There are two kinds of emotional pain: the kind that we can’t control, and the kind we can.
My boyfriend dumped me. Sucks right? A break up is a perfect example of one of those shitty things that happens in life that is completely out of our control. And for me, that means immense emotional pain since I’m a recovering control freak.
So I’m dumped and all the usual suspects show up in waves: loneliness, abandonment, despair, loss, resentment, regret, depression, anger, and their merry band of misfits. These are the emotions that I consider valid. They are emotions that any well-functioning human would feel in similar circumstances. They’re par for the course.
The second layer of pain
However, what many of us tend to do is add a second layer of emotional pain that is all about one thing: resistance to the original pain. We push against the valid negative emotions because we don’t want to feel them; we resist them and struggle against them. I don’t want to feel this way, we cry out to anyone who will listen. Our resistance to the valid emotions sends us into a further downward spiral, digging an even deeper hole. And the kicker is that it’s totally unnecessary and 100% our own doing. So why do we do it?
Pleasure addicts
We have become so addicted to pleasure-seeking that any semblance of negative emotion can feel completely foreign to us. These emotions disturb our false notion that we must be happy all the time (I’m looking at you, social media). When we just accept the fact that negative emotion is part of the human experience, a comforting dose of relief sets in. It’s okay to be feel negative emotion. These are perfectly normal and totally universal feelings that every human being has felt and will feel again- many times. In fact, I even argue that these moments make the happy moments even better.
A simple process
Once we learn how to properly process negative emotion, it can be significantly reduced. Here is a quick process that I use that gives immediate results:
- Awareness. Simply identify the emotions you’re feeling without reacting to them. Pretend you’re identifying them out of a police line up. My usual suspects tend to be anxiety, abandonment, and fear.
- Recognize they are not unique to you. Everyone at some point has felt the emotions you’re feeling in that moment. Realize that you’re not alone in your suffering and that what you’re experiencing is universal across humanity- we’ve all been there. In fact, you’ve felt this before and you’ve survived.
- It’s okay. Repeat those words as many times as it takes, even if you don’t believe it at first. Fake it til you make it. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s alright that you feel frustrated. It’s totally normal to feel depressed from time to time. It’s okay to feel lonely. This is what being human is all about. If you didn’t feel negative emotion, you’d be a psychopath.
Bonus points
Now if you want extra credit, here’s a couple of other tricks that will super-boost the dosage of relief:
- Watch your words. There is a huge difference in the way your brain processes these two sentences: I am depressed vs. I feel depressed. In the first, we internalize the feeling and allow it to become part of us. It is therefore more accurate to say I feel depressed. This way, your brain interprets it for what it is: a temporary emotional state that comes and goes. Be mindful of the self-talk when you’re feeling negative emotion.
- Sit with It. Admittedly, this one took me some time to nail down, but it works wonders. Visualize that you’re a space that this emotion has come to hang out for a bit. Just accept it because if you insist he leaves (resistance), he’ll just stay longer. So sit with it. Sit with it and feel where it shows up in your body. Feel the fear in your gut, feel the heaviness in your chest, feel your heart beating. Breathing into the places in your body where you’re feeling emotion has a powerful effect. If you practice yoga or meditation, this will be an easier process for you.
Feel the difference
Once you begin to differentiate between the negative emotion that is valid and the negative emotion that you pile on yourself, the light at the end of the tunnel gets a lot closer. In some cases, I notice that it’s my resistance that was causing me more emotional pain than the circumstance itself. The good news is that with practice, we have the power within our minds to alleviate some of this pain.
