see if there are two different things that you can smell, or if there are two smells you can identify around you. Once you’ve identified 2 smells, acknowledge one taste that you can sense right now. Once you’ve acknowledged one taste, you’ve successfully completed the exercise, and should feel a sense of relief from immediate anxiety and be in a better state of mindfulness.

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Develop Breathing Techniques

Breathing techniques are phenomenal for helping to control anxiety and reduce stress. Often, when we get stressed or upset, our breathing unintentionally becomes short and fast. This can cause you to not get enough oxygen to the brain and the body and cause an increase in anxiety you’re already experiencing. To help relieve immediate stress and overwhelming anxiety, something that you can utilize are breathing techniques, like Square Breathing or Box Breathing, a powerful technique that is taught to Navy Seals in the United States for helping maintain focus and control in highly intense situations. This breathing technique helps slow anxiety and mental processes, and helps you regain focus and control.

Take a deep breath in, and as you breath in, silently count “1…. 2….. 3…. 4…..” slowly and as evenly as possible. Once you reach 4, hold your breath, and again, silently, slowly, and evenly count to 4. Once you’ve reached 4 again, slowly breath out, counting slowly to 4. At 4, hold your breath and silently count to 4 again. Repeat the exercise 4 times from the beginning until your anxiety or stress is reduced.

Not only does this technique help you slow your breathing when you’re becoming emotionally flooded, it will also help bring focus and mindfulness, improving your overall wellbeing and health.

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Get Outside – Keep Focused and Active

Getting outside is extremely important for coping and healing and has various health benefits. On an energetic level, getting out and into different environments can help by exposing you to other energies and helping you take advantage of collective positive energy. Additionally, if you’re able to get out in nature, connecting with nature can have wonderful benefits for releasing negativity and rejuvenating your energy.

Keeping physically active is helpful for health benefits and the hormones it causes your brain to release. When you exercise or are physically active, your brain amps up the production of endorphins, which are your body’s “feel good” hormones. Endorphins help to relieve emotional and physical pain, relieve stress, and improve your overall mood.

Not only is getting outside and out of your home environment (and out of isolation) important but keeping focused and active is essential to your mental and emotional wellbeing.  When you’re feeling depressed or processing emotional pain, it can feel like nothing is fun or pleasurable anymore. It can be exhausting trying to think of activities to do. Try to keep a list of activities you enjoy, both within your home and outside your home, ready and available always. Try to schedule time for yourself to participate in at least one 30-to-60-minute enjoyable activity every day specifically for yourself.

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What is Emotional Healing?

Moving on is something most people want to do after a difficult breakup, a bad or toxic relationship or marriage, or after a traumatic incident or event. However, it can feel impossible when you’re struggling with emotional pain and trauma. We’ve examined some unhealthy coping mechanisms and some healthy ones; let’s turn now to strategies that can move you beyond simply surviving, to healing and ultimately, to thriving.

But first, let’s look at the essential elements of the emotional healing process.

Gaining Insight and Clarity

When trying to move on from any emotional trauma, a part of the process involves “processing.” Processing from emotional trauma means taking the time to think through your pain and really dive deep into your feelings. While this is a mental and conscious part of the healing process, it is vital for understanding why you REALLY feel the way you do, other than the obvious emotions that may be present.

For example, you may feel extremely depressed following the dissolution of an unhappy marriage. The obvious emotions you may be feeling are regret, depression, anxiety, remorse, and hopeless that you’ll find anyone like your former partner or have a successful relationship again. However, these emotions may not be “honest” – or as straightforward as they look. If you dive deeper into those emotions, it may become clear that you were unhappy with the relationship for a long time or unhappy with your partner and their actions, and the heartbreak you are feeling is the result of feeling lonely and isolated because of the separation. You may be feeling regret and remorse for your part of the break-up, however, you may not be fully seeing the whole situation and why your actions or theirs may have been justified, or why the relationship was unhealthy in the first place.

By evaluating each emotion that you’re feeling and asking “Why do I feel this way?” – and continuing to evaluate it with an analytical mindset, you’ll find a lot of truth to why you truly feel the way you feel, and it can clue you in as far as methods to adopt to help you feel better, knowing what the REAL cause of your emotions is. Understanding yourself and understanding the emotions you’re feeling and where they are coming from is key to healing from your pain.

