Recently I had a conversation with someone about pain. What was really interesting for me to hear was how the pain appears to them like a blank white wall that is impossible to go through. This post is inspired by that conversation I had.

People do not want to feel their emotions, especially those that feel unpleasant. Unpleasant feelings hurt and there seems to be no plausible reason why you should allow yourself to be hurt. But wait, there are reasons why you should allow yourself to feel those emotions and, to add to that, very convincing and strong reasons why.

Pain and Pleasure Co-exist

Image by Patou Ricard from Pixabay

There are various emotions that arise within us – some give us good feelings and others leave us feeling horrible. As with everything in life, you can only enjoy the good when you also allow the bad. The Yin exists along with the Yang. One cannot fully appreciate light without knowing darkness. In the same way, one cannot fully enjoy the positive emotions if one does not allow the negative ones too.

You may be thinking to yourself, “What rubbish! I could do with no pain and loads of happiness all the time”. However, this is wishful thinking and you do not know how it would be like to be always happy. It would mean that you lose the meaning of happiness altogether because happiness can only exist in contrast to sadness or pain.

If you suppress your pain, you may find that your ability to experience the joy as much as you could is also suppressed. Think of the people you know who can cry and laugh without inhibition. Now think of those who control or suppress their negative emotions. Do these people live their joyous moments to the fullest? Probably not!

Don’t Judge Your Emotions

Things happen in the world. You may like some of those events and occurrences and you may feel terrible about the others. It is okay to label these events in life as those that are good and those that are not. The issue arises when you start judging your emotions based on these good or bad events.

No emotion is good or bad. They are either 1) signals that your body or unconscious mind is giving to you for you to take action or 2) created by the thoughts that you are generating in your brain.

Understand the Emotion and Process it

The ultimate goal is to be able to uncover the thoughts that are causing you pain and then reframe them in order to get rid of the pain. Processing a painful emotion requires effortful cognitive work that requires a clear head. However, the thoughts that are causing you the pain are likely to be hidden behind the ‘blank white wall’ (as my friend put it). Unless you process the pain and go through it, you are unlikely to get access to these thoughts in your conscious brain.

The flurry of thoughts that are causing you the pain is hidden from you. These are likely to remain hidden till you let go and allow yourself to go through the pain completely and without inhibition.

Resisting Pain Causes Extra Suffering

As the pain rises, you tend to push back in order to give yourself some relief. What really happens at this stage is that you create more thoughts about the pain itself. Some experience shame at feeling hurt. Others think it would be a sign of weakness to cry. There seems to be a judgment ascribed to almost all the so-called negative emotions.

These thoughts about the pain cause the pain to magnify more than it has to. In fact, that is the most significant reason why resisting or suppressing pain seems to make it increasingly more difficult.

Ignoring it does not work either. When you ignore the pain and refuse to address it head-on, it buffers, builds up, and then makes its ugly appearance in ways that are undesirable. We have heard and seen enough cases of binge eating, drug or alcohol abuse, and other unhelpful ways of pain processing.

Emotions are not a problem if you feel them through and through. They are a problem only when you resist or ignore them.

6 Steps to Embracing Pain and Living Life to the Fullest

Based on a better understanding of emotions and pain, here is a synopsis of what you can try to embrace pain and live life to the fullest.

1. Accept that pain and pleasure co-exist. You will not be able to live your life to the fullest unless you accept that the pain co-exists with it too.
2. Don’t judge your emotions as good or bad. Events are good or bad but emotion is something you are feeling. Consciously drop the rule book you subconsciously have about what emotions are okay to have. Allow yourself to feel any emotion that you are feeling without judgment. Tell yourself, you need to feel the full force of the pain to be able to feel the full force of the joy! Pain is a part of the full human experience.
3. Give permission for the pain to manifest. Observe it in your body as a witness. Is it a heavyweight on your shoulders, a sinking pit in your stomach, a heavy object on your chest, encapsulating tentacles around your heart, frantic energy all over your body, or a burning sensation on your face? Or is it something else? Name the physical feeling and acknowledge it for what it is.
4. Don’t process the pain yet. Thinking about the pain without a clear head only leads to more pain as you hit the blank wall over and over again.
5. Manifest the emotion in your actions as you deem fit. Break down and cry, hit a punching bag, squeeze and then punch a pillow, go for a crazy sprint, listen to some really loud music, or anything else that helps you see through the pain. This is something that may happen many times. Allow it. Depending on what you are hurting about, you may have to give yourself the permission to feel this pain over and over again till you are ready.
6. Start the cognitive processing once you feel you are ready. This may require you to do some heavy lifting in the area of brainwork. Getting in touch with a life coach is a good idea at this time for the support, motivation, and helpful nudges that you need at this stage.

Understanding and accepting the coexistence of pain and pleasure is the key to managing pain. The goal is not to get rid of the pain because, without pain, there is no joy! The goal is to learn how to allow it to pass through you each time it appears.

If you wish all your pain to go away, you are wishing away an essential human experience. You may get your wish if you wish pain to go away. But along with that will also go your ability to experience pleasure and joy to the fullest too!

In fact, those who live their life to the fullest have more painful experiences than those who do not. They take risks in life that open them up to possible pain. They allow themselves to be vulnerable in relationships and open themselves up for heartbreak. They go with the flow to see where life may take them and put steady lives on the line. By living it up they risk it all!

But they also open themselves to more joyous moments – the possibility of the perfect relationship, the joy of life enjoyed every moment, and the ecstasy of living your own life where you show up as your best self always!

Featured image by Holger Langmaier from Pixabay