Moving to Emotional Wholeness Is Like Playing Pick-Up Sticks

Do you remember the game where you hold a handful of plastic sticks
and then drop them? The object of the game is to then pick up the
sticks one by one without moving the ones underneath it. Working
through the wounds of your life is like this. When working to recover
from the emotional pain you know about, you might "move" or trigger
other wounds you may have forgotten about which surround the wound
you're working on. The result can be a flood of emotions resulting in
feeling overwhelmed.Similar emotions gather togetherLet's say you have
a drawer where you keep your socks neatly organized in one place. When
you select a pair of socks to wear that day, you might disturb the
ones around it and need to put them back neatly. Similar emotions also
"reside" in one place. Of course, you can't see this place. You can,
however, feel it when it is disturbed.For instance, all the feelings
of sadness come together. When you feel sad, all the sadness that is
within you is activated. It's the same for any emotion. Depending upon
how many times you've had experiences resulting in the same feeling,
that is how big your collection of this emotion is. This is why you
might wonder why you experience an emotion so intensely when the event
seems rather minor.In therapy you want to gently healIn alternative
forms of therapy, we have a name for the experience of being
overwhelmed physically, mentally and emotionally after a session. We
call it a "healing crisis." Healing is occurring, but there is a
response on every aspect of you... mentally, emotionally, spiritually
and physically... resulting in your feeling worse than you did
before.This is where the Pick-up Sticks analogy comes in. Imagine each
painful event as one stick. The more pain you've had in your life, the
more "sticks" you have laying on top of each other. In therapy, you
want to carefully work with the sticks on top so the others are moved
as little as possible. As you work through and release each event, you
become stronger until you are ready to "pick-up" that last "stick"
without going into crisis.Getting stronger before working with the
core eventIf a client is filled with insecurities and fears, the
therapist wants to assist the client in growing stronger. You have to
be strong to face the most difficult events in your life. Once you are
feeling more secure, you can address the core issue with much more
confidence and much less fear. You can win the game of Pick-up Sticks
and experience tremendous growth and happiness.