With each emotion that you feel, and each painful loss, try to look at them objectively, removing your own thoughts and feelings from the situation. This may not come naturally and may feel very difficult, but the more you try to look at things from an outside point of view, the more you’ll gain a complete understanding of what you’ve been through and what is going on, how you’re feeling, and how best to proceed. (Gaining this level of clarity is one of the main benefits of a psychic love reading.)

There is big difference between analytically thinking through a traumatic experience, relationship, or situation, evaluating how we feel, and then moving on with our day, verses going through the same traumatic experience mentally over and repeatedly. If you’re dwelling on your hurt or negative emotions, try to set a time limit for thinking about your loss, and then move on to another activity. Incorporating a distraction method or intentionally redirecting your focus can help you find balance, so that your processing doesn’t turn into over-processing and ruminating.

Healthy processing takes time, so it’s important to be gentle with yourself during the process. You may find that you’ve developed triggers as the result of the trauma, and your response to the triggers can clue you in a great deal as to why you feel the way you do. You may notice that feelings such as insecurity or feelings of fear are the predominant driving emotions behind your reactions to triggers, or you may discover that you’re mourning the loss of relationship stability, or that you crave physical affection or affirmations of love rather than missing your former partner or that relationship. With each step, knowing more about why you feel the way you do can be incredibly helpful towards finding methods for moving forward based on the information you now know.

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Setting an Intention and Taking Responsibility

One of the keys to being able to move forward from a trauma is having the desire and intention to move on. If your desire to move on is more surface level, but underneath that you’re harboring feelings related to your trauma such as wanting to continue or re-enter a karmic or toxic relationship or wanting to change the reality of your situation when it isn’t possible, you won’t be able to actually move on, because your TRUE intentions are the deeper feelings you’re harboring and not working through. You can’t fake your intentions or force them to be something they are not. By processing and working through those emotions, by accepting reality and making goals, you CAN move on from your emotional pain, but it must be what you truly want, not just a surface level desire.

A big part of the healing process when it comes to healing from things such as difficult or toxic relationships (whether familial or romantic) is to take responsibility for yourself and your own actions. While it really depends on the situation and the person, if you’re able to look at yourself objectively and see your own actions from an outside point of view, you have the advantage of clarity and can use that to help accept the situation, forgive yourself if necessary, and move on.

Most people have difficulty with responsibility to some degree or another, and there’s no shame in admitting if it may be hard for you. A lot of times, we take an active part in the negative situations and negative relationships we encounter. Rarely is it ever completely one person’s fault when a relationship ends, or when there is a falling out within a family. Oftentimes there may be a lesson beneath the situation, such as learning how to respond moving forward or how to resolve situations in a more peaceful or accepting manner. However, until you can see how you may have contributed to the problem, you will have difficulty with fully healing and moving on.

Rarely are we completely unaware of pain or hurt we have caused. Whether consciously or subconsciously, we are generally aware when our actions are inappropriate or are “wrong” in some way. If you’re not able to look at your own actions and acknowledge any part you have in the pain that you’re experiencing, the more you’ll delay feeling better since you’re not getting to the root of the pain.

Taking responsibility doesn’t sound fun or helpful, but it’s incredibly freeing and healthy. When you take responsibility, it doesn’t mean that you must act or do anything (you may, but it depends on your situation). However, if you take responsibility for your own actions, you are reaching a state of acceptance that is necessary for deep, emotional healing to take place. Looking at your own actions and taking personal responsibility for the choices you’ve made, and the position you’re in now, and where you are in life now is helpful towards shaping your decisions and your actions moving forward. As well, taking responsibility for your own actions (mentally) and accepting your part in things can help when it comes to manifesting the things you do want, and knowing what traits or behaviors you would like to leave behind.

Again, it’s important to be gentle with yourself throughout this process and to not mistake blaming yourself for taking responsibility for your actions and decisions. For example, you may have been responsible for saying unkind things during an argument, but that doesn’t make you responsible for the entire argument. Your actions are not justifications for OTHER peoples’ actions, so you can never “force” someone to act or behave in a certain way. The only thing you can truly control is yourself and your energy, and how you act and how you behave. That is what you are responsible for, not for other people and how they react to you, or their actions.

