Sharing starts the healing
Q: When a friend confided in me about an intimate problem she is having, I went through my file of clipped Coping columns on that problem. After I picked out some for her, I asked myself, “What was the most important column over the years?” I knew the answer before I finished. It was your Dec. 18, 1986 article on sharing feelings as a Christmas gift. It was probably the first one I clipped and the reason I’ve clipped every one since.
Your columns have always been of great interest to me. You might remember me. I was sexually abused by a brother at an early age and wrote you about that. I just want you to know how you have probably helped many through the years, as you did me and to thank you, especially for that article. It stretched me in a positive way and inspired me to write individually to my family, which was a daunting task in itself. This took a number of years but is and was to me, so important in the healing process.
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A: I am glad my columns are helpful. But they’ve been so mainly because of your efforts, rather than mine. I, and those who wrote to me, shared experiences, pains, insights, ideas and approaches for dealing with problems, but it was your willingness to look for how you could apply these ideas in your own situation that made the difference.
People never get anywhere if they just stay where they are. It’s risky to try new ideas and new ways of looking at things. It is even riskier to write notes to those who have hurt you in the past. But it is only by risking that a person grows and heals as you have done.
To quote from that 1986 column: “The person to be most honest with is yourself. People don’t like unpleasant feelings or situations. You deny or minimize them. Denial acts as an anesthetic, preventing you from being knocked over by acute pain. But things must be faced eventually, whether pleasant or unpleasant. The sooner you find the courage to deal with the real situation facing you, the sooner you will be able to make some positive changes.
“There is value in sorting information out before you share it with others. Feelings are often intense. If you blurt your feelings out, without thinking about what you are saying, you will dump them, rather than share them, and perhaps create even more problems. It can be difficult to sort and review information by yourself. That is why a counselor, pastor or a trusted friend is often helpful. It is dangerous to file things away indefinitely. Unshared feelings become mouldy. They grow ugly and may become totally unlike what they were originally. When you share your feelings, you are forced to find words to express what may initially be vague and fuzzy to you. The more specific you are, the more others will understand you, and you’ll understand yourself.
“When you share your concerns, worries and fears with others, you take down the mask behind which many of us hide, and let them get close to the real you. You stop trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders and share it with others around you.”
Readers with internet access can get free copies of columns from Dec. 19, 1996 or later, by e-mail at peter
grif@sk.sympatico.ca. To provide mailed and printed copies of past columns I charge $1 per column to cover photocopy and mailing costs.
