"Pain is inevitable in life; suffering is not. Unnecessary suffering comes from trying to push away or eliminate the original pain. This is called experiential avoidance."
Ahhh... More reading, more to ponder... ;0)
This statement leads me to believe that if pain is fully felt and dealt with, suffering is eliminated... I wonder: can that be true? There are all kinds of pain in the world... Emotional pain. Physical pain. Sharp, stabbing pain. Dull, throbbing pain. Pain that repeats in the form of images/flashbacks. It's a human being's natural inclination to avoid all kinds of pain... Our survival depends upon it. When I burned my hand on the barbeque as a child, I didn't leave my blistered palm on the hot surface... I screamed bloody-murder and jerked it off!!!
I bought a new book yesterday... "Finding Life Beyond Trauma". It's a workbook. I didn't get very far last night before falling asleep... But from what I've read so far, there is a distinction drawn between emotional and physical pain. The authors blame "language" for our blurring of these lines. Somehow people have used language to deceive themselves into thinking that emotional pain is as dangerous as physical pain. It FEELS as dangerous to ME... I don't see how we are supposed to override that knee-jerk reaction to pull a hand off the stove, even when it comes to emotional pain... Who on earth wants to SIT with it??
But... When I reflect... The emotional pain that does NOT haunt me? It's the pain I FELT... The loss I GRIEVED... Today, I can think of Casper with fondness... I do not break down in tears for his loss, though I miss him terribly... I grieved all of my grandparents, and the losses, while terrible, have been set aside. The emotional pains that continue to haunt me are those that I have tried to avoid... Tried to bury and NOT feel... Because feeling them... I believed the feelings would have overwhelmed me... Still today, looking back at some of these hurts, I am afraid to really feel them... I don't know what to DO with them... I don't TRUST that I can feel them and be okay... To me, I'm still jerking my emotions away from the fire, even if emotions can't actually burn.
Jen,
How many ways can we hear or read that we need to feel our feelings? The self help slogan "feel, deal, and heal" is a classic.
I assume you "wish" you hadn't busied your self with ED instead of dealt with life "the right way". Forgive my assumptions, if I'm off. I only point this out because it's close to my experience. If only I could feel my feelings, if only I didn't waste years, purge yesterday, or whatever.
You have today, you have hard won wisdom, and you are on the right path. It may not feel perfect, it never does, but good for you for being right where you are.
Thank you for this topic, may we all stand with ourselves even in the wake of the desire to bolt from ourselves.
Patsy
Jen,
It is true that the feelings we avoid or try to ignore or the ones that end up hurting the most, and affecting our lives in the most ways. They seem to grow as time goes on.
What I wonder at times is, how do you feel something you don't know you are avoiding, or ignoring? I guess that is what treatment/therapy is for..to help us discover what it is that is holding us back.
Jen, you are proving your courage and strength each day. Now, YOU have to believe in yourself!
Thinking of you friend!
Yes, very poignant. ♥ The emotional hurts I HAVE healed have certainly followed that formula. :) Need to do the same with the rest, I suppose... And I've made a good start on some of it. Others... How DO I deal with things I don't know I'm avoiding?? HOW can I get over things I'm not even sure took place?? UGH... I don't want to know... But how can I deal and heal if I don't know what to feel? :0/ Confused...
I don't have an answer, but how I can relate... my therapist keeps asking me how I feel about relationships and other things and I keep saying I don't know or I don't feel anything. And yet I know that can't be true... So I have the same questions. I wonder if I could identify and feel those feelings, if the ED would lose some of it's power.... guess that is why this is just a long and maybe neverending (or always growing towards) recovery process.
Pain is inevitable in life; suffering is not..........
experiential avoidance
I don't have an answer either I just know that when I was 5 yrs old and had my face burnt that I can remember the event but I don't remember the physical pain from the flames and the burns.
I know when my sister threw a rock at me and hit me smack on top of my head it must have hurt ..I still can feel the spot it hit it was the size of her fist.there was blood all over my hand.
I think that for me at least the emotional pain has been far worse it cuts deep to the core.Silent treatment ..haveing to ask for a hug..being sworn at and called names..being used to fulfill a sexual desire..yeah it cuts deep.Writing a poem for my ex with no response ..sending him a song with no response..it hurts when you give love and crave it but don't get it in return.
sorry kind of went off with my thoughts ..Im still feeling the pain from the emotional crap I was put through..rejection hurts.
My counselor will ask me things sometimes about how I feel and I can't say becauseI don't know what I feel.
The process of recovery may seem neverending, but there is an end! We cannot escape the challenges and pain of life itself, but recovery, the process, the work, will prepare you to deal with life and it's challenges in a much different way. I thought I would always be IN recovery, but I'm done, my cake is baked, and now I am free! Yes, life is not easy, but I have learned to live in a much less anxious way, with much more happiness, in a very fulfilling way. YOU ALL can too! HUGS...Jan ♥
Yeah..well, that one just came out...you know? I guess that could inspire more posts!! haha
I could re-post the explanation....makes sense to me!
Love you both!! ♥
The cake analogy came up at school yesterday! LOL!! A teacher I'm working with compared herself with a cake! Ha! I jumped in and compared our principal's actions with cranking up the oven's heat! ♥ Thought of you!