You want to know a secret? You know how to heal. You may have just forgotten.

Remember that time when you were seven and you scraped your knee on the playground? I bet it hurt. I bet you cried. And I bet it’s all better now. How did you do that?

You know how to heal. You’re wired for it.

My dad was an ER doctor when I was growing up. Over his career he’s treated thousands of patients, each one in a unique life-shattering crisis at the time they met him. There was no telling what kind of injuries would be carried through those ER doors each night. Yet Dad would treat them all the same. It was incredible.

Dad let me ride along sometimes for shifts at the hospital where he worked. I remember sitting in his office overlooking a floor full of patients moaning, nurses running, machines beeping, wheels squeaking - total chaos. I was in awe of how Dad was able to stay calm, give precise commands to his medical team while making life-saving decisions in real time. One day, I asked him how he always knew just what to do.

“It’s simple,” he said. “No matter who comes through those doors, I follow the same three steps: I stabilize, I sterilize, and I address the cause of their pain. Once I’ve done that, their body can heal itself.”

People heal themselves. Pain points the way.

As a therapist, I have come to see the genius in the simplicity of Dad’s three-step method to how people heal. Pain alerts us to a part of ourselves that needs care. Emotional pain is no different. It’s just harder sometimes to know where to put the Band-Aid. 

Step One: Stabilize

Healing cannot fully do its work if the trauma is ongoing. Imagine a person rolling into the ER still on fire. First, you put out the fire. For most people that make it to my office, the trauma they come to process has already taken place and they are suffering from its residual echoes. The work for those clients is to establish a stable emotional base so that they can begin to tell their story. Certain externals in their life must first be addressed in order to minimize any reactive triggers.

For other clients, the trauma is current and ongoing. If that’s where you are, it’s ok. Recent studies have actually shown that certain interventions, like EMDR, can cultivate resiliency in people with ongoing trauma. Either way, you must stabilize yourself as much as possible.

Step Two: Sterilize

Bacteria is the enemy in hospitals. There is a reason hospital staff wears surgical masks and latex gloves. They know that wounds open to outside influence can fester. A sterilizing agent must immediately be applied to the infected area. This usually stings but it’s for the patient’s good.

Similarly, when sterilizing an emotional wound, the pain can feel worse before it feels better. Invasive emotional bacteria take many forms. What unwanted thoughts are consuming your mind? What relationships are proving themselves to be toxic? What are you doing to cope with your pain? Is it helping you or keeping you stuck? In short, what has attached itself to you or what have you become attached to that is keeping you injured? You must sterilize the wound.

Step Three: Address the Cause of Your Pain

Step Three is where the lights come on for a lot of people. Now that you have stopped the injury and cleansed the wound, you can finally address what’s causing you so much pain. In the ER, this is when Dad would remove the foreign obstruction or set the bones back into proper alignment. He would guide the body back into its natural stasis. In therapy, this is where you explore the various elements of your story. What happened? Who was involved? What did you need then that you didn’t receive? How did you make it through?

Most importantly, what do you believe about yourself now?

We now know at the root of every trauma is a personal belief the person who endured it has about themselves. In therapy we call these negative or positive cognitions. If the belief a person has about themselves is negative, it becomes the obstruction to their healing. If the belief is positive, the person begins to heal immediately.

If you are struggling today with ongoing triggers from a past trauma, it’s likely that you hold a negative belief about yourself at the core of your wound. It’s not your fault - but you must address it. Once the negative belief is extracted and replaced with a positive belief, your healing is imminent. Investigating beliefs can be a tricky business as the mind is full of blind spots. That’s why having a trained therapist walk with you through the process is essential.

Remember, you already know how to heal. You may just have forgotten.

If you’re in pain it means you need to heal. Most people try to run from their pain. They seek comfort instead of healing. It makes sense why we do this. Nevertheless, it keeps us stuck. Your pain will not go away until you give yourself the care you need. It’s trying to help you.

And here’s the best part: you are already wired to heal. You’re a natural. Just like that kid who scraped their knee on the playground, healing is on its way. You may just need to remind yourself of the three steps to experience it fully.

Are you in need of healing today? Let your pain show you the way. We would be honored to walk with you through your process. It’s our best thing.

Authored by: Brent Campbell, LPC-MHSP