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Pain Is Not Your Enemy

by | Apr 11, 2024 | Emotions and Feelings, Identity, Self-care

In life we all experience different kinds of emotions and a single emotion can lead to several other emotions. These emotions create feelings and knowings within us. Most times the feelings that come with an unpleasant emotion is pain. Pain, no matter if it’s physical or emotional, is a feeling that we all want to avoid. If we can learn to navigate and honor pain in a healthy way it will help us to experience more joy and pleasure in our lives.

I am starting the blogs in this series talking about pain because the emotional responses that we are going to explore; grief (loss), rejection, betrayal, shame, and forgiveness all come with pain. Becoming comfortable with the idea that pain is a part of the healing journey is necessary. It is not an easy idea to accept but it’s important to remember that pain is not the enemy. It’s just a sign that something needs attention and care. When you are able to relax within this idea it will help you to feel some sense of control and this will help you to be more vulnerable. Being vulnerable allows you to be open and honest with yourself about what you’ve experienced and what you are feeling. It allows you to feel your feelings, which is an important part of healing. When you begin your journey of healing it will require you to acknowledge, express, and release the emotions and the feelings that came from the painful (traumatic, wounding) experience. This is impossible to do without being vulnerable. We fear being vulnerable because it means we are opening up to the possibility of being truly seen or hurt, we are afraid because being vulnerable also means letting go of control.

In order to heal we must be vulnerable first with ourselves. We must be willing to look at our own pain and suffering, and be willing to feel our own emotions, even if they are uncomfortable and unpleasant. We must be willing to be honest with ourselves and take responsibility for our own lives, and our own recovery instead of living in denial, suppression, and blame. When we take ownership of our healing and acknowledge the pain we are empowered to begin to express it and release it. This is what we will begin to do as we explore; grief (loss), rejection, betrayal, shame, and forgiveness. These are unpleasant emotions but we will all experience them to some degree in life so let’s learn about them in order to navigate the experience in a healthy way.

Stay Tuned.

Journaling Prompts:

  1. How do you define pain?
  2. How have you managed, or dealt with pain in the past? Was this way of managing helpful or harmful? If harmful, how can you move forward and take steps to manage in a more helpful and healthy way?
  3. Has there been a time where you manage pain in a healthy way? Write about it.

 

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