Natural Pain

As humans, we are biologically wired to experience emotional pain in response to certain experiences or circumstances. Examples of natural emotional pains include things like:

• feeling angry in response to being mistreated

• feeling sad in response to a loss of some kind

• feeling hurt in response to aggressive criticism

• feeling some anxiety in high pressure situations

  We can help you to understand why we have these emotional responses, how they’re useful and functional, and how to cope with them in healthier ways through action and expression.

We often find people come to therapy to deal, at least in part, with pains like these - pain that is completely natural. Initially, our clients often think something is wrong with them for feeling this way, when in reality, they’re just having a normal, healthy, human response to a tough situation. When working with this type of emotional pain, we have a few primary goals:

• Help you understand why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling

• Break down negative self-criticism about feeling whatever you’re feeling, so you can get unstuck and move through it easier

• Teach you about the function behind the feelings (such as how health anger helps us to identify and communicate healthy boundaries)

• Provide you with step-by-step tools for healthier coping strategies to move through the feelings, faster and easier

These types of feelings often don’t qualify as "having depression” or “having anxiety” and don’t warrant a mental health diagnosis. They don’t even require “treatment” per se, just safe space with a supportive person, who can guide you through the feelings without shutting you down or trying to escape them.

Past Painful Experiences

Because humans are learning machines, wired for survival at all cost, most of us experience another type of emotional pain - the kind that comes from past experiences. Science has shown that beginning even before birth, while in utero, we are learning from our experiences. This learning process has a few key functions:

• It helps us understand and make sense of the world around us.

• It gives us a good idea of what to expect so that world doesn’t feel completely unpredictable. 

• It gives us a sense of control (however false it may be) over being able to prevent unwanted experiences from happening.

Experiences that are emotionally painful are moments of intense learning for us. Our mind immediately tries to figure out whose fault it is (mine or yours?) and how to prevent it from ever happening again. This learning process leads us to transpose past painful experiences on to the present. For example:

• I had some naturally painful experiences growing up;

  • My dad was a pretty irresponsible father (anger and sadness would be a totally natural and healthy response here)

  • He also had problems with alcohol and didn’t manage his anger well. (fear would be a totally normal and healthy response to this one)

• Then my brain added on some extra emotional pain, just for me, as human brains tend to do. My brain decided these experiences were:

  • partially his fault because “men can’t be trusted” and

  • partially my fault because “if I could just do things perfectly, then he wouldn’t get upset”

• My brain decided the best way for me to feel safe moving forward, as an adult was to:

  • avoid close relationships with men

  • avoid putting trust in men at all cost

  • be sure never to make mistakes

  • never upset others (A laughably impossible goal, but my brain didn’t care one bit.)

• In the present, when interacting with men, I will assume:

  • they are untrustworthy (even when they’re totally safe, good people)

  • every tiny mistake I make is going to have potentially catastrophic consequences

  • it’s my fault, anytime someone is upset, because I should have done something to prevent it

This “extra” emotional pain is where CBT is most useful. With CBT, we step back and take a look at a pattern like this, so we can notice all the pieces that “fire off” automatically for our clients. These include patterns of thinking, behaving, feeling, and coping that all happen automatically as a result of past painful experiences. If you really look at the example here, you can see how these attempts to feel safe could actually cause more harm than good in the long run.

These past painful experiences don’t necessarily have to be a single traumatic event, like being kidnapped. We learn, and are strongly affected by, everyday experiences. Maybe you had a parent who always pointed out what you missed or could have improved instead of complimenting your hard work. Maybe your parents had no idea how to handle your feelings about totally normal things, so even healthy feelings got shoved in a shut down. Maybe you got yelled at or blamed for anything or everything. Whatever your everyday experiences were, they taught you a lot and these “lessons” likely play a huge role in the symptoms of anxiety or depression, or the difficulties you have in relationships today, as an adult.

Here are a few examples of patterns you might notice if you’re struggling with this type of pain:

• Thinking no one wants you at a party even though no one has said or done anything that would suggest this

• Feeling like you’re not good enough because of recurring criticism throughout childhood

• Thinking you’re a failure because you’ve learned growing up that it’s never okay to make mistakes

• Feeling like you’re bad because no one else seems to struggle with the same thoughts and feelings you do

• Feeling like you don’t deserve to feel what you’re feeling because others have it worse than you do and believing you should just be grateful instead

• Obsessing about the future and what could possibly go wrong because you learned a long time ago to never let your guard down

• This list goes on and on believe me…