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Mastering Your Triggers

Triggers are anything that can bring on an emotional response as the result of an emotional trauma, such as reminding you of a former lover you’re still attached to or reminding you of a painful time in your life. You may have triggers regarding abuse or manipulation, or triggers such as inanimate objects or items that simply remind you of a specific memory. When you experience an emotional trauma, it’s best to intentionally avoid your triggers in the short term. However, long term, avoidance strategies get in the way of emotional healing.

There is no denying that triggers can be extremely hard to deal with. But, if your heartbreak or loss isn’t recent, and if your triggers are easily found environments you may encounter regularly, you must find a way of coping and healing from them. One reason that healing from triggers is so important is that other people may not be aware of your loss and avoiding things that trigger negative and painful memories forever is unrealistic. Triggers are a part of your experience, so as you heal from your triggers, you’re healing your deeper traumas and managing your response to them.

There are many proven techniques for calming anxiety and panic attacks brought on by triggers. One very effective way of dealing with triggers is to slowly expose yourself to them over time. It’s best start this practice mentally, such as visualizing situations where you may encounter that trigger and having to move past it and deal with it. Once you’re comfortable with the mental visualization of handling it, then try handling it in real life, and exposing yourself to that trigger in your real life. Over time, with reassurance, exposure, and practice, you should be able to reach a point where triggers no longer bother you, nor remind you of the trauma.

Preparing yourself and helping yourself to move past those triggers can give you power over the pain and allow you to have control, not your emotions.

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Dealing with Setbacks

As with ANY kind of healing, progress takes time and there can be setbacks. Setbacks are a fact of life but it can be disappointing and demotivating when they occur. Practicing forgiveness and compassion for yourself can be helpful when dealing with things that stall your progress.

Setbacks can range from making the same mistake over again, falling back into an old habit or pattern, making a mistake that prolongs your emotional trauma, or a multitude of other things. Remember to forgive yourself and move on at any time that you experience a setback. You are not without flaws and your purpose throughout this life is to grow from the experiences you have, and learn from the mistakes you make, not to be perfect from birth. When you experience a setback of any kind or make a mistake that halts or delays your progress in moving on, approach yourself with gentleness and compassion just as you would with any friend struggling with their journey.

If you encounter a setback, remember that it is temporary. Whatever the mistake or the issue you have encountered, you’re not stuck, and you will not have to deal with this pain forever. Don’t beat yourself up over it! Get back on track and continue your emotional healing. A helpful visualization you can use is to visualize yourself and your energy as water flowing down a river, gently flowing over all the rocks and stones and through all the weeds and any debris. As water, you may encounter large obstacles to your path, but if you cannot go over them, go around them, or go under them, but if you are flowing and moving forward, those obstacles will never stop you.

Along with accepting setbacks and roadblocks to your progress, setting reasonable goals is extremely important. If your goals are far reaching or difficult to achieve even under normal situations, then you may be asking too much of yourself. Try to avoid giving yourself time frames for healing. You will FEEL when you are making progress, so make sure to be patient and allow yourself time throughout the process.

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Understanding What Closure Is and Isn’t

Closure is a feeling of peace that comes from acceptance of your situation and the finality of it. It is the same as when you “close a chapter” of your life and move on, with little regrets. However, “Closure” looks different depending on the person.

Many times, it’s in reference to feeling resolution from a deep or toxic relationship. Many people feel that they will only get “closure” based on the actions of the other person in the relationship. For example, you may feel that you cannot move on until you see or speak to the person one more time. You may feel that you won’t get closure until they apologize or say something you’re wanting to hear.

Unfortunately, the only thing that we can control at any given time is ourselves, our own energy, and our own actions. You can control how you react to other people, but not how they react to you, or how they treat you. While we would LIKE to get apologies, or while we would LIKE an explanation for things to make us feel better, we cannot force them to give us those things, nor can we influence them in a strong enough degree to obtain it. Consider, also, that the apology, explanation, or whatever you’re seeking from the other person may not be enough to give you “closure”, as closure comes from complete acceptance of your situation, NOT from something exterior or something another person does. Closure is YOUR acceptance and your peace, and it is your understanding that this is time to move on.

