Do we Enjoy emotional pain?
I just can’t rationally explain why I center my attention on feelings of hurt done to me by people who mattered to me. What is this longing to feel pain? A justification that life is not fair? A rationale for victimness? Nestling into the warmth and comfort pain radiates? Probably a bit of all but most likely, or safely, the last one makes the most sense. As Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels explain without apology, life is not fair and no one owes me anything and the search for fairness is part “X”’s way of keeping me in the maze of distraction and inauthentic intentions. I KNOW that I am not a victim intellectually, yet, I dig into this mindset every time I recall a past event where I was treated in a way that felt unjust. That’s the first two explanations. The third, the warm glow of pain. What in the heck is that? Warm glow is so nice and comforting but why is the gateway to this feeling sometimes pain? There are many other gateways I could conjure up in my bank of memories. The first time my son walked, singing “You Can Close Your Eyes” with my beloved, my daughter dancing like none other on stage. All beautiful glowing memories. This morning, however, I chose to center on an injustice. As I take a lazy Sunday morning and allow my mind to wander freely, this is where it led me.
I started to research this and fell upon an interview with Paul Bloom, PhD of psychology who has written books about this topic with his latest being The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning. He posits that there is no meaning if there is no suffering. Am I going to these places of emotional suffering because there is a shadow self inside me that is neglected? The shadow in all of its angst and pain is really a part of me that is trying to get my attention to the suffering I'm still experiencing. What better way to catch my attention than with a warm glow. Is it possible that this part of me or shadow self is holding this pain waiting for me to fully embrace it, accept it and allow it to transform into meaning? This part of me probably has learned to love pain as a means to get my attention so I can glean the wisdom and meaning of the painful experience. Not unlike running a marathon, eating spicy food and doing the Via ferrata which all give us a feeling of pleasure after enduring the pain, emotional pain allows us to move through the suffering and reach a higher understanding of ourselves and our world. I know that one of my values is to be on the journey to self-actualization. To feel how my wisdom can serve others as a means to illuminate their struggle while recognizing their own strength to overcome and persevere. Not that I'm a martyr, I'm surely not, but as a therapist I study myself and my impulses, negative thoughts, poor behavior, etc... so that I can better understand the lovely people that sit before me and ask that I shine my metaphorical flashlight inside them so they can see their pain and see that their superhero cape is always close behind waiting for them to throw it over their shoulders empower themselves. |
What is this longing to feel pain? A justification that life is not fair? I just can’t rationally explain why I center my attention on feelings of hurt done to me by people who mattered to me. What is this longing to feel pain? A justification that life is not fair? A rationale for victimness? Nestling into the warmth and comfort pain radiates? Probably a bit of all but most likely, or safely, the last one makes the most sense. As Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels explain without apology, life is not fair and no one owes me anything and the search for fairness is part “X”’s way of keeping me in the maze of distraction and inauthentic intentions. I KNOW that I am not a victim intellectually, yet, I dig into this mindset every time I recall a past event where I was treated in a way that felt unjust. That’s the first two explanations. The third, the warm glow of pain. What in the heck is that? Warm glow is so nice and comforting but why is the gateway to this feeling sometimes pain? There are many other gateways I could conjure up in my bank of memories. The first time my son walked, singing “You Can Close Your Eyes” with my beloved, my daughter dancing like none other on stage. All beautiful glowing memories. This morning, however, I chose to center on an injustice. As I take a lazy Sunday morning and allow my mind to wander freely, this is where it led me.
I started to research this and fell upon an interview with Paul Bloom, PhD of psychology who has written books about this topic with his latest being The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning. He posits that there is no meaning if there is no suffering. Am I going to these places of emotional suffering because there is a shadow self inside me that is neglected? The shadow in all of its angst and pain is really a part of me that is trying to get my attention to the suffering I'm still experiencing. What better way to catch my attention than with a warm glow. Is it possible that this part of me or shadow self is holding this pain waiting for me to fully embrace it, accept it and allow it to transform into meaning? This part of me probably has learned to love pain as a means to get my attention so I can glean the wisdom and meaning of the painful experience. Not unlike running a marathon, eating spicy food and doing the Via ferrata which all give us a feeling of pleasure after enduring the pain, emotional pain allows us to move through the suffering and reach a higher understanding of ourselves and our world. I know that one of my values is to be on the journey to self-actualization. To feel how my wisdom can serve others as a means to illuminate their struggle while recognizing their own strength to overcome and persevere. Not that I'm a martyr, I'm surely not, but as a therapist I study myself and my impulses, negative thoughts, poor behavior, etc... so that I can better understand the lovely people that sit before me and ask that I shine my metaphorical flashlight inside them so they can see their pain and see that their superhero cape is always close behind waiting for them to throw it over their shoulders empower themselves. |
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