Emotional pain arises from a narrow view. If you’re ever emotionally disturbed, what you perceive to be true or happening is… wrong.
Wrong — not in a judgmental way, but in a compassionate way that invites you to question deeply with a sincere heart. It’s not to say that YOU are wrong, but that how you perceive things does not align with the truth (or reality) of things.
Understanding the Root of Emotional Pain
Unfortunately, when people feel hurt emotionally, they often don’t care about what is really true. This happens because they have not yet deeply understood (or have forgotten) how their emotional pain is directly tied to a misaligned perception. Once you see this, your experience of emotional pain takes on a new meaning and purpose.
To align with this truth — because you see there’s no way around it — your emotional pain can serve as a guidance mechanism back to truth. This is probably one of the most impactful discoveries in my journey. Now, if I am disturbed emotionally, there is an inner alarm that tells me I’m not seeing things clearly.
Of course, this invites an inner stillness where I can question what it is I think is happening; before 🙄 I start making a bigger mess of things.
The Blame Trap
This awareness helps tremendously in not making matters worse by blaming the cause of my pain on others or circumstances. Sure, there’s still the human conditioning that wants to blame others, and I will forever have to be vigilant about that. And, of course, sometimes I catch it quicker than at other times.
I have, it seems, questioned deeply whether this was true or not over a thousand times, trying to find a way around it — so my blame could feel valid, so my ego could be validated in its painful stories.
Yet always, I’m faced with the raw truth that my emotions don’t respond to reality; they respond to how I perceive reality through the filter of how I perceive myself.
And always, the stories I tell behind my emotional pain interpret my experience in a way that ultimately says I am unwhole, incomplete, unlovable, or inherently worthless. Again, when I deeply investigate the truth of this moment behind the noise of my mind, those things are clearly and obviously not true at all.
The Path Back to Clarity
If emotional pain results from not seeing reality (or myself) clearly, then seeing clearly is our way back to sanity and wellness.
Yes, this is Genuine Spirituality: the willingness to look more deeply at the nature of what is real and true, even if it means having to give up what I think, want, or hope to be true.
WHY? Because… the Truth is what heals.
No, it doesn’t give me what I think I want in the world. But it does put an end to suffering, an end to the pain that ultimately pushes away the depth and connection I crave. It ends the (perceived) separation between my present moment experience and the wholeness of my true nature.
The Process of Emotional Healing
Is this not obvious?
Look at any degree of emotional healing you’ve directly experienced. What happened? What was the process? What happened beneath the surface?
To some degree, it went like this:
- Something happened, and you interpreted it as, “I’m not enough” or “I’m missing/losing something (I’m unwhole or incomplete).”
- This stirred up a pronounced fear, which then surfaced as negative emotion.
- You probably got a little unhinged (understandably) 😜.
- Once you calmed down (over a day or decade), you started to see things a bit more clearly.
- You realized you’d made a lot of assumptions that weren’t based in reality.
- You recognized that, in some way, your perception was “wrong” or… completely unnecessary.
- You let it go (at least to some degree).
- You felt better.
Embracing the Bigger Picture
This journey is effectively one of seeing the bigger picture; seeing yourself and reality more clearly.
Seeing the bigger picture unfolds along a relative scale. Sometimes you see it a little bit, or a lot, and it really doesn’t matter. What matters is the willingness, which is also a humility that’s not trapped by an arrogance so convinced it knows something it doesn’t really know.
This arrogance, when combined with emotional pain, creates an epic human disaster.
Advanced Inquiry
(optional) Advanced Inquiry…
If ever I think I’m hurting emotionally because of someone else…
An inquiry I recommend, only because it’s so helpful for me, is to ask:
- If this emotional pain really didn’t have to do with anyone else, what is the story I’m telling about myself that is so painful?
Follow-up inquiry…
- Is it actually possible for anyone else to make me tell this painful story about myself?
The answer is, no.
- Am I willing to deal with this violent way I see myself, or am I going to keep hiding from it by blaming it on someone else?
- In blaming others, can I see how I make matters worse? Can I see how my inner violence becomes outer violence? Is that really how I want to move in the world?
In Conclusion… Find the Right Support
I heard something in a video the other day that struck me as brilliant:
“One of the biggest mistakes people make in relationships is sharing their relationship drama with friends, family, or social media, instead of going to a professional or someone who can genuinely help them see things more clearly.”
It’s like people are saying…
- Please validate my side; I want to be right.
Rather than…
- Please help me see this more objectively, beyond the pain I’m experiencing.
I’m Here…
If you resonate with my style of sharing, I may be available to help you avoid years of unnecessary pain and struggle by helping you see yourself, others, and life more clearly — in a way that truly honors your heart and the sacred miracle you’re living in.
