How to Stop Emotional Pain
Question: How many times does a person have to keep going through the same old emotional wounds before there is healing? I’m tired of feeling this pain over and over again.
Answer: When we resist the pain, we go through it 1,000 times as opposed to 10 times of embracing the pain. Most of us prefer quick fixes and as little suffering as possible. That is understandable, but there is only one problem with this approach. The quick fixes do not last if they are done on a surface level. Most people suffer needlessly because they do not know how to transform pain.
Consequences of Unhealed Pain
We can only see God through the lens of our own perception. When our lens is clouded by emotional pain and dysfunctional societal programming, we see a distorted view of God. When we do not feel in close relationship with God, our human relationships suffer. We cling to or shun relationships in order to try to feel whole, but that kind of wholeness never works because it is not real.
Societal Programming that Causes Dysfunction
Do you remember when you were a child, and you fell down and hurt your knee? You cried, right? You wanted your mom or your dad or your caregiver to look it and comfort you, right? Then you stopped crying and went back to play. That is normal. After a certain age, you were taught that big girls and big boys do not cry, so you learned to suppress or repress your emotional and physical pain. When I was10 years old, I was playing basketball with the teenager next door. The ball rebounded off the rim and hit me in the nose. It hurt a lot, but I did not cry. I had already learned to be stoic.
Many of us no longer know what we feel emotionally, and even if we do know, we are afraid to express it unless we have a trusted confidante. The inability to feel and manage emotions well hinders our ability to form intimate relationships and successful business relationships. Many of us are out of touch with our bodies, and that leads to unnecessary illness, accidents and dis-ease.
High-achievers who are uneducated in emotional intelligence attempt to resolve emotional pain like this: We work excessively. We are driven to succeed. Or we shop, buy houses and cars, over-eat or under-eat, drink or take drugs, have affairs, become frigid or act out in other ways. We may feel depressed or anxious but try to hide it. We may cling to relationships for a sense of wholeness or we may push away from loved ones for fear of having our freedom taken away. When we feel hurt, we do not say anything to the appropriate person, or we dump our anger on people. We let the pain build up and when we finally tell others, it is so intense we overwhelm them. Some of us are so numb that we do not know we are hurting inside. The body takes the hit in the form of back pain, headaches, heart disease, cancer and a variety of other illnesses that have spiritual roots in unresolved emotion. As a further complication, we attract others with complementary emotional coping strategies. The pain intensifies.
So how can we heal?
Am I suggesting that we wallow in the hurt, grief, fear or anger? No, I am not. Nor am I suggesting that we dump our emotions onto others. No matter how old we are, we want our pain to be acknowledged by a loved one, and then the pain often subsides. Ultimately that loved one is God. We can be ambassadors of God’s love and help each other heal.
When we discover the core wound underneath the emotional reaction, we can find the appropriate way to meet unmet need. It may have started in childhood, as a teenager or as an adult. Sometimes the pain is part of a generational pattern. We ask for God to reveal to us the specific source of the wounding, and we pray for God’s healing. We listen for God’s direction. Sometimes we are led to trained professionals who have the ability to see the entire pattern and know how to help facilitate the healing.
No matter what healing methods we employ, we must forgive ourselves for forgetting that God is our source of love instead of people, money and fame. We must forgive others and ask for their forgiveness to dissolve resentments, bitterness and grief. We must learn to see ourselves in our true identity as God sees us—the way we were originally intended to be—and to receive God’s love.
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Benita A. Esposito, MA facilitates people to remember their wholeness in God. She can spot the entire life pattern so people can heal in depth. If you have questions about how to transform your emotional pain, email Benita@EspositoInstitute.com.
Call 770.998.6642.