Emotional Pain to Massive Self Upgrade
Emotional Pain is COMPLEX, and I wanted to share my insights and personal experience with how I have navigated it throughout the years with hope it will help you to CARE MORE about your emotional pain
I have been on a deeply personal journey with my emotions for over a year. I felt it was time to share parts of my experience, what I have learnt, and how to grow in the hope that you might relate or get a few takeaways to dive deeper into your own emotions.
Emotions are a massive part of who we are, and not many people talk about them for various reasons.
I felt ready to share now because I have overcome a big chunk of the emotional pain I have been dealing with for the past 5 months, and it is essential to share your wins with others.
This win felt wholeheartedly a win because it was acknowledged by someone I love the most for being MORE.
Three things to note when you feel you have had a life breakthrough moment:
For me, a life breakthrough moment is when you have experienced a challenge in your life, whether with work, relationships, family, friends, or injury, and the pain or struggle from that challenge does not overcome you, and you have figured it out how to grow from it. You see the life lesson you were required to have gone through in order to make you a new verison of yourself.
Not a better person as I don’t believe in that term as we are amazing people at every stage in our life. But life will always throw us lessons some hardballs and some soft but a few will be curveballs that we never knew were coming at us.
Life breakthrough moments can feel so different depending on the circumstances. A few months ago, I experienced a moment of emotional pain within my family. That affected me so profoundly because it hit a core wound of mine. [This core wound story is something I have to share with you all, but it is currently in my “draft” posts, and it’s the BIGGEST UNTOLD story of my life. I cannot wait to release it with you all this year, but it still doesn’t feel ready and complete.]
1. WITNESSING our emotional pain
Regardless of the core wound that it affected, I sat for months in wonder when I had given myself thinking space (not in mama mode) about how I was going to heal this emotional pain I felt??? A lot of the time, NOTHING came to me… I didn’t have any answers.
I have witnessed my emotional pain move through me in so many different examples in life before that I know pain isn’t something that can be resolved overnight.
This is not my first rodeo with emotional pain.
Even if you logically understand the experience, what happened, and why it happened… it still doesn’t mean your mind controls the outcome of how you will feel moving forward because the body and spirit haven’t found peace yet with the experience.
My body was holding on to the pain, and my spirit was not speaking to me, and if she was, I could not hear her whispers.
Our emotions live within our bodies—yoga taught me this as a student who has cried in classes without understanding why…
…but then, when I became a yoga teacher, witnessing it when holding space for students and seeing them cry in class because they didn’t know why was a deeper awareness, as I then had to explain to them that it is just your body releasing emotions you didn’t think you had trapped inside of you.
During this time, my body was very tense, and often, I had tight shoulders and lower back soreness. I did not practice yoga like I should have, but my emotional pain controlled me to the point that going to the mat was the last place I wanted to be.
Understanding now that the mind can disregard our emotional pain by sending it to the back of the mind…
It doesn’t mean it will go away. All it does is take a severe emotional injury and ignore it, “thinking” it will just heal itself by pretending that it isn’t as severe or that it needs caring for.
This was not the case for me, as it wasn’t about pushing it to the back of the mind. Still, the stage in my life I was in, which is Intense Motherhood, unlike all the times before when emotional pain had entered my life, I was not a mother and had all this responsibility weighing on me not just during the day but every night. I am still on call every night of my life in motherhood, as my children do not sleep through the night yet. This added layer into my life made this healing journey process take longer for me personally. I was also navigating my own struggles of motherhood on top of the emotional pain I had felt.
But knowing this wasn’t my first or last experience with emotional pain…
I have learnt and felt deeply that I needed to seek professional help beyond the self-healing care I had done in the past. I wasn’t ashamed or tried to avoid getting help; I wanted it more than anything.
SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP
First step
I immediately went to my GP, explained what was going on with me, and got a mental care plan for six sessions. My emotional pain was so strong within me that I wanted help to calm the states of high emotions. I knew nothing in my Self-Care Toolbox was going to be able to support me.
Self Care Toolbox
- Meditation
- Journaling
- Yoga
- Breathwork
Second step
I messaged my counsellor, whom I had (at least 15 years ago) in Melbourne, who helped me overcome many obstacles in my life and knew about my core wound, which, in this case, not having to explain my history with a new counsellor was helpful.
He had helped me recognise that I was living with old programming; even though I was happy in my life, but my coping mechanisms were stopping me from actually being happy.
