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I run from pain all the time. It\u2019s what happens when you live with pain all the time<\/a>. And you\u2019ll never hear me say that the pain of bipolar is a \u201cgift.\u201d<\/a> But emotional pain, and even physical pain, can sometimes have a purpose. Emotional pain, especially, can be your brain\u2019s way of trying to protect you or, at the very least, communicate with you.<\/p>\n In this piece, we\u2019ll look at what emotional pain and physical pain may be trying to tell you, how to listen without gaslighting yourself, and how that kind of listening can sometimes soften the pain, even when it doesn\u2019t disappear.<\/p>\n Jump to:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We are all familiar with emotional pain. Whether it\u2019s the emotional pain of depression<\/a>, a breakup, or being passed over for a promotion, we all experience emotional pain on a regular basis. And while it\u2019s natural to recoil from pain, that\u2019s automatic and evolutionary; it\u2019s also important to recognize that pain serves as a useful messenger.<\/p>\n Your brain uses emotional pain to get your attention. It\u2019s your brain\u2019s way of saying that something is wrong. For example, why do breakups matter? They matter because they cause pain. If they didn\u2019t cause pain, we would be considerably more likely to break up with anything and anyone that was inconvenient. But that wouldn\u2019t be healthy for us. Bonds are what make us human, and, indeed, happy and content, so when we experience emotional pain, it\u2019s our brain saying that something has gone wrong and is impacting our ability to achieve happiness and contentment.<\/p>\n Physical pain is the same. We experience physical pain because something is physically wrong in our lives. Emotional and physical pain are the wake-up calls that tell us to pay attention.<\/p>\n Emotional and physical pain are used as alarms specifically because <\/em>we pay attention to them. If pain didn\u2019t hurt, if it weren\u2019t negative, if it weren\u2019t something we didn\u2019t enjoy, we wouldn\u2019t be motivated to avoid it.<\/p>\n Take the simple example of putting your hand on a hot stove. You immediately feel high degrees of physical pain. This unpleasant feeling warns us that we are in danger and we have to get out of that danger immediately. This makes us take our hand off the stove. Physical pain is a survival mechanism.<\/p>\n But the surprising thing to some people is that emotional pain is a survival skill too. While, in theory, I would love to never spend another moment in emotional pain, that would actually be harmful to me. My emotional pain tells me that something is wrong and that I need to take action. I need to rectify the pain, and in doing so, my life will get better.<\/p>\n Take the example of emotional abuse<\/a>. If someone emotionally abuses you, it hurts. That\u2019s really important because without that pain, we wouldn\u2019t be motivated to end the abuse. If we never ended the abuse, we would lose the ability to have a happy and healthy life. Pain actually helps<\/em> us by telling us that something is wrong and needs to be corrected.<\/p>\n I keep lumping emotional pain and physical pain together, and there\u2019s a reason for that.<\/p>\n If it feels like a breakup \u201cphysically hurts,\u201d that\u2019s not just poetry. Brain-imaging studies show that social rejection and exclusion light up some of the same regions involved in the unpleasant side of physical pain<\/a>. These areas help register how bad <\/em>something feels, whether it\u2019s a broken bone or a broken heart.<\/p>\n Naomi Eisenberger and colleagues have argued that this \u201cshared circuitry\u201d <\/a>reflects how evolution wired us to treat social threats almost as seriously as physical ones: being rejected or abandoned used to be a genuine survival risk. So, both emotional and physical pain act like ancient alarm systems, driving us to pull our hand off the stove and to move toward safer people, safer situations, and better care.<\/p>\n Physical pain often communicates pretty directly. Physical pain tends to be acute. You stub your toe, you feel pain, and you\u2019re motivated to be more mindful of the cat\u2019s scratching post next time. Or, you\u2019re in a car accident and you experience pain from your injuries, telling you to get help so you can heal.<\/p>\n But emotional pain communicates with us too, although we sometimes don\u2019t pay attention as closely. In fact, many of us find it easy to just plain ignore emotional pain.