Is emotional pain adaptive?
I've been wondering. Do we need to feel pain in our lives? I mean it's not exactly a pleasant feeling.
In my opinion, yes and no. I think it can be adaptive if we learn from it. However, if we get dwell on the pain for a prolonged period then it can be maladaptive.
My view is that emotional pain is like a trigger in our brain telling is something is not right and we need to deal with it. Be it emotional pain or physical pain, when we experience it, it's a wound that needs to be dealt with and healed. Sometimes it's frustrating when you go through a situation where you experience pain and all you want to do is bounce back up again and face life. Some people think that this is the way and say "Get back up," or"Keep going," To some extent, yes, we do need to get back up and carry on but I believe this is the wrong thing to say to someone who has just come out of a painful situation. How are we meant to keep going with an open wound that hasn't yet healed?
We need to address the pain and deal with it... and then we move on. There are some steps that I would suggest taking when a painful situation occurs.
1. Take some time out, allow perhaps a day or two just to rest and reflect on the situation.
2. Have a diary where you can write out the painful situation that has occured to you, allow yourself to figure out why the situation occured/what went wrong (when doing this try to avoid blaming yourself or other people or getting annoyed. Simply look at the situation from a detached perspective writing it out as logically as you possibly can)
3. Think solutions!
What have you learnt from the situation?
What can you do in the future to prevent this from happening?
If this situation is not something preventable then think, how am I going to cope better with this in the future?
Are there any precautions I can take in order to not get so affected by this in the future?
I'm reading at really great book at the moment where the author uses a phrase called 'Getting hurt efficiently,' I really liked it and I think what's being got at here is using that pain in an adaptive and positive way and learning from the future. On the other hand, if we keep getting hurt about the same things over and over again (guilty of this in the past) it can start to be damaging to your health and inefficient.
4. Action plan!
Once you've gathered all your thoughts from the solution brainstorm in Step 3 develop these into a full proof action plan to see how you are going to move on to this.
5. Let go.
Once you've been through all these steps and dealt with the pain, you will need to eventually let go of the pain and move on. Not saying this is easy at all but thinking about the pain constantly is only going hinder your ability to tackle the situation.
Each situation is going to be different - but hopefully you can apply the steps to your daily lives and difficult or painful situations that come your way. What I'm really getting at though is that pain does need to be dealt with... otherwise your body will keep triggering the same pain because you haven't figured out a way to deal with situation effectively. Due to this you're likely to run in to the same situation again and again.
We don't want to feel pain so we should protect ourselves where we can. However certain situations may occur where you may not have learnt how to avoid the pain as yet and so these situations need to be reflected on, analysed and dealt with.
In my opinion, yes and no. I think it can be adaptive if we learn from it. However, if we get dwell on the pain for a prolonged period then it can be maladaptive.
My view is that emotional pain is like a trigger in our brain telling is something is not right and we need to deal with it. Be it emotional pain or physical pain, when we experience it, it's a wound that needs to be dealt with and healed. Sometimes it's frustrating when you go through a situation where you experience pain and all you want to do is bounce back up again and face life. Some people think that this is the way and say "Get back up," or"Keep going," To some extent, yes, we do need to get back up and carry on but I believe this is the wrong thing to say to someone who has just come out of a painful situation. How are we meant to keep going with an open wound that hasn't yet healed?
We need to address the pain and deal with it... and then we move on. There are some steps that I would suggest taking when a painful situation occurs.
1. Take some time out, allow perhaps a day or two just to rest and reflect on the situation.
2. Have a diary where you can write out the painful situation that has occured to you, allow yourself to figure out why the situation occured/what went wrong (when doing this try to avoid blaming yourself or other people or getting annoyed. Simply look at the situation from a detached perspective writing it out as logically as you possibly can)
3. Think solutions!
What have you learnt from the situation?
What can you do in the future to prevent this from happening?
If this situation is not something preventable then think, how am I going to cope better with this in the future?
Are there any precautions I can take in order to not get so affected by this in the future?
I'm reading at really great book at the moment where the author uses a phrase called 'Getting hurt efficiently,' I really liked it and I think what's being got at here is using that pain in an adaptive and positive way and learning from the future. On the other hand, if we keep getting hurt about the same things over and over again (guilty of this in the past) it can start to be damaging to your health and inefficient.
4. Action plan!
5. Let go.
Once you've been through all these steps and dealt with the pain, you will need to eventually let go of the pain and move on. Not saying this is easy at all but thinking about the pain constantly is only going hinder your ability to tackle the situation.
Each situation is going to be different - but hopefully you can apply the steps to your daily lives and difficult or painful situations that come your way. What I'm really getting at though is that pain does need to be dealt with... otherwise your body will keep triggering the same pain because you haven't figured out a way to deal with situation effectively. Due to this you're likely to run in to the same situation again and again.
We don't want to feel pain so we should protect ourselves where we can. However certain situations may occur where you may not have learnt how to avoid the pain as yet and so these situations need to be reflected on, analysed and dealt with.
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