Third step
I started having weekly sessions to help release my pain to a third party versus sharing it with Tony (my husband) who was also going through it as well in a different way. This is where emotional pain, when not dealt with, can impact relationships negatively if it goes UNCARED! Make sure you participate in these sessions for as long as possible to ensure your healing is being cared for and nourished in the direction you want it to go.
EMOTIONAL STATES
A Flesh Wound vs A Broken Arm
It is evident as an adult to understand that a flesh wound (not a serious wound) can be repaired on its own without even thinking or asking your body to grow skin back over the wound. We have seen skin repair over and over since we were little kids.
It is evident as an adult to understand that a broken arm (serious wound) requires medical attention to resit a bone, which is beyond our own bodies' natural healing abilities.
What we do not know as adults is that NO ONE educates us about the difference between our emotional pain and its various levels. IT IS NOT EVIDENT, and most of the time, we do not know how to recognise the difference in our emotional state to get the help we require to handle our emotional pain because we have all been conditioned to deal with ourselves alone.
Not Serious Emotional Wound vs Serious Emotional Wound
This is my personal opinion about the difference, but it will be unique based on your upbringing and experiences, as all emotions can become serious given their intensity.
Not Serious Emotional Wound - are emotions that are uncomfortable as they arise in our bodies and within minutes, hours, day or a week they fade and do not bother us anymore because we have dealt with the emotion ourselves.
For example:
Anger - at our boss for giving you shit for something you didn’t do or road rage when someone cuts you off
Anxiety - Starting a new job, going on a first date, initiating a difficult conversation
Fear - talking to our partner about our finances
Embarrassment - We showed up to a party without our gift
Frustration - Your parent does something you ask them not to do, but they do it anyway
Sadness - Your friend hasn’t texted you back in a while, and you feel ignored
Disappointment - Your partner forgets to get you a gift this year, and you thought they would
Serious Emotional Wounds are emotions that affect our bodies physically by sometimes making us stop eating or overeating. They arise in our bodies and can last weeks, months, or years that we try our best to ignore but still spill into our minds and stay alive in our spirit as we have not forgiven or want to forgive.
For example:
Grief - the loss of a family or, friend or pet
Anxiety - there are a variety of severe types of anxiety that link to other mental states. PTSD
Past relationships - heartbreak or divorce
Family dynamics - disputes, disagreements, control etc.
Physical injuries - that take long to heal, traumatic birth (c-section)
Abuse - mental, emotional or physical in any form will cause serious emotional wounds.
These are just some Serious Emotional Wounds (traumas) that require professional support.
SELF HEALING PRACTICES
Finally…I witnessed myself process this emotional pain through daily watercolour paintings, which I made into cards. I decided to write my feelings into these cards and share them with Tony to read so he could understand how I was feeling, rather than voicing them to him.
I just started painting in the kitchen every morning with the boys eating breakfast, and they were all sorts of doodles with no meaning or reason to them. I just started doing them, and it felt so lovely. They became part of my healing process, and now I don’t do them as much anymore.
2. RECEIVING our emotional pain
HEALING TAKES TIME… I want to repeat that…
Healing
Takes
Time
How much? No one knows
Every time is different as every emotional injury is different, entangling different emotions.
Giving yourself permission to take the time to heal and let go of when that time is up is important and not easy for any of us as we have been conditioned in so many ways to be result-oriented to have a date for things and not just leave things OPEN.
This time, I left things open and knew that it wasn’t going to be a month or so two process because of the phase of motherhood I am in. I have no time to myself to drop into how I am feeling most days, so it would take longer than usual for me as I don’t have a consistent meditation or journal practice.
SELF HEALING PRACTICES
However, I did bring back my daily journaling from this, which has been impactful in processing all my complicated feelings and getting them out of my mind to make room for other things to be present.
Tony respected my healing journey. I never felt rushed to deal with it or pushed to move on, and he cared that it was an unknown process and how allowed me space.
We did work through a time scale around a few things, which felt respected because he always considered my needs before anything else. I felt and received that consideration, which also anchored in our trust.
In the past, NOTICING when a person, not just your partner, is listening to or being there for you is not always apparent to us. I feel like we take it for granted the people around us because kindness is a positive emotion and receiving that in a wholesome way isn’t something I was taught or had much of when I was growing up or as an adult. Adults don’t teach other adults how to receive kindness, love or even compliments well.
So if you are still reading this… this is your assignment is to NOTICE when someone is;
kind to you
shows you love
gives you a compliment
and see and notice how you receive it with a positive acknowledgement, or does it feel uncomfortable in your body and make you feel weird? If it makes you feel uncomfortable or weird inside or you brush it off, then there is CLEARLY work to be done within yourself to learn how to RECEIVE positive feedback about yourself.
