Fred Cavaiani
Everyone will experience some emotional pain throughout life. It is the journey of life for everyone. As much as we would like to avoid feeling emotional pain, it will still be there at different times in our life. Emotional pain is not an enemy. It becomes an opportunity to go deeper in our life journey. The willingness to accept and embrace whatever pain might come our way, the death of a loved one, a serious illness, a hurt feeling, a personal rejection, a criticism or condemnation by someone, a judgmental statement from a loved one or a family member: all of this brings such emotional hurt and pain because we have no control over it.
However, if we allow ourself to accept this pain and feel it, we experience in a profound manner what life is all about. Emotional pain that is embraced and accepted brings us into an experience of life that teaches us so much about how to live life positively and appropriately. We begin to realize the shortness of life. We begin to discover the importance of living in the present moment. We want to talk with others on a deeper level.
The emotional pain of loss and hurt pushes us into a desire for something that is deep and personal. It also pushes us into a sense of gratitude for the good things in our life. But if we remain angry about what has happened to us, we go backwards in life instead of forward.
The gift of emotional pain, well- embraced, brings us into a deeper desire to experience God and a healthy awareness of the next life. Everyone is born. Everyone dies. What happens between birth and death becomes our roadmap through this short life.
The gift of emotional pain is a roadmap of how to travel through life. This roadmap teaches us to look at life in a humble, loving and compassionate manner. Everyone is looking for love in life. Emotional pain helps us to become more aware of the importance of walking slowly through life and bringing love to everyone we meet and see.
When we are hurting, we want this pain to disappear. But it doesn’t disappear by wishing it will go away. It begins to disappear first by our acceptance of the pain so we can learn from it. The acceptance of the pain releases the power that the pain has over us. Then we can experience gratitude and wisdom and we begin to appreciate what life is all about. The acceptance of emotional pain helps us to learn wisdom from our pain and gives us a deeper insight into life. It increases our desire to experience God. And we begin to appreciate the importance of emotionally connecting to other people.
Often when we are feeling emotional pain, we want to avoid this present moment and become focused on wanting things to be different. Our body then becomes tense and we miss the calmness of embracing this present moment. When we stay tense and anxious and avoid the embrace of this present moment, we create unnecessary tension within us. We then become closed to feeling inner peace and we live in the past or in the future, which never helps us.
I enjoy writing these articles for the Legal News papers for the past 23 years because these articles have helped me embrace the present moment and have brought me into a positive awareness and acceptance of life. This quiet time to write pushes me in a gentle manner to embrace life in a deeper and loving manner.
It never helps to linger on wishing life would be different. But it is very helpful to be grateful for the positive effect people have had on me. It is so important to simply focus on this moment and embrace this moment. We then slow down. We make better judgments. And we feel and accept our pain in a more positive manner. The hidden gift of emotional pain becomes a gift of how to live life.
It is so easy to invest in wishing things were different instead of investing in an acceptance of this moment. Wisdom and peace are the result of accepting this moment and allowing ourselves to calmly experience this moment. Inner peace and happiness are discovered in the embrace of what is happening to us in this moment. This is a fundamental principle of positive psychology and positive spirituality because it brings into our mind and heart an accepting awareness of what to do.
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Fred Cavaiani is a licensed marriage counselor and psychologist with a private practice in Troy. He is the founder of Marriage Growth Center, a consultant for the Detroit Medical Center, and conducts numerous programs for groups throughout Southeast Michigan. His column in the Legal News runs every other Tuesday. He can be reached at 248-362-3340. His e-mail address is: Fredcavi@yahoo.com and his website is fredthecounselor.com.
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