Why Does Emotional Pain Last So Long?

Let's say you feel happy or laugh at a joke 😃

I could repeat that same joke, or ask you to recall the memory of the happy time the next day. Will it be AS funny / happy as it was the first time? No. 😐

What if we recalled it again a week later? It might bring a smile to your face, but the emotion is very slight. 😑

A year later? Well, you'd probably know intellectually that it was a great, happy time, but I doubt you'd FEEL much. 😶

But what if I recall your painful experiences? 😥

This can hit us hard. Recalling these experiences can overwhelm us with pain, anxiety, shame, insecurity, rejection or anger, again and again. Whether it's a breakup you've been 'dealing' with for months/ years. Or something from way back. Old emotions can be triggered by totally unrelated situations and experiences yeeearrs later. We can experience pain about the same thing for AGES. 😭

So why does happiness pass and pain linger?

💥Because one was EXPRESSED FULLY, and the other one was REPRESSED. 💥

One was RELEASED, and the other stayed INSIDE.

It's not a taboo to be happy - so we like to let it out. Immediately.

The brain is not threatened by happiness - so it's lets us feel it. Immediately.

But pain? Shame? Sadness? Nerves? Fear? Anger? Insecurity? Heartbreak?

These both threaten the brain (the brain thinks negative/ painful emotion is bad) and are often seen as taboos. So we don't fully release these feelings.

We hide them. We avoid them. We distract ourselves from them. We put on a brave face. If we felt a lot of painful emotions when we were young, our brain actually blocked them on purpose (for our own protection).

The solution is expression

What if we fully expressed and felt our negative emotions at the time they were triggered, in the same way we do for our happy feelings?

What if we let out a roar 🦁 in the same way we let out a laugh? 😂

Or a cry 😢 in the same way we let out a smile? 😁

(not advocating acting out anger and pain in a way that hurts others!)

The negative emotions would dissipate fast, just like the happiness does. Then, in the same way that you cannot re-feel the same level of happiness after the event, we also won't re-feel the same level of pain for ages on end.

All e-motion is simply energy in motion. If you let it MOVE through and out of you, it is no longer STUCK inside of you.

Feeling is healing. Thinking is... stinking

Haha, sorry, that's all I could come up with! Oh actually, I've got a better one: THINKING IS SINKING!! Yeah, I like that! :) Ok, nuff of the rhymes. Point is, instead of analysing our pain and trying to think our way out of it (I'm very good at this futile practise!!) we just need to FEEL.

💗

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