Why I Embrace Authentic Pain
In my previous post, I relayed a story about a time I skated into a situation, full speed ahead, without making a point to check in with myself first. I find that this kind of emotion-fueled exchange is far more likely to happen when my focus on self-awareness slips.
Ideally, I would have registered that I was upset before I encountered the woman and her dog. If possible, I would have further identified if I was angry, confused or even scared. Along with grief, these are what I think of as the four authentic pain emotions.
In my experience, acknowledging authentic pain is quite powerful. So powerful, in fact, that I don’t believe getting to a place of inner peace is possible without not just acknowledging authentic pain, but embracing it.
I think of authentic pain as that deep-down universal human pain that most of our upset stems from. And when I acknowledge this at the root of whatever else it is I’m feeling, I find that I can deescalate my reactive emotions and get to a calmer, more balanced place.
Authentic Pain:
- Grief over someone or something that’s been lost.
- Anger at how something is affecting you right now.
- Confusion about what you don’t understand.
- Fear of uncertainty.
In this previous post, I wrote about the importance of acknowledging pain specifically to grief, and I go into the difference between authentic and reactive pain. Of course, grief itself is authentic pain, but when we’re experiencing it we often heap on all kinds of reactive emotions like shame, blame, guilt, outrage and self-pity that make the pain of the grief all that much worse.
But here’s the thing:
When I’m triggered or having an emotional reaction like shame or outrage, it’s always because I’m experiencing authentic pain. The issue is that our Stone Age brains generally want us to act or otherwise do something to put pain behind us. So, these other feelings flare up instead to divert attention from these deeper feelings that can’t as easily be acted on or expelled.
For example:
- Have you ever blamed someone out of grief?
- Have you ever felt outrage over a situation you found confusing?
- Have you ever lapsed into self-pity at the thought of the future looming over you with all its uncertainty?
- Have you ever experienced as shame your anger about something not working out in the way you’d hoped or intended?
I’ve probably felt all of this at one time or another. When I process my reactive emotions about a situation—my guilt or impulse to blame someone, for example, I can usually get down to the deeper place where I can see that I’m angry about the way something is affecting me, grieving for someone or over something that happened, confused, or afraid of sitting with uncertainty.
Often, I’m feeling all four authentic pain emotions to a greater or lesser degree, yet often one or two may dominate.
If instead, I can accept and sit with my uncertainty, anger, grief or confusion — instead of fighting against it and acting on impulse—that right there is the gateway to inner peace. Once I can see the authentic pain beneath my reaction, it most often subsides or deflates.
When I’m upset but don’t have time to really process my feelings, I make a point to say to myself, “this is really painful.” This helps me put on the brakes, instead of going from reaction to action, speeding along, further upsetting myself and others and ultimately getting nowhere good.
This is especially important in a crisis.
This is also why paying attention to the facts, and nothing but the facts, is so important in a crisis. It’s also the best way to keep yourself honest when your brain wants nothing more than to override uncertainty by making things up.
Take good care : )
Meg
Learn more about my approach to cultivating inner peace with my free Practical Pathways to Inner Peace videos.