4 techniques to stop suffering from emotional pain

Emotional pain or psychache does not have visible marks but it’s suffering is even intense than physical pain. It does seem hard to manage it but it is possible.

All of us feel painful emotions some time in our life and they differ in severity, intensity and the duration of the feeling. Depression or grieving a loss can bring out these negative and painful emotions.

Some of most common painful emotions that we feel are:

• Anguish
• Dispair
• Emptiness
• Sadness
• Anger
• Hopelessness
• Regret

Whenever you feel these emotions in an intense way, it seems impossible to get away from this pain. The reason is that you do not often feel it in a specific area like physical pain, you feel this pain in your existance which is accompanied by negative thoughts or feelings or both. It is possible to find relief from these painful emotions, and we will look at some of the ways you can do so.

It is essential to remember that sometimes you cannot deal with these painful emotions on your own. If you feel like it is being too much for you to handle, or you feel like doing nothing and feel an inability to move, or feel that it is creating a significant desfunction in your social or occupational life then it is important to seek help from professionals.

Seek help from a professional when you feel that your painful emotions:

• are making it difficult for you to complete your daily tasks
• you are unable to feel positive emotions
• making it difficult to perform basic functions
• hindering your ability to connect with other people
• are making you feel depressed most of the time in a day

Labeling the Emotion (Affect Labeling)

You can start specifiying your emotions by labeling them. For example try to figure out if they pain you are feeling is because of loneliness, boredem, frustration or sadness.

It is called Affect Labeling and it backed by research. Matthew Lieberman from UCLA did a study in which it was found that when we describe our feelings in words it increases the activity in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and turns down the volume on our pain. It also reduces the brain’s alarm system by reducing the activity in amygdala.

The “RAIN” Method

Sometimes it feels like the painful emotions are consuming you and it feels helpless. There is a mindfulness tool that is designed to keep you in the present and face the emotion without getting consumed by it. It is called the RAIN method and involves the following four steps:

The Steps:

1. Recognize what is happening.
2. Allow the experience to be there, just as it is.
3. Investigate with a gentle, curious attention (Where do I feel this in my body?).
4. Nurture with self-compassion.

This technique was developed by a clinical psychologist named Tara Brach, who was also a meditation teacher. This method is used as a primary method for Mindfulness-Based Emotional Regulation.

Opposite Action

This technique was developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan and it a core skill used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Our feelings are always accompanied by an urge to do some action. For example when you feel angry it urges you to attack someone, when you feel sad it urges you to isolate.

The technique is to do the opposite action and not follow what that painful emotion is urging you to do. So the next time you feel sadness or shame and want to go into isolation, just do the opposite and go meet a friend or go to a public place.

Self-Soothe with the Five Senses

Grounding is another mindfulness based technique which is especially usefull when the emotions are physically painful and you feel like you will panic. In this technique instead of ruminating over your thoughts or feelings you try to ground yourself in reality by using all 5 of your senses and living in the moment.

Sometimes the itiration is a 5-4-3-2-1 technique where you will acknowledge:

• 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can touch
• 3 things you can hear
• 2 things you can smell
• 1 thing you can taste

This grounding technique is also used in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Trauma-Informed Care. It shifts your focus towards external sensory input from internal distress, and this stabilizes your nervous system.

So the next time you feel painful emotions, try one of these above techniques and see which one works best for you. Also remember that if you feel overwhelmed by these feelings and emotions and they get too much to handle on your own then do seek professional help.