Fear of Emotional Pain

What would your life look like if you weren't afraid of emotional pain?

Not if you never felt it. Not if everyone approved of you and nothing disappointing happened. What if you knew you could feel rejection, loneliness, frustration, or shame and move through it?

So much of what we call hiding from life is actually hiding from an emotion we are afraid to feel. When we become willing to experience that emotion, our lives open up.

Notice the fear surrounding the pain

Reading Alan Gordon's book The Way Out made me think deeply about the relationship between pain and fear. I read it through the lens of the emotional pain I work on with myself and my students.

One of the ideas I explored was how fear can fuel and perpetuate pain. We are so afraid of feeling it that we try to get rid of it, prevent it, or arrange our lives so it won't happen.

But what if we opened ourselves to the emotion instead? What if we stopped treating the feeling as something we couldn't handle?

The question isn't whether the pain is real. When you feel it, you experience it. The question is what happens when you become afraid of that experience and spend your life trying to avoid it.

Avoidance can become a habit

I see students repeat thoughts that create emotional pain, then buffer because they are afraid of feeling it. By not experiencing and processing the emotion, they keep reinforcing the idea that it is scary.

We may tell ourselves we love cookies, chardonnay, or Instagram. But sometimes what we love is the temporary relief from boredom, isolation, or loneliness.

Those are human emotions we could pay attention to and experience. We could understand the thoughts contributing to them and take action after allowing the feeling.

That is different from reacting. Processing an emotion means being present with it. Reacting means letting it drive a response without that awareness.

The false pleasure of buffering doesn't eliminate the pain. It gives temporary relief while prolonging the experience we are trying to escape.

Find out what you are afraid will happen

We may fear that the emotion will never end, that we can't handle it, or that allowing it will mean acting on it.

Think about loneliness. What do you imagine will happen if you let yourself feel lonely? Do you think you will feel it forever? What are you doing to avoid that possibility?

Or consider rejection, disapproval, deprivation, or unworthiness. These are feelings we try to prevent through people pleasing, perfectionism, and buffering.

Feeling an emotion is not the same as obeying it. In the Model, you can pause after the feeling line. You can experience the feeling without moving into a reaction.

We don't have to avoid every emotion to be able to choose what we do next.

Describe the feeling in your body

One of the most useful practices I know is describing emotional pain. When I become the watcher and describe it, I can get relief without avoiding it.

I might notice tightness in my chest, an empty feeling in my stomach, or anxiety that feels like constant buzzing. I breathe into the sensation and allow it.

Ask what you are feeling right now and what it feels like in your body. Stay with that experience instead of immediately trying to find a different thought so you can escape it.

Understanding that thoughts create feelings doesn't mean you shouldn't feel the emotion. It doesn't mean you must change the thought immediately. Sometimes you want to feel disappointed, frustrated, or devastated.

You can know you are experiencing a thought-feeling combination and still give yourself room to process it.

Stop looking outside for an internal solution

When we are afraid of internal pain, we often try to fix everything around us. We try to change people, make more money, get more approval, or have everyone behave the way we want.

That leaves us frustrated and afraid of being out of control.

You can't manipulate enough circumstances to solve your emotional life. Your brain has learned patterns of thought, and some may create pain you don't even notice because you are unwilling to look at the feeling.

When you open to the emotion, you gain access to the thinking that creates it. You can tell yourself the truth, notice the habitual thought, and work with your mind instead of treating it as an enemy.

Your brain produces negative thoughts. You experience negative emotions. That is part of being human, rather than proof that you need to hide.

Become willing to feel as you live

I don't want a life spent trying to eliminate every negative emotion. The balance is part of the magic of being alive.

When you avoid emotional pain, you experience fear instead. That fear can lead to buffering, blaming, and trying to change the world so you won't have to feel.

Practicing the emotion takes you in a different direction. You experience it, make it to the other side, and become stronger. You learn that you can show up for your life and feel what comes with it.

Make a list of the things you are avoiding because you don't want to experience pain. Then name the actual emotions you are afraid of feeling.

What would change if you were willing to feel them? You could pursue goals, explore your abilities, and show up more fully in relationships without requiring those experiences to be free of discomfort.

Emotional pain is part of life. The unnecessary hiding from it is what I want you to let go of. Be willing to experience the feelings that come with your big, beautiful life.