Holding painful emotions: Not too close, not too far, just right

by Dr. Rob Rutledge.

Dr. Russ Harris, an Australian family physician, psychotherapist and best-selling author teaches that painful emotions are a natural part of life. Whenever there is a gap between what we are expecting (or hoping for) and the reality of the situation, difficult feelings like disappointment, frustration and grief tend to follow. For people first diagnosed with cancer this ‘reality gap’ can be especially painful as everything in life can feel as though it’s been completely shattered. Add the fear of dying to the mix and we can end up experiencing one difficult emotion after another.

Dr. Harris uses the following demonstration to illustrate how we can work with these painful emotions so we can enjoy our lives more and feel better. Imagine writing down all your most painful emotions on a piece of paper. These could include fear, anger, despair, or feelings of being inadequate or completely isolated, and so on. Then imagine that within the room surrounding you are all the things that make your life rich, full and meaningful. You could visualize your loved ones standing around smiling at you. You could imagine other positive aspects of your life you’re grateful for like your passions, hobbies, friends, work, sense of a higher spirituality surrounding you.

Grab onto that piece of paper with the painful emotions and bring it right up to your face so it’s touching your nose.  Dr. Harris describes this action as being fused with your difficult emotions such that you cannot ‘see’ anything else.  With our emotions in our face we would act out or act on whatever difficult feelings arose in the moment.  We’d be angry at the world, blaming others, the medical system, God, and everything else for our problems.  Fusing with our painful emotions would dominate our reaction to family members, adding negativity to exchanges. Alternatively, we would withdraw from connecting with others because of self-pity and depression. When the piece of paper is masking our eyes we can get so absorbed or overwhelmed by the painful emotions that we get separated from the people that we love and things that give us joy.

Next, grab onto your ‘painful emotions’ paper with two hands and push it away as far as possible from you. Stretch out your arms so hard that your shoulders feel like they could pop out of their sockets. Hold those difficult emotions there for a long time and see what you feel. This is called distancing ourselves from our emotions or sometimes ‘suppressing’, pushing them away because we don’t want to deal with what’s come up. We might try to numb the pain with drugs/alcohol or distract ourselves with in incessant activity. Twisting our face away from our painful sheet is uncomfortable and takes lots of energy. However, most of us are very good at it because that’s what we’ve been taught do from a young age.  We hear these ongoing messages from parents and so many others: Don’t feel angry! Don’t feel sad! (Granny is going to Heaven, no need to cry about her). Don’t be excited! (Children should be seen not heard). Essentially we’re taught not to feel. Add the pop culture advice “You have to stay positive if you have a cancer diagnosis” and you have a recipe for numbing all our feelings – good and bad.

Instead, the wise approach is to drop our hands and lay our paper of painful emotions on our lap. From this position we can begin to truly appreciate all the things surrounding us that give us joy and meaning.  Our painful emotions are still there – but we don’t need to let them dominate our thoughts and actions, nor spend our energy trying to push them away. Our emotions (painful and positive) are our life energy, and we can let them flow through us. We can honour them for stretching our hearts - allowing us to appreciate the beauty of life as it is here right now.

Learn more about Dr. Harris’ work at www.actmindfully.com.au