<\/p>\n For example, emotional pain might happen because:<\/p>\n And so on. But while physical pain can leave obvious marks like a bruise or cut, emotional pain does not. This makes some people ignore their emotional pain \u2014 at their own peril, however.<\/p>\n So, if we understand that emotional and physical pain are alarm bells that are trying to get our attention, it truly behooves us to listen. If you don\u2019t listen to your physical pain, you\u2019ll end up with a badly burned hand. If you don\u2019t listen to your emotional pain, you\u2019ll end up with an unhappy and discontented life.<\/p>\n The trouble with emotional pain is that many of us find it harder to understand its message. One reason is that emotional pain comes in so many flavors. It can be:<\/p>\n And, oh, so many more.<\/p>\n You can think of emotional pain as any negative emotion (although negativity is in the eye of the beholder).<\/p>\n But just like you need to listen to your physical pain to avoid bodily hurt and injury and facilitate physical health, you need to listen to your emotional pain to avoid long-term unhappiness and facilitate mental health. <\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to listen to emotional pain when the reason is obvious and a well-recognized source of pain, like a breakup. We all know that breakups hurt. It\u2019s not hard to ask ourselves why we are grieving post-breakup. Most people know it\u2019s important to deal with that grief and other types of pain during that time so we can heal and be ready for the next relationship.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s harder to listen to and deal with emotional pain when the antecedent is more obtuse. For example, what about a person who offers backhanded compliments?<\/p>\n Comments like these will make you feel bad, even if you don\u2019t consciously know why. <\/p>\n But if you find yourself feeling negative emotions (pain) after interacting with someone, it\u2019s important to figure out why. So, you can ask yourself:<\/p>\n And remember, these questions are rooted in self-kindness and self-compassion<\/a>, so when you answer them, do so gently and with the same love you would offer a friend.<\/p>\n Once you have thought about the above, it\u2019s time to thank your pain for getting you to pay attention and for helping to protect you. <\/p>\n After backhanded compliments, you might say:<\/p>\n I then might say, \u201cI thank my pain for protecting my self-esteem.\u201d<\/p>\n These six steps can be used when dealing with huge or tiny emotional pain. However, the steps can be more complicated when the pain is severe or complex. Each step can take a lot of self-interrigation and may require the assistance of a professional<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, sometimes pain points to something you can\u2019t<\/em> easily change. You may know a relationship is unhealthy, but you\u2019re financially tied to the person. You may recognize that your job<\/a> is slowly grinding you down, but you need the health insurance. You may know your housing situation is unsafe, but you have nowhere else to go. Pain can still be telling the truth even when you\u2019re stuck.<\/p>\n In those situations, the message of pain isn\u2019t, \u201cWhy haven\u2019t you fixed this yet?\u201d It\u2019s more like, \u201cThis is serious. You deserve care and protection here.\u201d Sometimes, the most you can do in the moment is very small: tell one safe person what\u2019s going on, set one tiny boundary, make one appointment, or start planning for a future change instead of demanding an immediate escape.<\/p>\n Listening to your pain doesn\u2019t mean you have to blow up your life overnight. It means you take your own suffering seriously, even if the next step is only half an inch forward. And if all you can do right now is say, \u201cThis hurts, and it\u2019s not okay that I\u2019m going through this,\u201d that is still honoring the message. Your conversation with pain is valid even when your options are limited.<\/p>\n I suffer from chronic pain. I suffer from chronic emotional pain<\/a> and chronic physical pain<\/a>. And while these pains are disease-driven, it doesn\u2019t mean that they are without meaning, and it doesn\u2019t mean that talking to them is without benefit.<\/p>\n Take suffering from depression, for example. Yes, depression is an illness stemming from bad signals in my brain. True. But it\u2019s rarely that simple. For example, looking at the six steps:<\/p>\n I thank my pain for getting my attention and telling me to get help before things got worse.