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When we suffer, the worst part is often that we suffer alone. Experiencing emotional or physical pain—when no one else can feel it— is a lonely place to be.
I think that’s one fundamental reason why we want to share our emotional pain with others: at least then we’re no longer as alone with it. And, when someone truly listens to us, the pain itself will often digest and resolve from the simple but meaningful act of being heard.
The trouble is that we often don’t get this experience with others. Our pain goes unnoticed, unheard, and so we turn to other strategies to deal with it.
If we grew up in a family where being unseen and unheard was a chronic state, then we are more likely to hide it since we don’t expect anything good to come from sharing. And then, if we’re men, we have the added difficulty of a culture that equates emotional disclosure to weakness. With so many barriers to getting help with our pain, it’s clear why so many of us don’t bother.
The Way Through
I believe the first step out of this is to acknowledge that our pain actually matters. And it may even have a message for us if we pay attention.
As sovereign beings, we alone can choose to own our suffering and forthrightly acknowledge it. If we don’t think our pain matters, then we’re more likely to ignore it, drown it in distraction or substances, or use it as justification to spread the pain to others.
Once we acknowledge its meaning and weight, we are more likely to bring our problem-solving resources to bear.
- Some pain can be resolved through sharing with a trusted confidant.
- Some pain needs action steps and long-term strategies to overcome.
- And some pain, let’s call it unavoidable suffering, can be witnessed mindfully and accepted—even when it doesn’t go away.
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One way I acknowledge and make my suffering matter is by meditating. Research has definitively shown that meditation helps emotional regulation by both reducing negative feelings and increasing positive ones as well as reducing pain and inflammation. By learning to witness uncomfortable sensations directly, we can “hold” them with our awareness, much in the same way a good listener would do for us.
It’s not enough to hear this described academically, better to experience mindfulness meditation to understand the impact of developing a “witnessing presence” within your own mind. It’s brain training, and we know that meditation literally reshapes the brain. If you’re curious, there are countless great introductory meditations on youtube, or check out the “Headspace” app.
Another way is to acknowledge your feelings with another by sharing. There are countless ways people sabotage their own efforts to communicate pain, so I’ll suggest a few that seem to work the best.
First and foremost, own your feelings with “I” statements. It may seem obvious, but it can be surprisingly revealing and uncomfortable.
You can also try completing the following statement: “I feel ____ because my need for ____ isn’t being met (by me or otherwise).”
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Most people get stuck in the story of what they feel, in other words, the narrative and factual, event-based description of what caused their feelings. That’s not usually as effective as putting your attention on the visceral feelings themselves, as if shining a flashlight on them, and then just sharing what that experience is like, moment by moment (e.g., “I notice a tightness in my chest, pain in my abdomen, and a feeling of wanting to shut down”). Most feelings will get “seen” when we pay attention like this and often resolve of their own accord. When we don’t pay attention to them, painful feelings tend to persist.
When sharing, you can also ask simply and directly for what you want. In some situations, you may ask for the person to just listen quietly, withholding advice. In other moments, you may want to know their own emotional impact to the share (e.g., “What did you feel hearing all that?”).
Why? Often people feel love, compassion, tenderness, and/or empathy when they hear another’s suffering, and it can feel hugely beneficial to receive that from them verbally when you’re in pain. And sometimes you may truly want advice and to problem-solve, so you can ask for that too.
Welcome and Own Your Suffering
When we are beaten down by myriad forces beyond our control, when it’s truly not our fault that we’re suffering, it’s seductive to feel victimized, bitter, or even vengeful. Darker roads await those who indulge those particular temptations.
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Instead, we need the opposite of victimhood…we need to own it. If we radically embrace suffering, forthrightly claim responsibility for it, and engage action steps to work through it, then we stand the best chance of reducing our pain.
Victimhood, on the other hand, all but guarantees suffering will stick around because to claim victim status means willingly sacrificing our own power.
Think about all of the suffering you carry that’s not your fault. All of the pain transmitted down through generations of your family, through culture, and confrontation with evil and ignorance. It’s not fair…at all.
Yet you have it. And the noble choice—heroic, even— is to own it anyway, with relish and power. It’s yours now. And by rising up to it, engaging it, and claiming it, the suffering loses power while yours grows. No one can take away that strength and nobility once earned.
When you’re tempted to blame someone else for the pain, own it even more. Adopt it, wholeheartedly, as a radical act of responsibility for your life and personal experience. We are all swimming in suffering, and any outsourcing will just weaken and paralyze us, all but ensuring it persists and bleeds out to affect others.
Imagine if we all learned how to do this more effectively. The “hot potato” of suffering we play with each other would diminish, and the world would become more livable.
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