Person holding hand on window in rain

Hurt/Pain

All of us might have experienced some form of pain in our lifetimes. It is something that can never be avoided. Some hurts are self-inflicting and can be self-defeating in its behaviour hoping to get relief from our pain. Other emotional pain or anguish may be as a result of other people inflicting it to us, this will include separation, bereavement or loss. According to Worden J.W. (1997), Some of these emotions are, hollowness in the stomach, tightness in the chest and throat, breathlessness, weakness in the muscles, lack of energy,

No one choses when these hurt comes to our lives, sometimes it just happens without any warnings. My question is what do we do when we encounter these pains?

Firstly, we need to accept that we are hurting and that, person or the situation has caused us pain. If we are in denial that it either never happen or we make excuses to our abusers or the situation, this means, we shove our emotion deep within us and try to forget about it, but the fact is, these emotions don’t forget that they are not been dealt with, they will be stored in our subconscious mind waiting to re appear another time. When these emotions re appear, they usually come in a negative form, such as gambling, sex addiction, overeating or under eating etc. the funny thing is, we don’t get to chose how these negative emotions should manifest. They just come!

Secondly, work through the pain by acknowledging that you are hurting and do something about it, example talk to someone you trust, letting out of what seems overwhelming situation to us, can be life changing experience. In addition to that, we could forgive the people who have brought pain in our lives. this does not mean we let them off the hook, but it is a way of releasing ourselves from their emotion controls they may have against us. If we are still angry and hold a grudge against them, this is an indication that we are still controlled by them. Do we really want to be controlled by the very person who have hurt us so much?

Thirdly, by trying to adjust our life, stay away from people who gives us pain or hurt us. Some friends or family are not worth spending our time with, if what they do to us, is hurting our feelings. In relation to grief, you may need to re locate or move the deceased stuff away from our house, or anything else that, limit us from moving forward in our lives. it is important to wait until we are ready to do this, we cannot be pushed on forced to perform this exercise.

Lastly, we must try find other people or relationships which celebrates our lives and not been tolerated. If the person we live with or spend time with don’t value us by either their words or actions, perhaps, it is a time to move on. In relation to a deceased, it may be a good idea, to start investing in a new relationships, this does not mean we have to forget our loved ones, but, honouring them by choosing health way to move forward, because isolation is not good to us. We need each other to grow and strive.