<\/p>\n If you have chroinic pain, you may heard the chronic pain message a thousand times. You already know you\u2019re sick. You already know your life is limited. You already know you need help. The pain keeps screaming anyway. It\u2019s not that you\u2019re refusing to listen; it\u2019s that the message has stopped being new.<\/p>\n In those cases, the meaning of chronic pain may be much simpler than we want it to be. Sometimes the only honest message is: \u201c<\/em>This is big. This is ongoing. You deserve support, accommodations, and real treatment for this.\u201d <\/p>\n Chronic pain often outlasts whatever originally set it off, especially in conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, trauma-related disorders, fibromyalgia, or nerve damage. The brain and nervous system can get stuck in pain mode long after the original fire has burned out.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ve failed to decode your pain properly. It doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s some magical lesson you haven\u2019t learned yet. It just means your system is injured or wired differently and needs ongoing care. Listening to chronic pain might look less like, \u201cWhat do you need me to change?\u201d and more like, \u201cHow can I wrap more support, treatment, and gentleness around this reality?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s okay if chronic pain feels meaningless or unfair. You don\u2019t have to force a silver lining to justify<\/a> your suffering. But you are allowed to hate the pain and still be curious about it. You\u2019re allowed to say, \u201cThis shouldn\u2019t be this hard,\u201d and also ask, \u201cGiven that it is this hard, what can I do to make today even 1% more bearable?\u201d Sometimes that\u2019s <\/em>the message chronic pain can offer.<\/p>\n You might think that saying thank you to your emotional pain is unnecessary and even goofy. Okay, I get it. But if you have pain inside you, making it a friend, rather than an enemy, can be helpful. After all, I\u2019d much rather take a walk with a friend than an enemy.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, sometimes thanking emotional pain or physical pain can actually help alleviate it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s story time.<\/p>\n I have a friend who was very sick when he was 15. He was so sick, in fact, that he flatlined. He was actually dead for four minutes. When his heart started again, he remained in a coma for around two weeks. His body struggled mightily to survive. Luckily, his body won the struggle.<\/p>\n Fast forward to today. My friend was experiencing very bad leg cramping and pain without a reason. So someone asked him an important question: When do you remember your leg pain being the worst? He replied that the worst leg pain of his life was when he awoke from his coma and found that his legs had badly atrophied and he had to learn to walk again. The process was agony. He resented his legs for the pain they caused him for the entirety of his life. He felt that his body had betrayed him.<\/p>\n But the fact of the matter is that the pain in his legs when he was 15 was actually a protection mechanism. His legs had atrophied because his body needed to direct all its resources to saving his vital organs. His legs atrophying actually was part of saving his life.<\/p>\n Once he had this realization, he actually thanked his legs and their pain. His whole life, he had hated the pain his legs had experienced, but once he understood the benefit of the pain, he thanked his legs for protecting him and keeping him alive. That pain was the best thing to happen to him, not the worst.<\/p>\n And yes, making friends with his pain helped him to alleviate<\/em> some of the pain and live with the remaining pain more contentedly.<\/p>\n Sometimes, your pain just wants a thank-you. It wants appreciation for what it gave you because sometimes it gives you your very life.<\/p>\n I would never sit here behind my laptop and say that listening to and thanking your emotional pain and physical pain will make it go away, far from it. I live with chronic pain every day, and thanking it pretty much just makes it giggle.<\/p>\n That said, there are still benefits:<\/p>\n But if you\u2019ve listened to your pain, if you\u2019ve talked to your pain, and if you\u2019ve gotten all the help you can for your pain, and it lingers no matter what, just know that you\u2019re not alone. Not every pain has a deep meaning that will free you from it. That doesn\u2019t mean these techniques can help to some degree, but it also doesn\u2019t mean they are a magic cure-all. You didn\u2019t fail if your pain remains. It just means that you\u2019ll have to keep treating your pain in the best way you can. And remember, there are breakthroughs in pain science every day, so don\u2019t give up. The tool you don\u2019t know about today might be just the thing that helps tomorrow.