Emotional pain cripples people. You have to stop it.

When I was in the depths of depression, it affected me in everything - social life, love life, career, and my relationship with my family.

What does it do to you?

How do we stop the emotional pain? In some of my other articles, and in my blog, I go into detail about some of the more extreme pain, and how to stop that.

The stronger method to stop emotional pain

The main idea, however, is that your thoughts cause your pain. By thinking again and again about whatever happened to you, you are feeding the emotions. The emotions feed your thoughts in a vicious cycle.

To stop the pain at the roots, take a page from meditation and clear your thoughts. Keep an empty head. Try to stop thinking. Stop any thoughts the moment they come into your head. A good way to do this is to watch your breath. Feel your breath, what does it feel like as it enters your nose, what does it feel like as it goes down into your chest? This occupies your mind so it cannot bring back any negative thoughts.

This stops feeding the emotional pain, and after a while it will die out as well. Be on a lookout for the thoughts trying to re-enter your head again, and the moment they do, cut them off.

Holding the loving feeling

This article is for less crippling pain. I personally believe it is more effective than turning off your thoughts, but it is harder to use when the emotional pain is extreme.

This method deals directly with the emotions. Try to think of a time you were in love, or when you felt affection for someone. Capture that feeling. Hold that feeling in your heart, and intensify it as much as you can.

Then while holding that feeling, think of the event that is causing you pain. Think of the person. The feeling you hold might change into something more toxic, but try to "steer" it back into the good feeling.

What you are doing is no longer associating pain with that event or person. Every time you think of someone or something negative, it causes you pain. You are training yourself to feel something else. It is the best way I have found in my years of practice to let go of past insults.

Warning

Keep in mind that this is not encouraging more of the same! By associating a good feeling with something bad that happened, you are allowing yourself to finally let go, and it is not saying that you want more of it, or enjoy it if it happens again.

The whole reason your mind brings it up again and again is to protect you. It wants you to be wary of the bad event happening again. But it doesn't know that it is hurting you even more so by letting you relive it. So take heed, and learn your lesson, but you have to stop the emotional pain. It'll kill you slowly from the inside if you don't.