I say this because I used to be like that, but now I have learnt how to receive positive feedback and embody it more deeply to have long-lasting connections with people.
For example, when Tony says THANK YOU to me, I say you're welcome or I try my best to smile, give a hug, or give a meaningful kiss. I hear the words and let them hit and impact my body so that I feel the joy I gave him so that he would give me praise.
Embodiment is an important practice to undergo when it comes to receiving wholeheartedly positive energy. It takes time to notice the difference when you are embodied or when you drop out of it. Also, don’t be hard on yourself when you drop out of this practice, as it happens to the best of us….MY HAND IS UP!
RECEIVE YOUR EMOTIONAL PAIN, don’t ignore it!
The other side of receiving the positive aspects of healing is also receiving the painful emotions that will come through you during this healing journey.
Many of us behave in this “I’m fine” or “I’ll be okay” state, a coping mechanism we have created in our culture to ignore our feelings and treat them as more of a bothersome attribute to our humanness.
But the best part about being human is feeling… not just all the positive emotions but also the negative ones. The reason, and one we often forget, is that you wouldn’t truly understand love if you never felt heartbreak. You would never know joy if you have never felt sadness or anger.
Feelings are meant to be felt.
Feelings are not forever they fade away.
- especially the more we process them through a healing journey vs just ignoring them or pretending they are not relevant (for whatever justification we make in our mind)
Do not be afraid to FEEL!
We live in a backwards culture that doesn’t allow space for humans to be humans and feel their raw emotions because we can’t handle them.
*** But you have to ask yourself this question if you can’t handle someone’s feelings in their rawness… is it their fault, or is it yours?***
Why is it okay for us to witness raw emotional pain at a funeral or a hospital? Why is that socially acceptable, but why are emotional outbreaks in any other encounter considered rude or crazy?
We lack compassion for what we don’t understand in another person’s pain and are quick to judge/dismiss. - This is because we all don’t know how to hold space for heavy, raw emotions (We grow up in the “don’t cry” generation - emotions show weakness). Even though we know differently with information, we still act and are conditioned to create shame around vulnerable emotions
Or alternatively, when we do know someone else's pain and offer help and guidance, we are quick to push it aside, not accept it, or live in denial. - This is because we are not yet ready to receive.
I have finally overcome this area of feeling my emotions without shame. (I’ll share more on this in another article) I have learnt a lot, and I am still learning. It will be a never-ending journey for me to speak my feelings confidently.
PROJECTING OUR EMOTIONAL PAIN
WE ARE ALL GUILTY OF THIS…
WE NEED TO ALL STOP dumping (projecting) our emotional pain/injuries/traumas etc, onto our partner’s number 1 and friends because there are soooo many options available today to get professional support.
I am not saying you cannot share your feelings with your partner or friends, but I know it's a very fine line you walk, knowing the difference between what is giving them a highlight and dumping on them from an unconscious place (meaning well).
We think it’s nothing, but it is probably a lot that our partners and friends do not have the mental capacity to support, as they also have their stuff. Also, Serious Emotional Wounds require professional help, as stated above.
You should never deal with these hurt emotions alone.
But we cannot EXPECT the people around us to be equipped to handle our serious emotional pain. Because what you are asking of them is to help you mend a broken arm when they do not have the skills required to repair that kind of injury.
Give yourself PERMISSION
You cannot self-manage your SERIOUS emotional pain as you are not meant too
Stop making excuses, rationalising and ignoring your pain
All you are doing by behaving like this is STOPPING your growth as a human being because you are scared of the unknown feelings you will have in the future if you don’t hold on to the pain.
NO AMOUNT OF MONEY OR TIME will be priced too high if it means I can feel joy again in my heart and return to inner peace.
RECEIVING OTHER PEOPLE’S EMOTIONS, don’t get defensive… listen
We operate in our culture in a way that we don’t want to express our feelings;
out of fear of hurting another
out of fear of losing that person
out of fear of feeling uncomfortable
However, the real damage when operating from “out of fear” is that we end up hurting ourselves by not voicing them.
By not voicing them
they stay alive within our minds, body and spirit, taking up energy
they don’t know where to live within our bodies, so sometimes they spill out of us towards other people (at work, at home - our kids)
they can be pushed deep down into our spirit (dimming our light slowly)
They affect us in an unhealthy way, and most of the time, we don’t even notice they do that to us.
WHY THIS HAPPENS
We have not been taught to have emotional intelligence around how our emotions affect our mind, body, and spirit.