<\/p>\n Also, talking and listening to your pain doesn\u2019t mean not using medication<\/a>. Pain medications, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, nerve blocks, etc., can be your best friend. Communicating with your pain is about adding <\/em>a tool, not about subtracting <\/em>from what works.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve read all this and think to yourself that you can\u2019t possibly talk to your pain because it\u2019s screaming in your direction while throwing fireballs at your head, I hear you. But there are still things to do.<\/p>\n And if your pain has crossed into \u201c<\/em>I don\u2019t know how much longer I can do this\u201d or you\u2019re thinking about hurting yourself<\/a>, that\u2019s not a moment to decode the message; that\u2019s a moment to reach for crisis support or emergency care<\/a>. Intense pain is already more than enough to carry \u2014 you don\u2019t have to carry it, interpret it, and heal it all by yourself. Getting help is one way of answering pain\u2019s message with, \u201cOkay, I hear you \u2014 and I\u2019m not going to face this alone.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, I definitely still won\u2019t call pain a gift. I don\u2019t think you have to love it, be grateful for it, or pretend it\u2019s beautiful. But I do think it helps to know that emotional and physical pain aren\u2019t just random torment; they\u2019re part alarm system, part messenger, sometimes even part rescuer. When we pause long enough to ask, \u201cWhat are you trying to tell me?\u201d we sometimes find better boundaries, better support, better treatment, or simply a kinder way to live inside a hurting body and brain. Listening to pain, thanking pain, and getting help for pain won\u2019t magically erase it, but it can keep you from facing it alone and in the dark. And if all you can do today is acknowledge, \u201cThis hurts, and I deserve care,\u201d that is already you and your pain working together on your side.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I run from pain all the time. It\u2019s what happens when you live with pain all the time. And you\u2019ll never hear me say that the pain of bipolar is a \u201cgift.\u201d But emotional pain, and even physical pain, can sometimes have a purpose. Emotional pain, especially, can be your brain\u2019s way of trying to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":328111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122118,12110,12148,154511,96877,97703,97203,96773,154512,154513],"tags":[10149,154514,8980,154515,1409,154516],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-328110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bipolar-disorder","category-chronic-illness","category-depression","category-emotional-pain","category-mental-health","category-mental-illness","category-mental-illness-issues","category-pain","category-physical-pain","category-talk-to-pain","tag-emotional","tag-emotional-pain","tag-pain","tag-physical-pain","tag-protect","tag-talk-to-pain"],"yoast_head":"\nEmotional Pain Isn\u2019t Just Misery; It\u2019s a Message<\/h2>\n
How Emotional and Physical Pain Work Like Alarm Systems<\/h2>\n
How Alike Are Physical Pain and Emotional Pain?<\/h2>\n
Common Messages Hidden Inside Emotional Pain<\/h2>\n
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Types of Emotional Pain<\/h2>\n
How to Listen to Your Emotional Pain<\/h2>\n
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When You Can\u2019t Just \u2018Fix\u2019 What Hurts<\/h3>\n
How to Talk to Chronic Emotional Pain<\/h2>\n
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When Chronic Pain Is All Talked Out<\/h3>\n
Why Thank Your Emotional Pain?<\/h2>\n
How Thanking Pain Can Help Eliviate It \u2014 Story Time<\/h2>\n
When Emotional Pain or Physical Pain Remains No Matter What<\/h2>\n
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Getting Help When the Emotional Pain or Physical Pain\u2019s Message Is Just Too Loud<\/h2>\n
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Final Thoughts: How Listening to Emotional and Physical Pain Can Help You Heal<\/h2>\n
Other Posts You Might Enjoy<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p>\n