165: A Time For Healing

The Remarried Life

Brian Mayer discusses how hurt, hate and wounds can create division in a family and in a society. We will talk about this and also some things we can do as individuals to help heal past relationships, current family situations, and maybe help society as a whole in the process. We hope you are inspired by today’s message. For more information and additional resources please visit our website at http://www.theremarriedlife.com

Today's Goodies

• With divorce and blending a new family, there often times comes a lot of hurt, pain and upset over situations progressing in a way that is counter to what we had hoped it could or can be.
• All sorts of emotions like sadness, fear, anger, shock just to name a few can often overwhelm us and cause us to make decisions and do things that often worsen the situation.
• As I have mentioned I dealt with a lot of fear over the unknown when going through my divorce and that translated to a lot of anger unfortunately. Often my words deepened the pain that we were all going through.
• So wounds were obviously created by actions we both took but I will take responsibility to say that I know that I played a large role in probably widening the wounds.
• The good thing though about wounds is that they can heal. If we think about the body, immediately after surgery the mechanisms of the body will begin to heal itself. Things like swelling we often think as bad, is actually a good thing because it is a sign that the body is working to heal what has just happened to it.
• In the same way we can often do things like hide or close off to protect ourselves from the pain of emotional hurt. Just like swelling in the body, this is probably good for a time. However, if it lingers for longer than necessary then it becomes an issue.
• When pain and hurt linger for a long time (and what that time is we don’t really know), it is time to start to deal with it to move forward.
• Obviously when pain and hurt involve two people it is so much the better that they come together to work on healing together. Unfortunately, in our society we are not seeing much of that right now. Actions being taken in so many areas never seem to be taken responsibility for to mend fences.
• We will talk about some simple things you can do today to help mend something between you and maybe your ex-spouse, your current spouse, or maybe a child that has caused an emotional separation.

• How about simply say you are sorry for even a small part of the issue. This is tough for some people especially those that grew never having it modeled. Or sometimes it is difficult because some people feel even worse about themselves when they say this and so they will avoid it.
• Listen to the pain you may have caused.
• Have a LOVE conversation. I am not sure who coined this phrase, but each letter represents something important. Listen with an Open Heart, Validate at least some of the other person’s experience, and Empathize with how they are feeling.
• Work on any anger, resentment and bitterness that has developed within yourself. If you are a Christian, then pray for it to be released by God. If you practice some other form of religion where you believe in something outside of yourself then certainly pray for it to be released.
• Ask for Forgiveness. This simply means you are asking for the other person to stop holding the issue against you with negative thoughts of their own. Now a caveat here, is you may hear back that you are not forgiven and if that happens this is now their burden to bear.

• Healing does take time, but it is possible. But in order to do that we must stop doing what we have always done.

Resources:

• None Today

Thanks For Listening!

• With so many things that take time in our lives, I more grateful than you know that you took time to listen to this podcast episode.
• If you liked this episode and believe that it would be beneficial to a friend, family member, or colleague, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.
• The Remarried Life Facebook Groupis a community of people just like you who get and give support. Please join today! ​

As always remember that marriage is not something you have, it is something you do. Talk to you next week unless you are binge listening in the future in which case I will talk to you in about a minute! Take care.