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enhance emotional well-being - what you need to know! A lady standing in the entry of a red forest wondering weather to explore or walk away!Lorraine Nilon

Enhance Emotional Well-being: A Trauma Recovery Toolkit

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7min read.

Enhance Your Emotional Well-being: A Trauma Recovery Toolkit

Embarking on the journey of trauma recovery, especially from experiences of betrayal, narcissistic abuse, and childhood abuse, can be an arduous path. However, it’s essential to approach this healing journey from a place of nurturing, acknowledging the profound struggle that accompanies it.

As you walk your path though life you decide if you are going to enhance your emotional well-being. You’ll need to build your recovery toolkit as you go and improving emotional well-being should be a priority. As you discover more about yourself and truly understand the emotional, mental, and physical effects your emotional trauma has created, remember that you are an ever-evolving soul and the key to your own transformation.

lady walking with a backpack into the unknown of her emotions represented by a red forest. Spiritual podcaster Lorraine Nilon and Self-help author with quote about improving your emotional well-being

Enhance Emotional Well-being with Self-Reflection!

We all must explore the importance of facing our suppressed emotions, self-opposing beliefs, and trust that there is a purpose to this process. If we don’t, we get lost in the victimhood of our pain and become disillusioned by others’ indifference to our struggles.

The courage to face our emotions is never easily found because we condition ourselves to hide what we don’t understand; most of us don’t understand our own trauma. Improving emotional well-being starts with self-honesty and it will enhance emotional well-being once we accept the truth of our recovery being a journey! 

It is difficult to value ourselves and build a library of personal insights when we feel demoralized, unsupported, and unsafe. This is why it is important to seek help—a process that enables us to build the self-reflective skills required to come to peace with what we have experienced and the emotional scars we carry.

lady in emotional despair with hand on her forehead background the emotional forest - red trees with distance light in beckoning her to make a move so she can improve emotional well-being. Spiritual self-hep author and podcaster Lorraine Nilon

Improve Emotional Well-Being with Self-Honesty!

The road to healing begins with a courageous choice: the choice to be honest with ourselves. Yet, this simple act is often one of the most challenging. It demands the strength to challenge the familiar and trust ourselves enough to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. That’s the journey, and we can’t just talk about it; we must live the healing adventure.

Be prepared for the ups and the downs while knowing we are heading to emotional freedom.

Improving emotional well-being is not suppression with a dose of amnesia. It is emotional maturity! When our memories do arise, because they will, we are not triggered to the point of being traumatized again. Instead, we manage our reaction with self-care and respect for what has occurred. We use what we have learned about ourselves since the emotional trauma. To do this, we must do the inner work, become self-aware so we can enhance emotional well-being.

Being self-reflective is the tool that enables us to do the work, build self-understanding, and become resilient. Resilience comes from dealing with our past so that is no longer carried as a soul burden!

Dealing with what burden you becomes the path to enhance emotional well-being. Once understood, you’ll never choose to reside within the pain of your trauma but it is a journey through it not around it.

When we suppress our freewill and abandon our freedom of choice, we inevitably experience inner conflict. This occurs when our unresolved emotions control us. They control us when we don’t understand the truth of what we feel, believe, and fear.

The internal turmoil leads to attempts at self-control, where we try to control ourselves to perform an image that pacifies our fear of our own emotional turbulence and to uphold an illusion that we have got ourselves and life under our control. But images are never sustainable, so when we begin to face image failure, illusions burst, and we fear being caught in the vulnerability of exposure.

Upholding an image of well-being never leads to improving emotional well-being!

lady with backpack walking into red forest -ready to face what will help with improving emotional well-being

Enhance Emotional Well-Being Tool Kit!

Our fear causes us to justify every action we use that is really an attempt to pacify your emotions. We become addicted to our avoidance of ourselves and begin to lie and blame others for what we cannot hide from ourselves. We become cyclic pattern creators and form emotional merry-go-rounds that plague our existence.