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Embracing Acceptance Versus Resignation

Accepting your situation as it is very important when it comes to healing and moving on from any heartbreak. If you’re holding out hope for a connection that is over and will not be revived, it only prologues the pain and trauma. Similarly, if you’re hoping for a resolution that may never come, or an unrealistic outcome, then you are holding onto energy that serves you no purpose, and only holds you back from your own life.

The saying “It is what it is” is a statement that indicates acceptance of a situation, but often it is with a feeling of resignation.  It doesn’t have to be a negative. Accepting the reality to a situation is key to knowing how to handle it and move forward. If you cannot accept reality the way it is, you cannot move forward because you’re holding onto false hope.

The Serenity Prayer is used by those suffering from addiction and those who have trouble with letting go. Regardless of your faith or belief system (or lack thereof) it is a useful prayer or affirmation you can use to help promote acceptance within yourself. “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” You can ask this of your higher power, of your higher self, or of Divine Universal Energy, or whatever deity or God you follow.

When you fully accept your situation the way it is, you’re able to better see what options you have as far as choices, paths, and options you have available to pursue, instead of reserving your energy for an opportunity that may never or will never come about. We rarely, if ever, have only one option for moving forward, so seeing your situation clearly can help with illuminating opportunities you may not have been aware of previously, or bringing your attention to new directions or openings that ARE available to you, as opposed to pathways that are not.

Understanding and accepting your situation and things the way they are does not change reality, it only opens your eyes to your real opportunities within reality.

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4 Powerful Emotional Healing Meditations for Transforming Trauma into Healing

How to Do a Cord Cutting Meditation

Energy connections are formed between most people that we encounter on a regular basis or have some sort of relationship with (emotional and mental connections, physical or sexual attraction, etc.). Oftentimes, when we have close relationships, regardless of the type, and those relationships come to an end, the energetic connection we have with that person still exists. When energetic cords become toxic, they prolong your heartbreak and postpone your healing.

Energy cords dissipate with time and with lack of energy. Thus, the less you communicate with the person you’re connected to, the less you think of them, and the less you feel for them, the smaller that connection becomes, until it fully severs. You can strengthen energy cords or energy connections unintentionally by feeding them – dwelling on your emotional pain connected to that person, continuously reliving the same situations repeatedly in your mind, and consistently thinking about what the other person is doing, or how they are doing. Thoughts ARE things, and they have a very real impact on the world around us, and the connections we have with others. If you remove your attention, your thoughts, your emotions, and your energy from the connection, you will be able to successfully diminish and ultimately dissolve your connection. To be clear, you are not removing any future opportunities that could possibly emerge later, you are dissolving any current energetic connections you have with that person.

You can also utilize a cord cutting visualization to help your emotional healing process. This visualization is fantastic for setting your intention to disconnect fully from another person and for energetically creating more boundaries between you.

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How to do a Sacred Space Meditation

When you’re working though your emotional pain, it’s often not possible to change your environment, avoid all triggers, or stay in your home or room. A method you can use to help with finding a place to grow and heal is to mentally create a “sacred space.”  This is a place you can escape to whenever you’re overwhelmed, feeling high anxiety or intense stress, or times when you’re having difficulty controlling strong negative emotions. It works by reducing your stress, focusing your mental energy, and helping create a mental place of calm and serenity.

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How To Create an Emotional Emergency Kit

Everyone has good days and bad days, and great moods and terrible moods. Unfortunately, you’re likely to fluctuate between quite a few highs and lows when you’re coping with or healing from emotional pain. No matter how low or how high you feel, your fluctuations are temporary. Because of this, it’s good to take advantage of your motivated, positive energy when you have it available, and to prepare for when your emotion DOES change, and your vibration lowers again. One way to do this is by creating a metaphorical “Emergency Kit” for bad days and keeping it nearby for when you need it.

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How and When to Do a Locked Box Meditation

Meditation can be extremely helpful for healing emotional pain and coping with trauma. Meditation helps to slow thought processes and brain waves and helps open our energy to messages and information from our higher selves and intuition. Meditation also helps us to understand our situations more clearly and gives us insight that we would otherwise not have. It opens our eyes to energies beyond ourselves, and energies that exist within ourselves that we may not be aware of.

