Emotional Healing Exercise

Emotional Healing Exercise

1. Spend some time in prayer and ask the Lord to show you if there are any unresolved emotional wounds that are causing problems with your health. If the Lord brings to mind some people who have hurt you, ask the Holy Spirit to bring back the fullness of your repressed emotions, so that you can forgive them and be set free.


2. After you identify a hurtful past event that needs healing, try to separate the situation from everything else that has happened to you. Instead of trying to work through years of emotional abuse at one time, try to isolate one experience and keep working on the situation until it is resolved.


3. Begin the exercise from a prayerful and meditative state of mind. Find a quiet place where you can be alone with the Lord. Make sure you have plenty of tissues and the necessary writing supplies.


4. Picture the person who hurt you in your imagination. Imagine that person can hear everything you are about to say. If the person is deceased, picture them in heaven standing next to Jesus.


5. Begin writing your letter with the words, I’m angry because you hurt me! Tell this person all the ways that he or she has hurt you by his or her careless and disrespectful actions. Vent all your anger on paper. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar; just release everything that needs to be said.


6. After you vent all your anger, move on to any fears that you may have experienced. How has this person affected your life? Describe how the consequences of his or her careless actions have carried forward into your present-day relationships.


7. After you vent any fears or guilty feelings, get in touch with your sadness. Tell this person what you wanted to happen that didn’t. If you’re writing to your father say, I’m sad because I wanted a better relationship with you. I wanted you to treat me like a beloved son or daughter. I wanted your love and support.


8. Conclude your letter with anything else you need to say to this person, and then begin a new letter by picturing the person who hurt you in a completely healed state. Picture them in heaven standing next to Jesus. Imagine this person full of God’s love, and because they are full of God’s love, allow them to offer you an apology.


9. Start your apology letter by saying, I’m sorry for hurting you. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Write down all the loving words that you need to hear.


10. Conclude your apology letter with prayer. Release the person who hurt you by making a decision to forgive them and release them into the Lord’s hands (to forgive is a decision not a feeling). Ask Jesus to wash away any negativity that you may have picked up by accepting this person’s abuse. Surrender this person to the Lord, and if appropriate, ask Jesus to break all unhealthy soul-ties.


11. Allow Jesus to speak to you through a closure letter. Accept the Lord’s love and forgiveness. Allow the Lord’s love and forgiveness to flow into your heart and cleanse you of all curses, resentment and negativity.


12. Ask the Lord to show you if there’s anything else that you need to release. Allow yourself to fall into the Lord’s arms and be permanently set free—free to be the child of God the Lord intended you to be.