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Susan has been cheated on by her husband. She is broken. It's so difficult for her to make it through each day. She struggles with finding energy to get out of bed each morning. Physically, she is very listless, trying to hold her self together. Her recurring post-affair memories and thoughts leave her feeling even more drained and stuck in a broken-spirit spiral.
I always believe that whatever kind of trauma a person experiences, the human spirit is resilient. It can be made strong once again. Even Susan, an affair trauma wound victim, can heal and rebuild her spirit. She can choose to get stronger than she ever was before. To start with the healing process, Susan would need to treat her self with extra kindness, post-affair wound days. And, be patient over the long haul. These are essential beginning keys.
What helps is to see progress in the direction of growth and healing. Susan needs to measure when things are starting to move. For example, enjoying being with family and friends away from anything associated with the post-affair trauma is progress. Learning to focus more on work, becoming better physically in the gym, and growing in intimacy with God are other measurable steps of progress towards healing.
The goal is to keep plugging into hope and positives around. Total healing may not happen in days or weeks. But when you keep building and moving on, progress can be measurable. You can know you're on your way.
Dr. Angelo Subida is a clinical psychotherapist, author, and speaker. He is author of books "Inner Healing," "Secrets Of Your Self," "Chess and Life," among others, blogs, and articles. He has appeared frequently as an expert on psychotherapy/life recovery issues on national television, radio broadcasts, print media, and webcasts, including GMA 7, TV 5, ABS CBN 2, Q-11, 700 Club, Radyo Veritas, Inquirer Radio, Smart Parenting Magazine, Business Mirror, among others, and has served as resident therapist/counselor for parents and kid-artists in the highly popular ABS-CBN 2 Voice Kids TV singing reality show. Dr. Subida is an eclectic, multidisciplinary therapist and originator of his own revolutionary high-tech, high-touch counseling plus model. His areas of specialization include parent-child therapy, clinical infidelity treatment, relationship/marital counseling, separation/divorce therapy, anger management, depression, addictions, psychotherapy-spirituality integration, and innovative chess therapy. For more of Dr. Subida, you can find him at www.drsubida.com.