You can utilize specific meditations to help advance your healing progress. Here is a meditation specifically designed for helping you to release negative energy and emotional trauma. Feel free to make any changes to this meditation to fit your preference and needs. It’s best to start this meditation by taking a few minutes to prepare and get into a light state of meditation before beginning the visualization. Make sure your body is relaxed and feels heavy, and that your mind is clear and ready to begin.

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Ongoing Practices That Support Emotional and Spiritual Healing

When you’ve gone through a difficult situation, your energy is already thrown off to a significant degree. You may be feeling all over the place emotionally, you may find it difficult to manage or control your feelings, and you may feel extreme highs and lows when processing and working through the healing process. It’s important to remember that most emotions will not be consistent or permanent. The way you feel at any given time WILL change and the likelihood that you will feel opposite feelings to what you are encountering now is high.

Take your time to process and heal before making any life changing or major decisions. Remember that everything can be an opportunity for healing. Be patient and gentle with yourself but keep your focus on healing.  Try to adopt some of these practices which will support your healing process.

Create a Vision for What You Want to Manifest

The Law of Attraction is a wonderful tool to use for healing. One way to use manifestation regarding emotional trauma is to envision a version of you, in the near future, where you’re completely healthy and healed from your pain. Where you are confident, self-assured and know your worth and value. You can also envision a life where you are not reminded nor affected by the heartbreak you feel now, and where you are happy, healthy, and successful.

Feeling and envisioning how that will feel can be extremely difficult due to how you’re feeling currently, so you may start with a visualization to release negative energy. Try to remember things that you’re grateful for, as gratitude is a key element of manifestation. The more you visualize and focus on the feelings of what you want, the more likely it is that the right people, circumstances, and opportunities will be attracted to you.

You may find it helpful to create a vision board out of pictures, quotes, specific words, and various things that remind you of you desire. You can also make a photo collection on your phone or tablet that is your “vision board” and save images related to your goals, desires, and intentions in there.

Another way you can use manifestation for healing from emotional pain is to start a manifestation journal.  Begin by asking yourself, what does moving-on mean to you? When you have moved on, what do you want your life look to look like? Take the time to write down things in in a manifestation journal that you would like to accomplish, or things that you would like to attract into your life, or the things you would like to improve and change for the better. The more you can identify where you want to be and what you want to do, the better you can manifest it.

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Repeat Positive Affirmations

Affirmations are also wonderful tools when used in combination with manifestation, and do wonders for helping to improve mood and instill motivation and inner strength. Affirmations work in multiple ways: Mentally, they can be used to replace negative or painful thoughts and help retrain your brain. Energetically, they can help with manifesting the energy you’re affirming. Affirmations are clearly stating your intention, which actively helps to draw abundance. Emotionally, positive affirmations are wonderful for restoring peace, reminding ourselves of who we really are, and keeping us focused on our path and moving forward on our journey.

Examples of affirmations you can use for healing and moving on from emotional trauma include:

“I love myself”

“I love who I am and am grateful for all the blessings in my life.”

“I am limitless in my potential. I can achieve anything I desire.”

“My energy is healing and is doing so even now.”

“I am free of the things that hold me back from my full potential.”

“I am healed by the energy I receive in abundance from the Universe.”

“I am healing from the pain I’ve encountered. I will be restored.”

“I attract love and happiness at all times into my life.”

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Take Good Care of Yourself

When you’re dealing with severe emotional distress, taking care of yourself tends to be put on hold. Things like showering daily, eating healthy, and getting exercise are the last things you may want to do, and it can feel like a struggle to even crawl out of bed in the morning. However, by taking care of our physical health and our physical body, and treating any physical symptoms of our emotional pain, we can help our overall healing and feel better faster.

It’s highly likely that if you’re processing emotional pain, you’re feeling it physically in some form, whether it’s nausea, digestive issues, headaches, fatigue, or any other kind of physical ailment. Try to take care of the physical symptoms alongside the emotions you’re feeling, in tandem. By taking care of your physical health, you are helping alleviate that emotional pain at the same time.

