What is resignification?
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At some point in your life, you may have tried to see past and present events in a more pleasant, fruitful way, drawing lessons to move forward with your mind, emotions, and heart at peace. That's pretty much what resignification is all about.
It may seem like another trendy term that doesn't really matter, given the flood of self-help concepts we see around. But resigning goes far beyond the fad, it is essential for us to heal our inner wounds and evolve.
In this article, we will uncover everything about this very important process in our lives, especially these days when our emotions are increasingly being brought to light.
What does resignify mean?
The term "resignify" is a combination of the prefix "re" (which indicates repetition, reinforcement) and the verb "to signify", so we can conclude that "to resignify" means "to give another or a new meaning" to something or someone.
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In the sense we usually use, resignification is nothing more than giving another meaning to the experiences we have already lived through, so that we can look at the past from a new perspective. This is because there is no way to go back in time and correct our mistakes, heal our traumas. But we can look at them with more empathy and indulgence.
And it is basically from this point of view that Psychology works on resignification.
Resignification in Psychology
Resignification is widely used in therapeutic processes, in the search to transform our perception about our feelings. It helps us to understand our own emotions, to accept that those considered "bad" are part of life and need to be elaborated. For example, anger: it is not about avoiding feeling it, but knowing how to deal with it.
We can resignify even a bad and traumatic past event into something constructive, into learning. Resignifying helps us to elaborate the emotional pain generated by this event. It is as if we can recatalog what we experienced in the past to organize our present and future emotions.
The main psychological approaches work with resignification as a way to deal with unpleasant emotions and experiences, each in its own way. Let's see how each theoretical line works in this sense.
Psychoanalysis
Certainly this is the psychological approach that is best known to the general public. The goal of psychoanalysis is to make a person aware of his or her thoughts and behaviors.
Talking about one's own problems, which are ingrained in one's mind, is a way to free oneself from them. This is because when we bring them to consciousness, we can solve them.
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As a characteristic of psychoanalysis, there is little interference from the professional, allowing the patient himself, through speech, to identify what is happening to him and what he can do to transform himself and get out of the problem.
Humanistic Psychology
The humanistic approach holds that human behavior is not merely a set of stimuli and responses. The individual is able to determine his or her own behavior, and is not merely a hostage to his or her unconscious impulses.
For this line of psychology, we are all in search of self-realization and are able to find meaning in order to overcome difficulties.
The professional, in this case, creates a favorable environment for the patient to develop and identify his potentials, keeping in mind that he can improve them.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a very popular therapeutic method that enables individuals to understand how reality can impact their emotions, and how these can influence their behaviors. In this way, it is possible to learn to cope with feelings and change dysfunctional thoughts.
In CBT, the patient is helped to regain the world view that he had before entering the "self-destructive" mode. Resignification comes through the ability to recognize how dysfunctional thoughts occur, using techniques that help prevent them from forming, replacing them with more appropriate ones.
Gestalt therapy
Gestalt therapy is a therapeutic approach that advocates the harmony between feeling, thinking, and acting. It helps patients to know how to use their emotions and feelings, promoting new ways of looking at life - this involves exploring new possibilities and making new choices.
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Through Gestalt therapy, the individual comes into contact with phenomena and people in an active and affective way, which allows him/her to creatively re-signify his/her own life experience.
There are several other approaches, and certainly each one will contribute effectively to resignify any aspect of our existence. But you can seek a new meaning to your life in general, regardless of whether you have a problem from the past or a specific emotional problem. That's what we're going to talk about next.
Resignify life
You can seek a new purpose in life, give yourself the opportunity to turn something bad into something positive, like resignifying pain, resignifying trauma, and creating new meaning for your place in the world.
It is necessary that we begin to reflect on the thoughts and attitudes that limit us and prevent us from seeing things from new perspectives, hindering our ability to overcome. But how can we do this? How can we re-signify limiting beliefs?
We have to first recognize that they exist and their implications in our lives. We have to change our thinking, move to action, and then challenge and reformulate them.
Making peace with the past
In order to move on with a new life, we need to understand how to resign feelings, we must forgive our past self, look at what hurt us, and try to understand that although we are the results of our past actions, we are no longer hostages of that which subjugated us and made us suffer. New life implies resigning the past, first of all.
We must also seek to forgive those people who have hurt us in some way, be it a friend, an acquaintance, or even a love that has left our lives. Yes, we must have room even to resign a great love lost.
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We are the protagonists of our own history, so it is up to us to know how to manage how we will be affected by events.
See_also: To dream of a punctured toothEven when we are "run over" by events that are independent of our will or action, it is necessary to know how to deal with emotions. Of course, there are cases when it is extremely difficult to manage this alone, like the loss of a loved one, for example. In this case, professional help may be needed to learn how to overcome and give new meaning to grief. However, even in this process, it is up to us to take responsibility for the grief.decision to seek this re-signification.
Tips to Practice Resignification
As we said above, the decision to seek this new meaning in life needs to come from us, even if some cases require specialized help. But if you want to start giving your life a new meaning right now, we have separated some useful and easy-to-follow tips. Check them out!
Analyze the problem
Often you may not know exactly what causes the problem, but it is always good to record everything you know about it, so that you can analyze what it causes in you, how you react to it, and the triggers for its emergence. In this way you can vary your perspectives on the problem.
Train your thoughts
Thoughts are "fed" into our mind. If you foster dysfunctional thoughts, then you can produce positive thoughts.
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Every time a bad emotion starts to overwhelm you, train your mind by directing it to affirmative thoughts.
Don't cover yourself so much
Don't put pressure on yourself to achieve results overnight. That can be the shortest path to giving up or even encouraging limiting thoughts. Take it easy and be realistic.
Avoid complaining
Complaining is a cruel trap. Besides stagnating us, this habit attracts even more negativity (one complaint leads to another, and so on).
Focus on the present
They say that we can only take today for granted. We can't go back in time to correct mistakes, but we can look at those mistakes in a different way: what do they mean to us today? How are we going to deal with them today in order to move forward? Don't get stuck in time, assimilate everything as a great learning experience.
Analyze the moment of your life
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Evaluate everything that is going on in your life right now, in all aspects. What is bothering you? What would you like to change? What beliefs are limiting you? Think of possible ways to solve this. Look through all prisms.
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Last but not least, try to get to know yourself every day. If you can get into this process, it becomes easier to identify your emotions, to know the best ways to react.
There are a number of other tips and strategies for you to be successful in your resignification process - always seek more information.
Starting something new is challenging, and can even be a bit scary. But you will find that it is very worthwhile to look at life from new perspectives, to understand that your past cannot - and should not - haunt you, and that your history needs to be respected.
You may also like
- Understand the importance of letting go of the past
- Learn how to reflect on your reaction to mistakes
- Check out how you need to learn to have faith in life
Thanks to her, you have come this far. However, it is time to move on and make peace with yourself! It is liberating!
