How two hidden hurts can disrupt your life …

Have you ever experienced a time when, on the surface, things seemed to be going right in your life, but it didn’t quite feel that way to you?

For some people, that’s because things under the surface of their lives weren’t right. Lurking in the corner of their minds were one or two “hidden hurts” that were disrupting their lives because these hurts continued to linger, unidentified and unabated.

What are these two “hidden hurts”?

Psychological wounds and deficits.

EMOTIONAL WOUNDS
I still remember the day my father, who wasn’t a very decent human being, yelled at me in uncontrolled anger: “You’re so stupid you stink!”

Those words, in that moment, wounded me.

I’m not talking about simply hurting my feelings. That was not the first time my dad had said something unkind to me, he had “hurt my feelings” on multiple occasions. But this time, the level of disgust and loathing loaded into those words hurt to such a degree that they emotionally “wounded” me. In a single sentence, my father communicated that he was more than disappointed with me, he considered me to be useless.

Coming from your father, such words can result in an emotional wound.

I would go on to resolve the hurts dealt to me from my dad, but there are many people today walking around with wounds from people and experiences that are still unhealed, and those old, festering wounds have a real and significant impact on a persons’ life. Just as a person’s health is impaired, and sometimes at risk, from an open and festering physical wound, the emotional health and stability of a person can be directly impacted by unhealed emotional wounds. Reactions to open emotional wounds can include:

• • Not forgiving people.
  • Holding anger and resentment.
  • Habitually suppressing your feelings.
  • Difficulty trusting people.
  • Irrational feelings of guilt or shame.
  • Difficulty communicating feelings.
  • Chronic grief from a loss experience from an emotional wound.
  • Unreconciled betrayal, loss, or hurt from the experience that caused the emotional wound.
  • Self-medicating with alcohol, drugs, work, food, sex, etc.

DEFICITS
The problem I experienced with my father wasn’t just the emotional woundedness he caused, his failure to be the father God would have him be in my life created a deficit.

This world, and everything in it, was both designed and created by God. While we often may speak of God being Creator, it’s important to realize that God infused into His creation certain design — He created with purpose and order.

For example, it was God who designed the family to be the central system for living in our human experience. God’s design is that a godly man and a godly woman who marry will have children they raise to be godly adults. When we do not have built into the experience of our lives what God intended, such as being raised by a godly father or a godly mother, that absence is a deficit, and the lack created by deficits deeply and broadly impact our lives.

RESOLVING WOUNDS AND DEFICITS
And so, when on the surface it looks like everything should be going well in your life, but some things aren’t, and you feel like you’re struggling with aspects of living, it often is because there are unhealed wounds and unresolved deficits in our lives that we may not be consciously aware of.

Treatment for healing emotional wounds and resolving deficits is often achieved through cognitive-behavioral therapy conducted by a competent, skilled therapist. In fact, many people first become intimately aware of the effects of wounds and deficits by a skilled therapist who helps them see and identify for the first time that such wounds and deficits are present and persistent in their lives.

Let me encourage you that, if you suspect you have unhealed emotional wounds and deficits affecting your life, that you make an appointment with a competent clinical therapist and get the professional help you need.

Scotty