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Take Control of the Media You Consume

Be careful of what you’re consuming when watching tv, browsing social media or the internet, or listening to music. Does what you watch or what you feed yourself make you feel better, or worse? When we are emotionally impacted by trauma or feel emotional pain, we are more vulnerable to negative messages and energies than normal, which is also why it can feel as though you’re easily triggered at times. Try to make sure that the content that you view, whether it’s on tv or online, is supportive of you and your journey. Make sure that it doesn’t evoke negative emotions, such as jealousy, anger, resentment, insecurity, or any other low-vibrational emotions.

A great way of taking control of what you’re consuming, music wise, is to create a playlist specifically for healing, personal empowerment and moving on. Fill the playlist with music that makes you feel energetic, that makes you want to move or dance, music that makes you feel powerful, indestructible, and strong. Whenever you’re noticing your emotional health deteriorating during your day, try to take time to listen to your playlist and give yourself an opportunity to rise above the emotion.

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Identify Unhealthy Patterns

Just like it’s easy to develop bad habits when you’re dealing with emotional pain and trauma, when healing, it’s a good idea to take this opportunity to break any bad habits or patterns that may be causing additional pain in your life!

You’re likely aware if you have any bad habits but try to look beyond surface level habits to deeper patterns you may have developed. Do you have any unhealthy coping mechanisms you need to replace? Do you have any tendencies that contribute to how you got to where you are? Look at patterns you may have developed regarding romantic partners, how you treat them or view them, or how you view or treat/prioritize your relationships in general. Perhaps you have a pattern in the kind of partners you choose, or the individuals you’re attracted to that is unhealthy or negative. The more you look at your own behavior and see if there are patterns, the more you’ll likely find things that you have it in your full ability to change and improve.

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Create a Positive Environment

Your environment has a huge impact on your emotional and mental wellbeing. What you’re surrounded with and what you encounter daily has a large impact on how you feel in general and about yourself. When you’re going through emotional difficulties, it can be tempting to dive into materials that support or vibrate with the same energy. For example, if you’re depressed, heartbroken and lonely, you may feel compelled to listen to songs about breakups, longing, or that have more emotionally charged messages, or watch movies that match that same mood. While that can be healthy for getting out pent-up emotions, surrounding yourself with things that keep you reliving memories, cause you to dwell in your sadness, or things that keep you at your same vibration are not helpful towards healing and will stall your progress.

An easy place to start is to look at your living environment and see if there are things that trigger emotional responses or negative feelings and remove those things if possible. If, for example, you have photos of you and your ex displayed around your apartment, it is of no help to you to keep those memories around and to keep that vibration stagnant. Remove things that do not bring you happiness or peace, or things that trigger you in any negative way.

Replace or add things to your environment that solidify your intentions and your goals, and that fortify your emotional strength. For example, display things that make you happy and spark joy, or that have deeper personal meaning towards you. If you’re newly single after having been in a relationship, this is a wonderful time to really make your space “yours”. Try to personalize your environment to fit things that lift you up and restore the happier, healthy parts of your personality.

Discover Yourself Again

If your trauma involves moving on from a broken relationship, this may be a wonderful time for you to re-discover yourself. When you’re in a relationship, it’s common to forget aspects about your personality or who you are, and it can be easy to get pieces of your individuality lost within the partnership. Because most people focus on their partners more than themselves in relationships, you may have given up or stopped participating in activities you formerly enjoyed. This is the perfect time to re-engage in any activities or projects you used to enjoy or may want to take up again.

This is also a wonderful opportunity for you to pursue passions that you didn’t have time for before! Often, when we are involved in relationships, it’s difficult to take the time out of our schedules for learning how to do the things we want to do or try certain new activities. If you’re freshly single, this is the perfect time to dive back into learning new and exciting skills or try a new sport or activity!

Creative expression is a wonderful outlet for heartbreak and helpful in healing, which is why it’s encouraged heavily in therapy. Finding creative outlets can be helpful in allowing your energy to express deeper emotions that don’t necessarily have words that can describe it. As well, creative energy helps stimulate your third chakra, which is responsible for motivation and happy, positive energy, and linked to your sense of self and who you are. Strengthening and stimulating this chakra can be very beneficial towards coping and feeling empowered during the healing process.

