What Feeling Mental & Emotional Pain does not mean.

Feeling mental and or emotional pain does not mean;

That you are weak. On the contrary, it means that you are strong enough to face what many of us deny is there.

That you are falling apart. You are in fact holding yourself together by not separating off the part of you that feels. You are more whole than you have ever been and if you continue to feel, your trajectory will be increasing wholeness.

That you are self-absorbed. Pain is most often what opens us up to compassion, understanding and connection with others.

That you are selfish. Your expression of pain can be a great gift to yourself and others in that it can allow you to release what would otherwise remain within you to fester and come out in inappropriate ways. It prevents the build up of resentment and bitterness. Walking around like a ticking time bomb brings no good to anyone. Your expression of pain can also help others to see that it is okay to deal with their own.

That you are self-indulgent. Perhaps not facing pain because you are scared to do so is dressed up as self-indulgence when it is in fact, dealing with pain is courageous and responsible.

That you are self-pitying. This idea has no basis in reality; it is one of those ideas that has grown from a pure justification that helps us to avoid that which we fear; namely, feeling, facing and healing pain.

That you are off balance. Pain is part of the full box of chocolates of human emotions. You can only be considered off balance if you never feel the pain and sentence yourself to a half life. Avoiding pain can limit many of lives greatest joys and excitements.

That you are shameful. Pain is an emotion, pure and simple; there is never any shame in what we feel. Try to really accept this truth and make an effort to let go of the habit of shame that was instilled in childhood. Shame is a myth passed to us from our parents and society. We can stop passing on the myth which is the cause of so much unnecessary pain in the first place.

That you are a liability. Feeling is an asset and a remarkable tool that it would do us all well to explore as far as we can.

That you are boring. Sound like another defensive reason to avoid feeling?

That you are unpleasant to be around. You choose: would you rather be around someone who is volatile and unpredictable because of buried, unprocessed pain or someone who gets on with it?

That you are unreliable. To express and be present to your true feelings is the most trustworthy position on earth. True reliability is consistently being where you actually are.

That you can’t be there for others. Facing your pain allows you to give others your best and to help them through their stuff with your experience of working through yours.

That you will lose respect and power. Do you think this is true???

That you look stupid. What a great obstacle this belief can be. It is perhaps the only way of really letting yourself down; not having the life you want for fear of looking stupid.

That you will become crazy or loose your mind. Remember facing pain is more likely to bring you into balance than to knock you off the edge. Nervous break downs don’t happen to people who routinely face their feelings.

That you will die. There have definitely been some cases in history, mostly in romantic movies, where heroes and heroines have died of heart break but no one has ever died from healing and dealing with it.

Integrating Pain – A one day workshop
Offered by the Institute of Self-Esteem for Africa
– Cape Town, Johannesburg or Port Elizabeth.