What's New on WHR (Feb 2009)

WHEE-kly articles:

Healing Family Rifts That Can Make Holidays Gatherings Into Unhappy Occasions

Tensions and conflicts in family relationships may arise during the holidays due to lingering hurts, angers, fears and resentments from conflicts that occurred many years ago. Who of us has not experienced frustrations, angers and hurts at some time in our family relationships? Who does not have unresolved residues of unpleasant feelings from such interactions? Who has not felt a measure of tension or stress in planning a holiday get together, worrying about who crotchety aunt Tillie would be best seated next to in order to avoid abrasive or perhaps even explosive interactions that could ruin the festive holiday atmosphere?

Politeness can be poisonous

Such problems often arise out of our wishes to be polite and not cause a conflict when a family member hurts our feelings. This can be especially true when those who stepped on our toes are rare visitors from afar. We don't want to make a scene by complaining or confronting them, so we swallow down our feelings in order to preserve the calm and peace.
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Buried Hurts and Traumas: Crying for Release
 
I am repeatedly astounded by the ingenuity of the unconscious mind in its efforts to protect us from emotional pains – in myself and in people who come to me for help with emotional pain that is persistent or recurrent. Often, it appears at first that we are victims of a harsh or even cruel world. Looking a bit deeper, however, we may come to discover, like Pogo (the Walt Kelly cartoon character), that " We have found the enemy and he are us!"

As children, our unconscious buries feelings and memories of unpleasant experiences. This is helpful, because children often have limited understandings of why they are suffering and a narrow range of options for dealing with painful circumstances. Children usually cannot alter their situations and cannot leave them.

The unconscious mind becomes very skilled at hiding the buried feelings and memories from our conscious mind. In many cases, we simply forget they are there, locked away in file drawers that sit in dark, shadowy caves below our awareness.
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Dr. Benor has resumed his blog.
See discussions on:

Seasons and Navigating Through Life

Wish List in the New Year

Healing 4 Good of All, #1

Veterans with wartime residues