Working with Emotional Pain

One of the most powerful aspects of self-compassion is the strength it provides to experience emotional pain without being overwhelmed.

Difficult feelings like shame, anger, fear, sadness, or confusion can spiral into debilitating mind states like depression or anxiety if we aren’t able to hold them with compassion.  

Because they feel so uncomfortable, our first instinct is to resist painful emotions. Naturally, we don’t want to feel what we’re feeling – it hurts! We may try to suppress and stifle the pain and pretend it’s not there, but our unconscious and our physical body is still affected. Or else our awareness becomes completely consumed by attempts to make the pain go away through obsessive thinking, meaning that we get carried away by our difficult emotions and lose perspective. 

If resisting pain worked I’d say go for it, but a well-established psychological principle is that what we resist, persists and grows stronger. We actually intensify the energy of a painful emotion when we fight it. 

Painful emotions are a combination of thoughts/sensations that are typically triggered by a perceived danger such as rejection or harm.  Emotions arise unbidden in our awareness, express themselves to provide needed information such as “pay attention” or “this is unsafe,” and eventually pass away. But when we trap our painful emotions through resistance, they can’t pass away, so they may spiral and amplify.

This is where self-compassion can help. Mindfulness gives space to our painful emotions. It allows us to be present with what we’re experiencing with an attitude of acceptance and patience. Common humanity also fosters acceptance by reminding us that painful emotions are part of life, as natural as storm clouds or rain. Kindness brings warmth to our experience. This means that in addition to hurting, we also feel care and compassion for our pain. We hold ourselves and our experience with love, making it easier to bear. 

And this is where the alchemy often happens. When we bring space and warmth to our painful emotions, they are free to arise, do their little dance, and move on. Sometimes our emotions change or uncover other hidden emotions – anger may turn to hurt and sadness, for instance. We may also feel the satisfying sweetness of our own open heart.

I’ve included a practice called “Working with Difficult Emotions” so you can try it out for yourself. I hope you enjoy it.