I have been through the trenches on this one. Divorce triggered my pain and it was tormenting. My body felt ravaged by hurt and it was excruciating. I wasn’t prepared. Not even a little. We all experience pain at regular intervals in our lives. We often turn to something to ignore the pain; alcohol, food, shopping, work, exercise, etc. So many of us are not taught how to process our emotions, let alone name them as children. Now that we are adults, we have NO IDEA what to do with them so we avoid them, resist them, and react to them. Ideally, we process them. I was good at the first three. REALLY GOOD.
AVOIDING PAIN
Choosing to avoid pain and pretending it isn’t there is the same as lying to yourself. It works for the short term, but just like a splinter, avoidance causes pain to fester. I didn’t realize how true this was for me. The more I avoided it, the bigger it became, so the more I tried to avoid it. Here’s how this can play out: you might eat to avoid feeling something. Then you are mad at yourself for eating when you weren’t really hungry. From there you might judge your body or your (lack of) exercise routine. In the end, your undesirable symptoms of weight gain stem from your avoidance to feel pain. Maybe you don’t eat your feelings away, but you have a drink or two. You deserve it, right? The day was hard and you NEED to unwind. How about buying something pretty to pretend away all the ugly. All of these things are temporary.
RESISTING AND REACTING
Do you find yourself yelling at the people around you? Easily irritated and frustrated? Your spouse, kids, random people in their cars? I found myself getting angry with my kids, but deep down I knew it had nothing to do with them. I was hurt, sad, and lonely and it all came out as anger. That’s all I knew. Others may blame, hate, and argue with everything. Some overstate the truth or just simply lie about it. It works for a while, but it won’t last long term. Why? Reacting from negative emotion will net a negative result. Yelling at my kids felt awful, being mad all the time left me exhausted and stuck. ALL NEGATIVE.
ANXIETY
Fighting against the emotion usually causes anxiety, making the emotion even more intense. I remember people would talk about having anxiety and I couldn’t relate. I felt bad for them, but glad I didn’t have it. I was so wrong. Once I started working through my emotions, I realized how much anxiety I had. Didn’t behave properly, anxiety. Wasn’t fast enough doing the things I needed to do, anxiety. Couldn’t people please enough, anxiety. Had to be around negative people, anxiety. Thought I would be in trouble, anxiety. Usually anxiety stems from fear and can manifest as overwhelm and confusion. I can now recognize it almost instantly and determine the cause. Anxiety is not a big part of my life anymore.
PROCESSING PAIN
Now this was new to me and a totally foreign concept. Make the choice to feel pain on purpose? I don’t mean physical pain, but emotional pain and hurt. That just feels bad, right? Hell yeah, it felt bad. When I stopped long enough I could feel jealousy that was like a hot poker in my chest, or pain that was throbbing in my gut. This is when we have the desire to avoid, resist or react. YES PLEASE. But here was my opportunity for growth. I learned to acknowledge the urge to resist and just sit in the hurt. This is where the real change began for me as I started to clearly see how I thought about myself, my situation, and others in my life. You can’t live with intention until you are aware of how you are feeling. Simply put; you can’t truly be you until you deal with your stuff.
BEGINNINGS
This was just the beginning. The ability to FEEL for the first time in my life has been scary, hard, amazing and everything in between. I have done this work and it’s a gift. Have I mastered it? NOPE. But I catch myself now trying to avoid or resist and that feels pretty incredible.
I WILL NO LONGER PLAY SMALL.
Where are you on your journey?
I can help.
