What does emotional pain tell us?

What protected us in the past can also keep us trapped later in life. Why face emotional pain when you can avoid it and do not have to feel it? These are questions clients sometimes ask me during outdoor sessions.

What happens when we no longer run from the pain in our hearts? When we move through it. When we truly feel it. When we dare to explore what lies beneath it? What might happen then...

Pain, whether emotional or physical, can be a signal in the body and the soul. A way for our bodies and emotions to make something clear to us.

Beneath emotional pain, there is a story.

A story that wants to be seen.

A story that may be heard.

When, as children, we did not learn that our story would be heard, we may learn to push our pain away and harden ourselves. We develop ways of no longer having to feel what once seemed too much.

Old emotional pain does not disappear by being pushed away.

Unacknowledged emotional pain can then quietly travel with us into our relationships, our choices, our work and the way we see ourselves. It can keep us trapped and weigh heavily on our lives.

When we can look at this pain without immediately turning away from it, space begins to open up and we learn that we can carry it.

Are you willing to truly see the pain and hear the story behind it?