Recovery starts with a choice, and knowing that we are the ones making the greatest decisions in life is a major tool in the toolkit of recovery. Life can throw the unexpected, people can be hurtful and vicious, BUT we choose for ourselves how we feel about ourselves.

When we know we are worth the commitment to honestly deal with our emotional landscape, we empower ourselves, enhance emotional well-being and begin to acknowledge we are the purpose in our own lives. Our evolution is divine purpose.

Be reflective on the following points, contemplate their importance:

Embracing the Power of Choice:

It is starts with a choice to enhance emotional well-being and it is an important choice! YES we need to choose to apply effort to improving emotional well-being and choice can serve as an empowering stepping-stone on your healing journey.

Recognize that your choices have the potential to shape your recovery and personal growth.

Rejecting the significance of choice, on the other hand, leaves you doubting and mistrusting yourself. It hinders your progress and keeps you trapped in a cycle of emotional turmoil.

You have the freedom to choose how you respond to your experiences and to acknowledge the lessons they offer. Your reactions to life’s challenges become pivotal points in your growth and recovery.

Take Responsibility for Your Own Recovery:

You are responsible for your recovery, but that doesn’t mean you have to go through it alone. While others may have caused your pain, it’s your responsibility to heal. This isn’t a punishment but a recognition of your worth.

Enhance emotional well-being by taking the responsibility to find what we aid your healing process.

Accept Yourself:

Accepting yourself begins with a decision to honor your worth, even when others don’t.

Understand that self-acceptance is a process, and it’s okay to seek a better understanding of yourself. Compassion for yourself is the antidote to self-judgment.

Acknowledge Reality:
In a world dominated by curated images and virtual connections, it’s vital to acknowledge the importance of reality. Being present and engaged in your own life and with others can help you reconnect with your humanity.

Trust your instincts and rely on facts over judgments.

Celebrate Achievements:
Don’t wait for major accomplishments to celebrate your existence. Find joy in the small things, like smiling or laughter.

Recognize that the journey itself is valuable, and negative beliefs should not hold you back from celebrating your soul’s journey.

Building your emotional well-being is a journey that requires courage, self-compassion, and a commitment to facing your emotions. Remember that you are not alone on this path, and you have the power to choose how you respond to your experiences. By taking responsibility for your recovery, accepting yourself, acknowledging reality, and celebrating the small victories, you can begin the transformative process of healing from trauma and building your emotional well-being. Your journey is unique, significant, and worthy of celebration at every step.

 

Conclusion

Improving your emotional well-being is a journey that requires courage, self-compassion, and a commitment to facing your emotions. Remember that you are not alone on this path, and you have the power to choose how you respond to your experiences.

By taking responsibility for your recovery, accepting yourself, acknowledging reality, and celebrating the small victories, you can begin the transformative process of healing from trauma and enhance your emotional well-being. Your journey is unique, significant, and worthy of celebration at every step.

 

Session with Lorraine Helps you understand the gaslighting recovery process!

Photo of Lorraine Nilon with a backdrop of mask showing different emotions. Gaslighting Recovery Process Available!

Follow your curiosity! BOOK NOW 

 

Personal Reflection About Improving Emotional Well-Being:

As we navigate the intricate landscape of emotional trauma recovery, it’s important for each of us to recognize the uniqueness of our journeys. In my own pursuit of healing and growth, I’ve come to understand that acknowledging the pain and embracing the path to recovery is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

There have been moments when the weight of my own experiences felt insurmountable, and the choice to confront those buried emotions seemed daunting. Yet, with each step forward, I discovered the transformative power of self-reflection and the importance of honoring my choices in the healing process.

It’s essential to recognize that the journey is not linear; it involves peaks and valleys, moments of clarity, and times when the road ahead seems shrouded in uncertainty. The courage to face our emotions, coupled with the acceptance of responsibility for our own recovery, forms the bedrock of our resilience.

Through the ups and downs, the commitment to self-acceptance has been my guiding light. Compassion for oneself in the face of adversity serves as a powerful tool, helping to dispel the shadows of self-judgment and fostering an environment of understanding.

