Emotional Splinter
I got a splinter in my finger a few months back. No big deal. It was painful… but it had to be removed and so I put on my big girl panties and I did what had to be done. I performed a small surgery with a tweezer and a needle. I’m no surgeon, but I did the best I could. I put a little antibiotic ointment on the wound and called it good. My finger started to heal. Before long I noticed a painful red circle around the spot and a speck I’d thought was a scab, but realized there was still part of the sliver in my finger. Dang.
Round two with the tweezer and needle! It appeared hopeful that I’d gotten the remainder of the splinter the second time. I was amazed at the irritation an itsy bitsy speck of wood could do to my finger’s full functioning. Even weeks later it was red and it hurt when touched. I was aware of how my body let me know something was not right with the natural process of pain. Ignoring it did not make it go away. As a matter of fact I soon noticed stiffness every time I tried to bend my finger. This was NOT ok.
Healing, Freedom and Breakthrough
They say that the third time is a charm, and it was for me. When my amateur surgeries didn’t fix the problem, my dermatologist’s surgery did.
Many of us do the same thing with past hurts and lingering pain. In many families, like mine, we were never taught how to process emotional splinters, aka triggers. In my experience, I just tried to figure it out on my own, remove the splinter as best as I could and hope I got all the remnants of the leftover pieces. When I didn’t, and they still caused pain, I’d learn how to avoid the sensitive spot so as not to irritate it or get bothered. Sometimes when the old wound was touched I’d respond with anger and self justification of my response. Other times, noticing that the spot was still SO sensitive that I would beat myself up for not being ‘over it’ so many years later. Somehow those emotional splinters didn’t go away.
Over time, I learned to take note of those symptoms and see them as signs that something more was needed. I learned that the pain and irritation was really an invitation for healing, freedom and breakthrough.
As a coach, people come to me because they want a new outcome: to take a relationship or their business to a new level. Sometimes they want to get unstuck in an area of their lives. They might need new tools or fresh perspective. Or they sometimes want to remove splinters in order to better use the full array of gifts and talents they’ve been given. I sure wanted to be able to use my finger without pain, and by round three I was ready to invest in someone’s help to accomplish that!
4 Tips for Confronting Emotional Splinters
Here are some things I’ve found helpful in the process of dealing with the festering splinters of life, work and relationships.
1.First step in the process is Awareness. As much as I didn’t like the fact that my initial efforts didn’t solve my issue, I didn’t suppress or ignore it, hoping it would go away like I’ve done with other issues in past years.
I have spent time over the years strengthening my ‘awareness muscle.’ Just like any physical muscle, awareness can be trained and developed with the help of a good coach so that “little” issues don’t grow into “BIG” ones. Perhaps you’ve been blind to a little issue, or simply ignoring it as friends or family have brought it to light? Perhaps today it the day you want to make a choice, or even a declaration like, “today I will begin to develop my ‘awareness muscle’ and deal with the issues in my life!”
The next step comes out of one’s Attitude. One of my life values is seeking wholeness. Pain and irritation are invitations to seek wholeness. And while I still don’t ‘enjoy the process,’ I was and am motivated by the opportunity to be more free.
So armed with awareness and the right attitude, I did my best to Attack the problem. Many times, wood splinters CAN be removed on our own with a tweezer and a needle. The same is true with life splinters. We can pray, read books, implement strategies, go deeper in understand why we do what we do. Oftentimes things work out great.
But sometimes, Assistance can be helpful. The dermatologist had ‘slightly’ more experience in this type of thing than I did. As a matter of fact, he was quite proficient at it. He had all the right tools and it was actually much less painful and far more effective that my previous attempts. The same is true with life. A good coach has a training and a tool belt to help you extricate the splinters of life.
Hmmm… awareness, attitude, attack, all with some assistance – just a couple thoughts to consider when you find that the tweezer and needle aren’t fully removing the festering problems in your life.
