Healing Is the New High: A Guide to Overcoming Emotional Turmoil and Finding Freedom

by Vex King

Lying (pretending to be something you’re not). Disordered eating.

The mind is flexible. It wants to learn, and it’s willing to change.

people choose to make themselves unhappy. I’m using the word ‘choose’ because often, it is a voluntary decision. Many of us, including me, participate in experiences that we know are going to cause us pain.

It turned out that as a child she’d lived with abusive caregivers, and that trauma had shaped her view of the world, her relationships, and her need for intense emotional experiences. She associated the trauma with a negative belief about herself; this is very common and it becomes part of why the experience gets stuck and replayed. And she craved the intensity of abuse – it was like a drug that she’d been programmed to need, even as it destroyed her, bit by bit. Uncertainty made her feel alive. So it was no wonder she kept going back to this man; paradoxically, he was the route to her survival. Her limiting belief, in this case, was that violence and aggression were a necessary part of a relationship. And without it, life couldn’t feel… alive.

You aren’t responsible for your childhood conditioning, but you need to take responsibility for changing it now, as an adult.

Brain-imaging studies show that the adult brain still has the plasticity of a child’s brain, although to a lesser degree. What this means is that we still have the capacity to create new neural pathways, or connections, in our brain.

their care for you was influenced by their own limitations, beliefs, and past experiences. They may have done the very best they could with what they had at the time – and it’s not an insult to them when you take action to give yourself the care and love you’ve always needed.

it’s helpful to work through it just before falling asleep or immediately after waking. Neuroscience suggests that the mind is more easily programmable during those moments; this could be because the theta brain waves that we experience as we shift from waking to sleeping, or from sleeping to waking, play a key role in our memory and cognitive function.

I’m capable of love, and I’m worthy of being loved. I have the capacity to build a strong relationship grounded in true love.

Help you flip your perspective every time you notice that you’re acting, or reacting, in a way that’s grounded in your old subconscious beliefs. When you feel yourself spiraling into an old pattern, you can take out your rewritten beliefs and use them as a tool to get you back onto your healing path.

I’d like to put the record straight – curiosity didn’t kill the cat. Curiosity trained the cat’s muscles, honed its hunting skills, and got the cat its next meal.

When our emotional wounds kill our curiosity we lose a bit of the life in us. We become dull – not just to other people, but to ourselves. Everything feels less interesting. Less exciting. Less worth getting up for in the morning. It’s a completely understandable reaction. Why would you remain engaged with a world that you know is so full of threat and the potential for pain? Why wouldn’t you batten down the hatches and shut it all out?

Let go of judgment. If you’re curious, you know there’s always more than one perspective. So, judging yourself or others for emotions or reactions clearly becomes counterproductive; you become a scientist of the self, instead of a critic.

You’re here to do big things, even if it doesn’t seem like it right now.

You have to trust that the process will help you progress. Everything you go through helps you grow – the good, the bad, and everything in between. During tough times, don’t be too hard on yourself. If you make the mistake of falling into the role of victim, you’ll continue to be treated like one. Simply do your best to keep moving forward.

This is your journey. Let these beliefs become a kind of adaptable, evolving manifesto for your life, giving you strength when you need it, and reminding you in your darkest moments that you’re capable of seeing things in a different way.

Your true Self may be obscured by layers of experience and expectation, but you can always return to being truly you.

equilibrium is something that can always be returned to, if we do the work to rebalance what’s become out of balance. Part of that work is using what you’ve already done and taking control of your right to respond – to anything – in the way that you want to, rather than the way your trauma wants you to react.

It’s like when someone sees a photo of you and your partner and tells you that you’re too ugly for your partner. Although the picture of the two of you has triggered that person, they’ve also triggered you with their comment because they’ve created doubt in you and made you feel as if you’re not good enough. These are beliefs based on fear. Those who feel secure and recognize their own worth would remain unchallenged by this particular opinion.

What’s driving you to feel this way?

there aren’t any shortcuts to real inner freedom.

You can use this practice at any time. It’s particularly useful for overcoming anxiety or panic in difficult moments because it brings you right back to the moment and allows you to question – without judging – the thoughts that are present in your mind.

There’s no need to judge any thought that arises as either positive or negative; allow each thought just to be. But if a negative belief does come up, allow yourself to question it. Why is it true? What if it isn’t?

It’s true that I’ll move past this moment and enjoy the freedom of my existence in this life.

If we expect more trauma, we’ll look out for it; maybe we’ll even seek it out, even if we don’t exactly know we’re doing it. So we get trapped in a cycle of being hurt and then expecting hurt, and then being hurt and waiting for more.

You’ll find answers right in front of you or within you, not behind you or ahead of you.

Realizing that you love the memories of a person more than the person can be uncomfortable, even painful – because an illusion that’s protected and held you is being destroyed.

We can experience joy or gratitude ahead of the environment to such an extent that the body begins to believe that it is already “in” that event.

You’ve grieved for that pain; grieved for the version of you who’d never processed that pain. And you’ve accepted it.

You’re not a different person – you’re the same person but you no longer carry your wounds so rawly.

Your inner fire keeps you safe in the way that your fear has always wanted to keep you safe. But fear cannot keep you safe because it lies. It can’t help it; it’s biased. Fear is based only on the worst things that have happened to you – it has no comprehension of all the amazing things that are possible. Fear cannot imagine there’s anything that you don’t need to be afraid of. It only knows the worst of life.

You know this flame is your own. It’s always been there, even when the darkness around you has been too thick for you to see it. It will always be there.

Being confident that the bad things that happened in your past cannot continue to hurt you indefinitely.

Going out without worrying about what time you have to head home.

Not expecting the worst.

Knowing that even when you experience difficult times again, you have everything you need to get through them.

there’s no tricking the Universe. If you’re vibrating low because of emotional pain, no amount of external effort will lift your vibration for very long. You’ve got to start within, and enable yourself to put out the positive energy that you wish to receive back.

Even when you do feel triggered (and it will still happen), you’re able to return to a state of calmness and steadiness more quickly than before, and are less likely to spiral into days, weeks, or months of a triggered state.

You feel generally stronger and more confident, and notice that your insecurity has subsided; you recognize your own power to change your situation.

You can more easily predict when you’re going to be triggered by a situation or an interaction, and...

Your visualizations or fantasies about the future are filled with hope instead of disaster.

Like every couple, we have disagreements, and during that period, we probably experienced more than our average. Throughout our journey, our wounds have gotten the better of us, and we’ve often allowed the waves of our trauma to drown each other out. But we’ve never given up on each other. We’ve continued to turn up – ready to resolve and evolve. This is why our journey is so special.