Naming: A Powerful Tool
Enmeshment. Reparenting. Alcoholic system. Love addict. Anxious-avoidant. Trauma-bonding. Emotionally flooded. Ambivert. Narcissist. False thinking. Co-dependent. Dismissive. Gaslighting.
All terms learned along 30-some years of this healing journey. Some of the terms that resonate with my life were introduced by therapists, educators, family members and even a few strangers. Others were discovered while reading books and articles. What they have in common is how they relate to my significant others, familial relationships and memorable experiences.
Finding a term to name what I was feeling or living through has offered keystones to be carried on the continued path: relief, empowerment and confidence.
Relief that other people have experienced similar or the same f*cked up scenarios that have lingered on the conscious, even after desperately trying to suppress them as a form of survival, is freeing in a way. Because I couldn’t fully understand what actually occurred or how it shaped my identity (or the illusion of it), for a long time those traumas defined me and forged a road I stumbled on without directions.
Empowerment to be able to refer to the experience with a name. Having the language to define one’s experiences is essential to deeper healing, in my opinion. Having a term to learn more about it is a place to start. Those who have named the thing usually have a lot to reveal and express about associated signs and behaviors. Additionally, it is empowering to understand that one’s old tools as well as default thinking patterns are not relevant or necessary for present situations. It is within you to determine which tools are essential to handling contemporary relationships; there is always a choice.
Confidence that I can and will heal from past trauma. Learning more about and acquiring new tools to address difficult moments brings a certain level of faith in the notion that all things are temporary. And that change is possible. When the opportunities (or “check points”) arise as the needed practice to master using a different tool it leaves me confident that I have grown and will continue to evolve through future challenges.
Encouragement: Break negative cycles and emotional patterns. Never stop moving towards a greater version of you. Leave behind those people and things that no longer or never served the person you are becoming. Heal at a pace that is right for you, with no apologies.