We get defensive when someone speaks their truth about how they feel instead of acknowledging it for what it is.
We are not taught to listen very well, which means we must let go of our ego to fully be present in someone’s feelings - as it is their lived experience, even if you see it another way. Holding space is just LISTENING, not reacting.
We can share a similar lived experience but process it differently and assume that the other person must have felt the same way. (The best example is that someone can enjoy a rollercoaster ride and want to do it again, and another person can get so scared and never want to do it again)
We forget how to look at things from other perspectives vs our own as we always want to defend our beliefs or version of the story or experience to get validation or acknowledgement.
Most of the time, in disagreements/agreements, the other person usually seeks acknowledgement.
It is called unconscious behaviour when we operate from these common mistakes.
We all make them, and I even notice a lot of the time happening to me in motherhood. But there is hope, which leads me to Part 3, CELEBRATING.
3. CELEBRATING our emotional pain wins
WHY WE SHOULD CELEBRATE IT?
Well, for starters, most people avoid emotional pain, as I have described throughout this article. I have done so in the past and have also stated that. But I have also learnt that some of the best growths I have felt as an adult have come from the emotional pain of sadness and anger.
If you know me well, I might have said this to you: “I love finding the beauty in the ugliness of life” because I know there is always beauty in every aspect of life…even the ugly, complex, and uncomfortable challenges we face.
It isn’t easy to understand or notice when it’s all happening, but if you are open to seeing it, it will reveal itself to you in time.
I know that when big things happen to me, something big will come in my life later on, but I need to wait for it to be revealed. Work is to be done, whether it be patience, emotional healing, or both.
FINDING THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO CELEBRATE YOUR EMOTIONAL PAIN WINS
Expressing emotional pain is not usually something that people celebrate…
However, if you do seek professional help, they know your history and how you have been coping with the emotional pain. When you have a breakthrough (win) by finally voicing your emotions, whether in a positive way or a negative outburst, they will usually still be very pleased. They understand that releasing emotions is healthier than being trapped inside us.
That is why having someone to SHARE these emotional pain wins with is so important!!!
Most of the time, we feel comfortable sharing it with a friend or our partner, but they are not fully equipped to support all types of emotional pain like a therapist is.
The problem is that you only share it with friends or partners, who may not know how to acknowledge your emotional efforts to provide you with the praises you don’t even realise you NEED.
For me, in this emotional pain I have been experiencing, my counsellor acknowledged me for “standing in my power” when I did release it. He knew my history of never feeling safe to voice my feelings growing up in the family dynamics. I didn’t even realise that until he told me that was what I had done. It felt awful, scary, and even hurtful at the time, but I knew in my heart that it was my truth to stand up for myself.
But no one tells us that sometimes doing the things that might feel awful, scary or even hurtful is good if that is your truth in the moment. So, if you are relating to hearing this as you think something weighing on your mind or heavy on the heart, it is time to move out of your comfort zone and start expressing it. I’ll be here to celebrate it with you if you feel like sharing it with me (email me)
CELEBRATING BEING THE PERSON I WANT TO BE
After months of not knowing how long my emotional pain would take to heal, it came to one moment when I just started listening to my inner voice (wisdom) vs my emotional pain.
I realised that I had had so much experience in dealing with emotional pain my whole life that for me to move past it I had to lead by example.
I knew in my heart that my children would be confronted with emotional pain in life and difficult circumstances, and for me to be able to guide them through it, I had to be able to do it myself.
By being vulnerable
Showing myself that I can do hard things in life that make me feel uncomfortable
That my emotional pain doesn’t have to control how I genuinely feel about a situation
That suffering is wasted energy vs forgiving others and myself is a better use of energy
Walking through your pain (walking through the fire) will hurt and feel uncomfortable, but it will be worth it on the other side. From my past experiences, I know that when you have moments in life that feel this way, and you decide to be brave and walk through the fire, it only means that you will grow from it on a deeply personal level.
I call it a Massive Self-Upgrade, as you have shifted the way your mind thinks and feels about the situation, forcing you to behave in a new way. For me, in moments, it feels invigorating, and in other moments, it feels odd to feel this more expansive version of myself as I try to play catch-up mentally, but in my heart, I know I am walking a beautiful new pathway that is not recognisable.
I am happy to live in this new, unknown version of myself. I don’t feel like Yogi Kim anymore, and I know I am more than Mama Kim …
All I know is that it has taken me days to write this article but I felt so strongly to share it as I feel so many of us get lost in our emotions and I hope this helps you connect with your own MORE or someone else you love… please share it along.
Love Kim