Embrace the Pain

Why Sad Music and Tears can help you feel better

Have you ever experienced the sensation of feeling numb? Of struggling to be productive, while not really wanting to do anything else? Feeling might not actually be the right word, because I tend to notice I’m “feeling” this way, whenever I realize I’m not feeling anything at all. There’s an intense focus on productivity in society today. A lot of us strive to be succesful. And oftentimes we simply strive to be perceived as doing the “right” things to be it. Whether that means working late, reading all the right business books, heading to the gym, taking that extra course on Coursera or squeezing in that extra coffee meeting.

These are all things I do myself. But I’ve continuously found that when I feel I’m really starting to nail these things is when I’m starting to not really care anymore. And why is that? Why is that when we’re really starting to nail it, our brains get in the way? I believe it’s because it simply isn’t how our brain is wired together. A danish brain scientist I listened to in a Podcast described the brain as being divided into three different roles: The Contemplating Brain, The Attentive Brain and Controlling Brain.

I’ll try to dive more into that in another post, but the main issue he highlighted was that we spent most of our time with the Attentive and Controlling parts of our brain. We act and we react. But most of us forget to reflect and contemplate. And when emotions and thoughts are left untouched they pile up and choke the system.

This obviously isn’t news. It’s the very reason the mindfullness industry got rated a billion dollar industry last year. It’s why more and more companies are creating special areas for meditating and resting. And it’s why journaling tools such as Bullet Journal, DayOne app and the relatively new Reflectly app are seeing insane growth. And all these tools and practices does a great job of upholding the balance. But what do you do when things are utterly out of balance?

One thing I’ve found most of these offerings neglect to do, is facing pain. It’s confronting pain. It’s helping you overcome it. Whenever the numbness creeps in on me, meditation alone doesn’t cut it for me. There’s usually something lurking, that I’m unwilling to face. And I’ve found that the only way to rid myself of the numbness that paralyses me, is to embrace the pain. It’s walking straight into the burning building. I usually don’t know what awaits me in there, whether it’s the pain of losing my mother, the stress of building a startup or fighting to be a great boyfriend while struggling with all of the above.

So I’ve established a routine that helps me through it. I find a place to be completely alone. I put on my “Embrace the Pain” playlist. And then I let my thoughts and emotions consume me. I go into it not knowing what haunts me, before it jumps out at me striking like a sledgehammer. I tend to feel like the pain will never stop and get almost addicted to it. Until it does. Until I find my shoulders subsiding and my mind clear up.

And it’s at that point that things look simpler again. As Alexis Ohanian from Reddit said on a podcast I recently listened to: “Doing a startup is fucking hard. But compared to the grand scale of things and the really tough things in life it’s nothing”. But it’s not until you allow yourself to be weak that you realize that your surroundings doesn’t require you to be as strong as you think. The problems aren’t as unsurmountable as they seem. I can conquer them. So can you.

Opening up about these kinda things are still new to me. But I’ve found that showing weakness once in a while has enabled me to come out stronger. But I’d love to get some other thoughts and opinions on this! Let me know here or on Twitter.