Pasted in from today's
Wolf's Daily Howl


I was asked yesterday, why saying, telling,
speaking ones story helps a survivor heal.

Its an important question and I asked for and
was given permission to answer the question
on the Howl.

There are many steps required in emotional processing.
They include:

Assessing
Identification
Acknowledgement
Acceptance
Accessing
Experiencing
Excavating
Exploration
Expression
Exhalation
Advancing

As you can see, expression comes
pretty far down the list. But its an
essential step in the process. If weve
done all the prior work but never share
our experience, continue to keep it bottled
up within our self, thats where the process
stops and remains un-completed.

This is because expression is like the cleaning
of a wound. The injury will never heal, filled
with debris or infection. It has to be clean and
free to breathe, or healing will not proceed.

Expression can come in a number of ways.
A familiar means of expression is journaling.
Now we can journal on-line and either share
our story or not, as we choose. We can tell a
counselor or therapist. We can share in a
support group or on-line forum. We can tell a
friend. We can write a song lyric about what
happened. We can dance it out. We can have
a ceremony. We can paint a picture or construct
a photo-image. We can make a movie.

We can choose one or more means of expression.
In fact, the more different means we avail our self
of, the better, in regards to the healing process.
Some people get up and talk about what happened
in front of an audience. The first time is probably
really hard. If they do it again, the second time is
easier. The more a person tells her or his story, be
it to one person or many, a little bit of healing
occurs every time. Each incremental healing
moves us forward through emotional processing.

One of the reasons this is so, particularly in the
context of processing abuse, is that, the act of abuse
is to isolate the victim from everyone but the abuser,
to keep the abusers deeds secret. Were often
instructed that we must never tell what happened.
One part of the abuse is to separate us from our
reality, from our story, from our own indisputable
truth.

If we are forever unable, for whatever reason ---
intimidation, shame, doubt, embarrassment or guilt ---
the abuser has succeeded in his or her quest to
keep his or her abuse a secret from the world
as well as keeping the victims experience behind
a gag of fear, guilt, doubt, shame or annihilation
of the spirit.

To own our experience and to express it, validates
our autonomy, our right to self-determination and
our title to our self. Its our story, to share or not ---
but to express however it suits us.

And expression heals.