Your Pandora’s Box of Difficult (and usually unwanted) Emotions? Let them out! On the other side of, moving through the pain is a rush of good energy and creativity!
The road to a better life is paved with fun, hope, insight – and, oh yes, some hard work. For some of us, especially those of us with significant trauma in childhood and who may be prone to melancholia, working through those deeply layered feelings can be excruciating work. In my own life, I have gone through the process of peeling off layers and layers of painful emotions that I couldn’t feel when I was in the midst of trying to survive and didn’t want to feel as I moved through my adult life because, well, they felt like they sucked the life out and paralyzed me. Why go there?
Don’t get me wrong, if you have such feelings and have little experience opening up that box and peeking in, please find a therapist you connect with who will accompany you on that journey. If you open the box and feel overwhelmed, please find a therapist.
This year, my body forced me to open that box again and delve deeper, even though I did not want to. I began to think thoughts from my childhood and early adulthood that were self-destructive and scary. When I sat with them, the emotions of pain, grief, sadness, and sheer terror were physically painful, but I could not shut them down this time.
Wisdom experts like Pema Chodron, Tara Brach, and Kristen Neff tell us that resisting these emotions by feeling ashamed of them, trying to stop them, telling ourselves there is something wrong with us if we have them and if we were just better people, we could get rid of them will only increase the pain. The key is to embrace them. And yes, I found a wonderful counselor to walk me through.
Self-compassion is not easy for me. I had to practice. I had to send myself friendlessness, gentleness, and compassion continually. It worked to remember to switch off the negative judgments as well as just wanting “it” to go away. Instead, I made myself wrap my imaginary warm arms around the places in my body where the pain was most acute and say – ‘welcome friend, this is hard; I won’t abandon you. You are safe here, and take as long as you need to heal.’
In my case, I’ve gone through what felt like almost constant losses over the last ten years, and my body finally make me cry, “Uncle.” The first months were so tough that I could not feel the least bit grateful for what I was going through and wondered when it would end. I’m at the point where the pain and fear are lessening, and the tough stuff doesn’t overtake me for days and days, more like a few hours here and there. I continue to make time to sit with my pain and fear, love it, and tell myself I will be with whatever I am going through with friendliness, gentleness, and compassion, and I’ll let joy sneak in when it wants to. And my creativity and energy to do things I have enjoyed have flowed into the ever-growing healed spaces.
Because that is the irony of it all, moving directly into and through the pain leads you to the joy, awe, and creative energy you might have felt deserted you.
Here are some books I found particularly helpful in changing my resistance to difficult emotions to embracing them and finding the creative power they release into my life:
Between the Dark and the Daylight: Embracing the Contradictions of Life, Joan Chittister, OSB
The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth by Gerald May, M.D.
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself By Dr. Kristin Neff
Radical Acceptance
Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach, Ph.D.
Job and the Mystery of Suffering by Richard Rohr, ofm
