Suffering is one of life’s truths. Everyone suffers from one thing or the other.
But here’s the catch. There’s a distinction between pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable.
If I punch you in your chest, your chest will hurt. You will feel pain. But suffering is optional. If you carry this shame of being punched throughout your life, that’s on you.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
We all undergo emotional pain sometime in our life. Maybe someone close to you died, or maybe someone cheated on you, someone betrayed you, or maybe you lost something valuable in life.
The causes could vary, but all these results in the same outcome — emotional pain.
It’s understandable to feel pain, to grieve for your loss. But you always have a choice to get out of it after some time. You can’t avoid pain; you can definitely heal your suffering.
There are possibly hundreds of different ways to heal yourself, but because there are hundreds of different ways, it could get overwhelming to start. In this post, I intend to offer you 4 ways to start your healing process.
Here are those 4 ways to heal yourself from emotional suffering —
Detach yourself
Buddha popularly taught detachment to his followers. In his words, “Attachment is the root cause of all evil.”
Attachment to any feeling, place, thing, or even any other human brings emotional suffering sooner or later.
This, however, doesn’t mean you should stop loving your family or don’t enjoy wearing new clothes. Detachment means you don’t let anything/anyone own you. Feel the distinction between connection and detachment.
Detachment implies you accept and acknowledge that everything in this world is impermanent.
Learning these 5 principles of impermanence will help you practice detachment in your life —
- You are sure to grow old. Our cells grow, our tissues grow, and ultimately our bodies will grow as well. It’s counterproductive trying to avoid aging.
- You are sure to get sick. Maybe you will stay away from sickness and illness for a very long time. Staying healthy forever doesn’t sound like being human.
- You are sure to die. Embracing this hard truth will help you let go of all the meaningless drama you are currently involved in.
- You need to part away from what’s beloved to you. We try finding happiness in worldly possessions or other human beings. And none of them translate to true freedom or helps you avoid suffering and pain.
- You are the owner and heir of your actions. We will reap the fruit of our actions, for better or worse.
Detachment implies you accept and acknowledge that everything in this world is impermanent.
Take a deliberate break
Newton’s first law of motion states, every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion unless compelled to change its state by an external force.
Now, if you’re flowing in a state of emotional suffering, the first wise thing to do is to take a forceful break. You might even start overthinking when you’re taking the break, but it’s okay.
Practicing stillness will offer you some space to see things objectively.
Half of the suffering goes away when you become still and notice how you project the whole suffering on yourself. The next half is figuring out how to get better.
If you can cut off for a few days, that would be great. But otherwise, you can choose to spend some alone time every day for starters.
Putting every distraction to rest, facing yourself and the real issues is an impactful step in the healing process.
Half of the suffering goes away when you become still and notice how you are projecting the whole suffering on yourself. The next half is figuring out how to get better.
Ask yourself the right questions
Often when we are suffering, we are making close-ended statements, like —
“I can’t live without him.”
“I feel so hurt by his lies.”
“I am so tired of explaining myself to everyone.”
Even if these statements are true, they will keep you stuck in life.
The process of emotional healing starts when you start asking yourself the right questions. You have to add questions after these statements.
Here are some of those questions —
- I feel so hurt by his lies, what’s the best thing for me to do here?
- I am so tired of explaining myself to everyone, what can I do about it, how can I make this situation better?
- I don’t know what to do. Wait, what’s the smallest step I can take right now?
When we use close-ended statements, we are closing down the opportunities to look out for possible solutions.
Asking questions helps us be open-minded, and that’s how we get solutions and answers to our problems.
And I have been saying this a lot lately, life is nothing but seeking answers to your questions. The better questions you ask, the better your life will be.
Life is nothing but seeking answers to your questions. The better questions you ask, the better your life will be.
Ask for help
Most of the time, there’s a common contributing factor to our emotional suffering, and that is — our unsuccessful try to control everything.
Whenever something doesn’t go as per our plan, our fear-based mindset kicks in. Control is an ego-based response. When our emotions don’t work the way we want them to, we try to control them even more.
And that’s a terribly wrong move — trying to control your emotions.
Asking for someone’s help will let you lose some control over the things you must have been obsessing about. And that’s good for your healing.
You know there’s no shame in asking for help, right?
Ask for help, and let someone guide you through your healing process.
Work with a life coach or a therapist, as per your need.
Asking for someone’s help will let you lose some control over the things you must have been obsessing about. And that’s good for your healing.
Summary
Emotional healing is definitely not a one-day event. And because we have so many ways of healing ourselves, it can get overwhelming even to begin.
Here are the 4 ways you can start healing your emotional suffering —
- Detach yourself. Attachment to any feeling, place, thing, or even any other human brings emotional suffering sooner or later. Detachment implies you accept and acknowledge that everything in this world is impermanent.
- Take a deliberate break. Half of the suffering goes away when you become still and notice how you project the whole suffering on yourself. The next half is figuring out how to get better.
- Ask yourself the right questions. When we use close-ended statements, we are closing down the opportunities to look out for possible solutions. Asking questions helps us be open-minded, and that’s how we get solutions and answers to our problems.
- Ask for help. Asking for someone’s help will let you lose some control over the things you must have been obsessing about. And that’s good for your healing. Ask for help, and let someone guide you through your healing process. Work with a life coach or a therapist, as per your need.
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