In the realm of emotional freedom, I’ve experienced the profound shift from suppression to maturity, where memories no longer trigger retraumatization. Instead, they become opportunities for self-care, reflection, and personal growth.

If you are embarking on this journey, let’s celebrate the victories—both big and small. The journey itself, with its twists and turns, is a testament to our strength and resilience.

Each moment of acknowledgment, each choice to face reality, and every step towards self-acceptance contributes to the beautiful tapestry of our emotional well-being.

May this reflection inspire you to embrace your unique path, recognizing the significance of your choices, and celebrating the ongoing evolution that defines your personal journey of healing. You are not alone, and your story is an integral part of the broader narrative of triumph over adversity.

spiritual Podcast with People listening with different emotional reactions

Are You A Spiritual Explorer?

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6 minute read… Published in SYL Magazine.

If one of these points resonates with you, triggers an internal knowing, makes you self-reflect, or is part of your own aspirations, you are a spiritual explorer.

  1. Are you willing to question everything?

Do you seek the truth and aspire to reconnect with your authenticity or the pacification of a desire to be special?

Soul searching is uncovering the truth; it can get messy and emotionally raw as you question why you feel the way you do, acknowledge the motives behind the things you do and expose what you have suppressed within, hidden under layers of camouflage.

Recognising the uniqueness of your soul and embracing your significance, occurs as you deal with how you have camouflaged the unresolved emotions that shield you from the truth of who you naturally are. As you recognise your resonance with truth, accept reality and respect the value of choice, you begin to appreciate life.

If it is an image of being special or spiritually elite you seek, you will miss the mark and could easily bypass doing the inner-work.

Exploring isn’t easy, but is always rewarding!

Pacifying a desire to use spirituality to hide from your internal reality; is like pitching a tent on a floating iceberg, with a campfire. You are only seeing what you want to see, filtered through a desire that is not based in reality. It might not be too difficult to get the fire started if you have brought your supply of firewood—established beliefs about spirituality, the image you want to portray and avoidance techniques—but keeping it going will be taxing and will get to the point of undeniable pretence.

Eventually, the fire is either going to be unreplenishable in that environment causing you to abandon your campsite, seeking another location to do it all over again, until you have a campsite that accommodates your beliefs and supports your denials.

Or you might abandon camping in a tent, swapping to a caravan—belief hopping.

Or it will leave you unable to exist in your tent, due to the melting ice—representing how the illusory spirituality chips away at your sense of self and can cause damage to your emotional and spiritual well-being.

When you realise you were not looking at reality, you can begin to learn how to be truthful with yourself. Instead of trying to create an alternate reality that does not feed your soul or rejuvenate a relationship with yourself, truth or others, you can begin to explore what does. You can begin to be present in whatever environment you find yourself in, exploring reality.

Your experiences create opportunities to recognise the flaws in your beliefs, images, illusions and denials. Instead of abandoning, you can begin to objectively observe and seek to understand what you feared questioning, examining and acknowledging. This is a stepping-stone to exploring what is meaningful through the exploration of what you have experienced.

Learning from all your experiences enables you to walk away from any event with greater awareness. Throughout the expedition of life, you experience learning and then expanding on what you’ve learnt; it is a continuous and exciting process.

If you are prepared to question everything, and seek to understand truth, regardless of whether you like the answer or not, you are ready to explore.

  1. Are you prepared to challenge and deal with your unresolved emotions, beliefs and fears?

Do you seek to justify or to understand what is unresolved within?

Every evolutionary journey involves soul-searching and truth-seeking because you will confront your unresolved emotions, embedded beliefs and fears. We are all on the journey of life, and some feel the internal yearning for it to become an evolutionary trail and tale.

The internal yearning grows stronger the more aware you become of the void within. The void you feel is a recognition of your separation from being aware and attuned to your soul. This includes authenticity, sense of being and your core essences, such as unconditional love, self-kindness and compassion. (24 key—core essences are explored in my books and courses.)

