healing emotional pain

Here’s a simple exercise. Doing it weekly or even daily will help you widen your ability to endure discomfort.

1 Set an alarm for 15 minutes and ind a comfortable place to sit or lie down.

2 Get attuned to a sensation of discomfort in your body. Put it in the center of your awareness. Explore it with curiosity. How would you describe the sensation? Tingling? Buzzing? Pulsing? What texture does it have? What temperature? Trace the edge of the area of discomfort with your finger. Is the edge sharp or gradual? 

3 What emotions correlate with this area of physical discomfort? In other words, based only on these sensations, what you are feeling right now? Use the list below to help name nuanced emotions connected to the uncomfortable sensations.

4 If the physical sensations had words, what would they say? What is their message?

5 What do the sensations seem to want for you?

6 Express what these sensations want. Don’t worry if it’s not logical or feels embarrassing. The point is to accept what is inside you, allow it, and express it. You might scream out or cry or moan. You might speak in the voice of a child who feels wronged or ignored. You might yell, “this is so unfair!” or “I hate this!” Don’t worry about being “mature” or “logical.” Connect with whatever your emotions are and express them. Practice allowing your tears to come without trying to stop them. Eventually, they will stop on their own.

7 Now notice whether and when the emotions have dissipated. When they do, realize you don’t need to keep feeling them. You can let go. If they don’t, how might you connect with a deeper emotion? What emotion hasn’t had a chance to express itself yet?

8 After doing this for 15 minutes, take 5 minutes to simply sit or lie in silence. Let yourself return to equilibrium and your normal way of thinking. Resist the urge to feed the emotions with “drama triangle” thinking. Allow yourself to just experience what it’s like to rest.

9 Go make lunch or do the dishes. Re-engaged in the mundane beauty of simply being alive.

Do you dig this?

Frank Ostaseski teaches us to “welcome everything, push away nothing.” This is counter-cultural advice. I hope you will be radically counter-cultural too. Welcome discomfort, knowing that on the other side is a transformed you.