An Exercise for Releasing Emotional Pain |
Emotional pain that was created earlier in our lives (from beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and social situations) often ends up in the body, causing mental health issues, physical pain, and even illness (Van Der Kolk, 2003).
Luckily, compelling evidence shows that expressing this pain through journaling can halt and possibly even reverse these issues (e.g., Pennebaker, 1997; Schubiner & Betzold, 2010). This type of journaling is not about recording your day or setting goals but about expressing your deepest thoughts and feelings.
Emotional Pain and the Path to Well-Being
As we reach the later stages on our path to well-being, we are able to observe more and more subtle experiences. For example, it’s easy to observe the physical pain of breaking your arm, regardless of which stage you're in. But as we move into later stages, maybe we start to notice that we get anxious when we are around certain people. Eventually, we’ll be able to observe extremely subtle experiences such as efforting, resistance, wanting, and attachment.It is through observing each of our experiences that we can see them clearly, and seeing them clearly is what allows us to zoom out beyond them (e.g., Cook-Grueter, 2014). But to get to a point where we can observe the subtle aspects of experience, we first need to observe the big, loud stuff. The loud stuff is usually our emotional pain and it represents a giant wall standing between us and the well-being we seek.
Emotional Pain Must Be Seen to Be Released
Making the transition to transcendent stages often requires that we face the aspects of ourselves and our experience that we........