Silent Suffering
An Exploration of the Stress of Emotional and Physical Pain
With an injury comes physical pain. It’s something we all experience at some point throughout our lives and it naturally produces a stress response. The pain settles down to a dull ache and the body immediately gets to work on the healing process.
And it is a process.
It takes time. How we handle that time is crucial to our well-being.
During the healing, we watch to see how it progresses. We may even reflect on how it happened.
The body gives us a perfect metaphor to teach us how to heal our emotional wounds in the same way. The physical body is a brilliant communicator with the emotional body.
In that reflection period, many different thoughts could come up which lead to emotions that go with the thoughts.
Yet, how often do we pay attention to those thoughts or emotions? Are they quickly disregarded?
This period of healing is a perfect time to be mindfully aware of the thoughts that come up so you can determine whether they’re actually your beliefs or someone else’s words that you’ve taken on.
This became very apparent to me one evening when my husband went outside in his bare feet for a minute and stepped on a nail with his heel. The first words that came out of his mouth were, “I never should’ve gone out in my bare feet!” (Actually, the very first word was a little stronger than that ;))
That statement immediately reflected warnings his mother or father might’ve said when he was a child which created a subconscious belief that it was dangerous to walk outside in your bare feet.
Along with that belief, would come shame, blame, and guilt. Shame that he didn’t listen, blaming himself and subsequent guilt. They could all happen so fast that they’d be easily swept aside only to appear again another time for yet another chance to see them and question them.
If you stub your toe on a toy, for example, in addition to the physical pain, you could feel angry or disappointed with yourself or with someone else conveniently to blame. You may say things like, “Why would you leave the toy in the hallway where someone could hurt themselves? Now look at what you’ve done!” Or, “How could I be so stupid!”.
When Pain Becomes Chronic
Energy is always in motion. In the above example, the emotions are anger and blame. The energy of those emotions may not stay in the toe once it heals. If you haven’t taken the time to reflect on the emotions that came up with the words, your pain could, over time, become chronic once it’s been added to other occasions when the same emotions have come up.
Knowing you have more control over physical pain than you thought can give you some relief. Once you know the role emotions play in your physical pain, it gives you the power to shift your state of suffering.
This article, explaining the studies done about the correlation of emotions and physical pain, in the “Journal of Psychosomatic Research” states, “Results suggest that interpersonal emotions play an important role in the development and functioning of the pain system…”
In the “National Library of Medicine”, they state, “Psychological research demonstrates that greater pain is related to emotional stress and limited emotional awareness, expression, and processing.”
When we resign ourselves to either living with the pain or medicating it with pain relievers and creams, we’re missing an opportunity to release the emotions and beliefs that are not serving our wellbeing. We’re giving away the power waiting for us, from the wisdom that’s lying dormant, to heal ourselves.
“Healing comes from gathering wisdom from past actions and letting go of the pain that the education cost you.” –Caroline Myss
Our bodies were never made to thrive in the constant state of stress we’re putting our bodies through.
Emotional Wounds
You may have noticed from experience how a past emotional hurt can be triggered in a flash if it hasn’t been healed.
It could be that an experience brings up a familiar emotion, only it may even feel a bit worse this time around. Someone says something in just the same way a bully that taunted you years before did.
Maybe the color of the sky looked just the way it did that time you buried your father.
Just like with physical pain, when an event that causes emotional pain is just swept aside, our brain does what it does best — it forms patterns.
Patterns of beliefs developed by thoughts about a snapshot in time slip into the subconscious mind. Your brain takes that and files away the thoughts that surround it so it’ll be accessible for the next time a similar situation happens.
You might find thoughts like this familiar:
- “She thinks I’m ugly”
- “I’ll never find someone who loves me for me”
- “They hate me”
- “I can’t do this”
- “This is too hard”
- “I’ll never see my mother again”
- “I don’t want to get old”
- “Getting old means being sick and fragile”
- “No one wants to hear what I have to say”
- “I always get hurt”
- “My kids don’t care about me”
- “There’s never enough money”
- “It’s so hard to make ends meet”
- “I’m all alone”
The list could go on. Each of those thoughts is precipitated by a stressful feeling in the body.
“Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.” –Eckhart Tolle
Emotional healing is a process requiring mindfulness and time, just as a skin cut or broken leg would.
Releasing Pain
Whether it’s a physical injury, chronic pain or emotional pain, the process is the same.
- Reach for an objective viewpoint of the event
- Take the time to be aware of the physical and emotional sensations in your body
- Allow any thoughts or beliefs to come up and note what feelings go with them
- Question each thought and belief
- Know you’re worthy of giving yourself the love, kindness, care and the respect you require
- Realize that in this present moment, you are actually okay
- Allow any tears to fall
“The pain will leave, once it has finished teaching you.” –Unknown
Now, you know you have more control over your health and wellbeing than you previously thought!
The emotional stress you’re going through because of the pain you’re carrying or believing about your life can be released. Life can change for the better in an instant and you can feel lit up and loving your way through life again.
When you know better; you do better. So be kind, thoughtful, and caring for yourself. Come back to the present moment often and know that you are okay, loved, and cared for. This is how you begin to love yourself.
