While Dutch down-to-earthness has kept people afloat when there was sadness or pain to process, we now know that Dutch down-to-earthness is also partly about locking up feelings. Throw it into the dark dungeon of the braincase, put a lock on it and never let it out. Only the body doesn’t work that way and sooner or later it will come out in one way or another.
Western and Eastern… they go well together
The science of closing may not be officially that old, at least in Western culture. This does not alter the fact that people have known about Eastern medicine and the associated culture for many centuries. Treatment is based on body and mind as a whole and what is hidden away in the mind may come out in a different way or can at least be brought to light through the body (to be processed). Slowly but surely, ideas from Eastern medicine and culture are penetrating and becoming more and more people.
Some people see it as a struggle, but Western and Eastern medicine can complement each other well. A country like India knows what to do with this, and not without success.
Process
Hiding away feelings doesn’t work, but processing them is relatively easy. The only question is, is it that easy? Actually, this should be a rhetorical question, because we know that processing a traumatic experience is not that easy and requires more than just saying that something needs to be processed. That’s just a little too easy.
Of course, everyone has their own way of processing things, but it doesn’t hurt to ask yourself whether you really need to process things or whether you can’t hide the feeling. There are some proven methods to actually achieve processing.
Letters
Writing letters is a method that has been used for a long time and in the past it was still possible to close it physically, but now the letters are also used to process something. Write three letters, namely:
- Write down everything you wanted to say to the deceased. The point is not that it will be a nice linguistic letter, but that it contains the topics that you still want to mention.
- Then write the letter that you could expect to receive in return, given the knowledge you have of the deceased.
- Finally, you write an ‘answer’ from the perception of the deceased, but with the answers that are most desirable for you.
Leave the letters for a while, take your time, otherwise it won’t work. After a while, read them out loud to yourself or to someone close to you. Someone you can trust completely and is not judgmental. Experience what these letters still do to you. There is a good chance that you can complete the processing process by reading out loud.
This gives the person a place in eternal memory and the circle of processing is complete.
Ritual
The ritual is a way of processing that can also work for many people. The ritual consists of collecting things that you, from the person in question, want together and that were important in some way. Do this in steps and start by taking a large box and first putting a written letter about the person in it. In this letter, tell what you want to say and put the letter in an envelope and put it in the box first. Leave the box in a place where you can easily reach it and add it every time you have something about or from the person in question.
Once you feel you have the most important things together, close your box and find the best way to close it for yourself. Where one person buries a full box, another will put it away in the attic and yet another burns the box and its contents as a kind of ritual. The idea that everything that matters is absorbed into the universe appeals to many people, after all, in the end we all merge into the universe again
Bron: Unsplash, Pixabay
Meditation Anyone can learn to meditate and besides the fact that it provides peace, which
is not an unnecessary luxury just after a hectic / exciting period, you can also process it with it. Especially if it concerns a loss or fear that has already occurred for some time and is in danger of disappearing into the backpack, you can use visualization during a moment of meditation to empty the backpack respectfully.
Find a quiet moment in a quiet environment. Try to relax and use the environmental factors that can help. This could be a scent, color or music and wear loose and breathable clothing. In short, make sure you are relaxed on all fronts and that nothing can disturb a moment of silence. Pay attention to your breathing, let it be calm and deep. Focus on it for a moment, so that you can continue to do it.
Sit comfortably or lie down if desired and concentrate well. Visualize that you are sitting in a beautiful spot along the river, the sun is shining and it is spring. You are sitting along the water, between the reeds and you are carrying your backpack full of unprocessed emotions. Fears, pains and sadness that you carry around in your backpack and that have now become too heavy for your shoulders. Place this in a small boat and release the boat so that it can go down the river. Suddenly the boat with its filled backpack is gone and if you stand and look for a moment, you see it floating further and further away from you and swaying quietly on the water. It actually feels quite good, that filled backpack moving further and further away from you. Make sure you can hold on to this image and feeling and call it up when you are about to put something in a new backpack or you experience another difficult moment.
Positive
Take the time to recall a memory and it will undoubtedly bring back pain or sadness. Go through the process that brings you out and relive it several times and try to bring out the positive aspects of the process.
Ask yourself all kinds of things, such as:
- What did you learn from it?
- What have you learned from sharing this information?
- How has it influenced you moving forward?
- What moment of gratitude emerges?
and let these moments become just that little bit bigger. Let these points of light become flames, as it were, and flames can grow bigger.
In conclusion
Choose what suits you or combine different approaches, but make sure that your mind and body process the emotion. Let it strengthen you instead of becoming a ballast, a ballast that makes you increasingly crooked. Walking upright in a relaxed manner is humane and forms the basis for a healthy mind in a healthy body.