When you turn your attention to your soul, you will also awaken to the labyrinth of unconscious energy—emotional baggage—that sustain your separation from the truth of your soul. Soul-searching is required; you have to work out what is of value to you and how to resolve why you have carried and sustained what is hidden in your baggage.

Soul-evolution is returning unconscious energy to consciousness. It is understanding, aligning and unifying with truth. As you do this, the walls of the emotional labyrinths crumble. At times it is a wall you have to climb, to understand each component. Others you’ll hit with a sledge-hammer and some have secret compartments attached, but as each wall crumbles it enables you to see further, unobstructed by self-distortions. Your perception changes, because you are aware of more and it changes the foundation you stand on.

When you seek to understand, you begin to take the filters off, which enables you to embrace what you discover, knowing it is a stepping-stone to resolution, recovery and evolution.

The evolutionary process requires contemplation about the purpose and consequences of your decisions; it is acknowledging the truth—as much as you are aware of at that time. It is also reflecting on our actions, and taking responsibility for

where you have been,
where you are now
and where you can choose to go.

When you seek to justify your unresolved emotions, you’ll forget the mission is to resolve and evolve; to be free of the emotional angst your suppressed emotions create. You will get caught defending what fortifies your emotional labyrinths. Instead of deconstructing, you’ll be the architect of your own wall construction, creating a prison out of your emotional labyrinth. This leads to denial of self-responsibility and soul-accountability.

If you are prepared to acknowledge the significance of self-responsibility and of being the caretaker of your soul, you are ready to explore.   

  1. Can you be a friend to yourself and accept truth as a friend?

 Are you willing to explore your relationship with yourself and truth or are you trying to control yourself and truth better?

The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. Treat yourself like a friend (or how you would like your friends to treat you). Try to inspire yourself by being supportive, compassionate and good company to be around. It is important that you show yourself respect and acknowledge you are not your emotions; they are part of what you are experiencing.

Accept the path you have walked so far and acknowledge that you decide the direction you follow. You cannot control what is going to happen on the road ahead but you choose how you deal with what has or is occurring. You choose how you deal with yourself.

You are important,
even when you believe the world does not see you.

Truth is your friend, it guides you and as you accept it is always supporting your soul, you realise that it is you who could improve your relationship with truth. Truth-seeking is done with truth, it is not hiding, it is waiting for you to decide it is worthy of your attention.

Truth is not something to control, it is either accepted, denied or exploited. It asks nothing in return, just to be acknowledged and valued, because it knows every truth accepted, enables you to travel further down the evolutionary road.

Controlling yourself to what you believe, is different to taking truth by the hand and exploring the good, bad and sometimes ugly beliefs, fears and emotions you have carried and protected. Exploring is being in the arena of freewill, knowing you are responsible for the relationship you have with yourself (your soul), truth and others.

If you are prepared to be a good friend to truth and yourself, or to learn why you struggle to do so, you are ready to explore.

A definition of a friend might help you realise the importance of a friendship with yourself and truth. (Sourced from Urban Dictionary – by tangles10, April 28, 2010)

‘A friend is someone you love and who loves you, someone you respect and who respects you, someone whom you trust and who trusts you. A friend is honest and makes you want to be honest, too. A friend is loyal.

A friend is someone who forgives you no matter what you do, and someone who tries to help you even when they don’t know how. A friend is someone who tells you if you’re being stupid, (unconscious, lost in denial or acting-out emotionally – just adding a bit to this), but who doesn’t make you feel stupid (worthless, not good enough or insignificant – just adding a bit more).

A friend is someone for whom you’re willing to change your opinions (explore new possibilities). A friend is someone you look forward to seeing and who looks forward to seeing you.

A friend is a partner, not a leader or a follower.

The word “friend” comes from Old English “frēond“, which is actually the present particle of “frēogan“, which means “to love” and “to honour”.’

You may be the friend you have been looking for?
When you realise truth is a friend, it makes the evolutionary journey easier.

Remember if one of these points resonates with you, triggered an internal knowing, made you self-reflect, or is part of your aspirations, you are a spiritual explorer.