Betsy Guerra explains the difference between feeling pain and staying stuck in it. Three signs you're stuck: treating pain as permanent, defining yourself by the emotion, or grieving as a way to honor someone. She moved through loss of her daughter by setting an intention for joy, changing how she talked about herself, and honoring her through love and service instead of suffering.
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Today we're going to talk about how to go from feeling to healing. You've heard me say it plenty of times. Feeling is healing. Pain is the path to healing. And joy, the only way around it is through. You must feel the pain to be able to rise above your adversity. But when is. When is that moment that you're ready to let it go and get over it? Like, when is that? I've had to think really hard about this because I'm used to supporting and helping my clients through this. And I had never thought about what are the three steps or the three things that happen when we have gotten stuck in pain. And that's what this video is about. I'm going to share with you what things to look for and to see if you're feeling to heal or if you're dwelling on the feeling. And I'm going to use my story to illustrate this. When I lost Fofi, I was. I was grieving. And the grief that I was experiencing was healing me. But it got to the point that I remember thinking, like, I'm never going to be happy again. And that thought, and those words have no hope. Those words suggest that pain is the destination. I'm never going to be happy again. I'm always going to feel this pain inside of me. Those words, when you find yourself saying things like, I'm never going to be able to. I'm always going to feel. Whenever you find that that expression come out of you, or at least be experienced in your thoughts, you're seeing pain as the destination. And pain is always the path, never the destination. So that's when hope was removed. If you have pain as your destination number one, you're stuck in your pain. And pain is whatever you want to call it, whether it's a grief or a pity party or. Or unforgiveness or resentment, whatever it is that you're feeling. The second thing I noticed is you are stuck in pain when you've identified with the emotion. So for me, I had identified as a grieving mom. And if that's my identity, if I am a grieving mom, that's what's gonna guide my behaviors and my thoughts, my emotions, and. And it's going to create more of that because what you focus on expands. You attract more of those like, emotions. And the third thing was I realized that grief was serving me. I was thinking that if I'm grieving, if I'm crying, if I'm stuck, then I'm loving my daughter. So grief allowed me to. To Continue to love my daughter. Because in my mind, I had equated feeling sad, missing her grieving, to loving her heart, to not forgetting her, to keeping her memory alive. So when I decided to change those three to get unstuck and to really start my journey to healing, this is what it looked like. Number one, I set an intention. I changed my language. Instead of thinking I'm never going to be happy again, I decided, I am going to rise above this. I am going to be happy again. That was my intention and it was my decision. And with that decision, I'm going to jump to number three. I decided that I was going to do that for my daughter, to keep her memory alive. So instead of honoring her through tears and suffering, I was going to honor her through love, gratitude, and so service. So I was able to change, number one, the pain as the destination. Now, pain wasn't the destination. My destination was joy and service and gratitude. And I connected that to my purpose. So I connected that to number three. Instead of honoring my daughter through the suffering, I honored her through love and service. And then, number two, I refrained. I changed my story. I was no longer identified with the griever, with the emotion. Instead, I was more identified with the joy. So I decided to change the story from I'm the grieving mom who lost a daughter to I am the chosen mother of an angel. And that story, that new way of looking at my reality, changed. The experience got me unstuck from pain. It no longer served me. It no longer made sense. But it all starts with a decision. So if you've been grieving long enough, if you have identified with your pain, with your failure, with your. With your guilt, with your shame, whatever it is that you're struggling with, there's a choice to be made. Are you going to rise above this or are you going to get stuck? Are you going to feel in order to heal? Or are you going to dwell on the feeling and stay stuck in that destination? Decide. When you decide, you remove all other possibilities. You have the power to do this. If this was helpful, remember to share with someone who needs to hear this, like, subscribe. And if I can support you throughout your process, you can go to betterwithbetsy.com.
