Treat your inner closets to a good cleaning
Almost every emotional and mental health problem will greatly impact your spiritual connection to God, self, and others. If you are carrying unpacked emotional grievances from the past (whether that is yesterday or 40 years worth of stuff), you are not going to connect in the present. You may feel like you are present with yourself, but there is always that layer of “stuff” that is stressing your underlying regions. This is the stuff that gets triggered. The reason for this is because you have not let go of it and it all comes spilling out if you are “worked up.”
It is neither good nor bad to be reactive, but it is very unhealthy to be anxious. We are told to be anxious for nothing in Scriptures. That is because whatever you have anxiety about, there is a fear base holding it in place. Since God is not the God of fear, the negative stuff we feel is coming from our human conditions of fear and guilt. All unprocessed wounding is lying to us. It is in a state of rawness underlying everything we think about and how we think about it. In order to have clear thoughts, we need to drain the swamp of the mud and raw sewage we carry.
How do you do that? Just like a store, take an inventory. See what is in the warehouse that is still on the shelves. What have you kept on the shelf and avoided? It could be an argument with a family member or an attachment to an old lover. I cannot say specifically what your issues are but we all have skeletons in our closets that need removal. Notice I did not say, “they need to be buried.” It’s the opposite, they need to have the light of truth to see them so they can be looked at, processed and then, let go. You cannot bury feelings. They are still feelings whether you are keeping them in a closet inside you or not, they are still there ready to be triggered at any given time. It is up to you to clean the closet.
Think about people with PTSD and how they experience their memories in the here and now, without having a sense of remembering them. Their body remembers them. I have seen soldiers who will hit the ground at a fireworks show because it reminded them of gunfire on the battlefield. They did not want to hit the ground but their body did. Our bodies have cellular memory that is connected to the nervous system that is remembered in a file in the brain. Flashbacks in dreams bring back powerful terrorizing memories that are not remembered when the person is awake. Our being is amazing at protecting us from horrible things. We are able to dissociate from them. We need to remember so they can be healed or at least acknowledge that we have something that needs healing so we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us unlock it in some way to get it out of our systems.
This treatment is not a “how-to” step by step. It is more a “for your information” treatment that it is up to you to look into your past and see what things are still lurking below the surface. Try not to pretend you have nothing. We all do. Our human brain and nervous system has a lot of hurtful memories and without an inventory, they will continue to control us. It is far better to clean those closets and see what is in them than to not know what needs cleaning and clearing. Start right now and spend a little time each day. It will not take long unless you have a lot that has built up over time. In that case, seek help from a professional that will help you go through and support your cleaning out the past grievances so they can heal. This work will also make plenty of room to attach to the truth of who you are without those wounds “lying” below ready to pop up and control you at any time. Get the garbage out so you can use the space for light and the love of God.
Blessings, Susan Frink Anderson susanfrinkanderson@gmail.com www.holygramspirit.com new book: http://www.holygramspirit.com/books