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Have Patience

Unfortunately, we are not fully in control of our healing process. Time may not heal ALL things, but it does give us perspective and helps us to learn to cope. Patience is very important because healing from emotional trauma ISN’T easy. Dealing with it, processing through it, accepting it, and healing from it is NOT an easy task and it hurts. However, if you have reasonable goals, have plans for managing your emotions, and have methods for coping, you’ll find that healing will come faster than you likely anticipated if your goals are completely based on your own progression forward. Nothing can speed up the healing process, but you do have ways of coping in the meantime.

Forgive Yourself and Others

One of the hardest parts of the healing process is holding on to blame. Sometimes the blame we harbor towards those who have hurt us pales in comparison to the blame we level at ourselves. It’s often easier to forgive others than to forgive ourselves, but when we can move from blame to a place of compassion and forgiveness, we elevate our vibration and connect with the universal oneness.

Seek Out Supportive Individuals

Many people prefer to suffer in solitude. Emotional pain is difficult enough to deal with, and sometimes the idea of being around other people sounds exhausting and overwhelming. However, it’s important to maintain healthy and supportive connections while you’re dealing with emotional pain or loss. Reaching out to close friends and family for advice, to vent, or simply for comfort can be extremely helpful in managing your emotions and keeping lower-vibrational energies at bay.

Beware of emotionally dumping on people around you when spending time with others. It’s easy to get swept away with your emotions when you’re processing through something that’s happened or something that affects you deeply but overwhelming those around you with your emotional trauma won’t help anyone. Express yourself to those around you, and let them know how you’re doing and feeling, but don’t rely on them as your ONLY system for support.

Part of healing emotionally is also letting go of relationships and connections with people that are toxic, unhealthy, or that lower our vibration. It may be a good time to re-evaluate who you’re spending time with. Your friends and family should support you in your healing and help bring clarity and peace, as opposed to any anxiety or further trauma.

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Get Help

Sometimes dealing with our problems and our emotional difficulties alone isn’t enough. Sometimes our feelings and emotions are too strong, and we have difficulty finding clarity, understanding what’s going on or why we can’t move on, and have difficulty having any semblance of peace. It can become hard to separate yourself from negative thoughts and feelings regardless of what methods or techniques you try. When all else fails, it’s a great idea to seek outside help if you’re having continued difficulty moving on and unable to find methods that bring relief. 

Seeking the help of a licensed Psychologist, Psychiatrist, or Mental Health Specialist is an excellent option for those who would like some assistance with their healing process. Speaking to someone who is specially trained in trauma can be especially helpful for those who have been in traumatic or abusive situations, or those who have trouble letting go of past events. Trained mental help therapists can also help you find ways of coping that work specifically for you, how you function and process. It can also be helpful to know that you’re not alone and have someone that is impartial to vent and express yourself to.

If you follow a specific religion, you can always reach out to a leader in your faith for guidance. Reaching out to religious leaders and elders can be helpful especially if you’re having problems with faith or belief, or you’re feeling that you would like to use your faith as tool in your healing. Religious and faith leaders can be wonderful for helping you find understanding, purpose, and peace through your pain, and helping you realize that you’re not alone.

You can also get assistance with emotional and energetic healing by seeing an Energy Healer. Reiki practitioners and light workers are wonderful at locating hidden emotional trauma and soothing it. Energy work is perfect for emotional traumas and pain and can provide immediate and long-term relief. Reiki practitioners and energy healers also can often, like psychics, give insight into your pain and what you’re dealing with, and can help guide you on how to feel better and how to improve your current situation. Reiki and energy healing sessions can be done both in person AND via a distance, so there are options even if you don’t have Reiki or energy healers located nearby.

Finally, another avenue for getting outside help is to seek out psychic advice! Places like Psychic Source are fantastic resources for advice and inspiration for moving on. Psychics are wonderful for helping find and illuminate paths and options that you may not currently see or be aware of, and we can also help provide some much-needed hope and comfort by helping you plan for what comes ahead. We can help you find direction and understand what you need to do to get to where you want to be. Even if you’re psychic and read for yourself, it can be extremely helpful to get outside advice from another psychic, as each psychic is different and will have different strengths, abilities, and methods for assisting you.

You have the capacity within you to heal from emotional pain. If ever you doubt this, support is just a phone call or text away. Peace and blessings in your healing process.

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