Clean pain is a part of life. It is necessary. It helps us grow and heal. Allowing it is important. Resisting it hurts worse than the pain itself.
- It’s the deep sadness you feel after losing a loved one.
- It’s the hurt you feel after being betrayed.
- It’s the fear you feel upon losing a job.
- It’s the disappointment you feel when your plans don’t work out.
Clean pain almost feels good because it is so cleansing. I recommend you name the emotions and then connect them to thoughts and allow them to wash over you. Depending on how extreme the event is that triggered it, you may need to allow them for a long time but they will wash over you like a wave over and over…getting smaller each time until you’re healed.
For example: Hello sadness. I see you. I feel you. You are dark and heavy and slow. I know you’re here because of the unexpected loss of my mother. I am mourning her presence in my life and it feels good to mourn her. I need to feel sad right now. I want to feel sad so you can stay. I’m going to allow you here for a while.
Dirty pain is created by your mind. It is not necessary. It does not help. It stops your mind from finding solutions and instead points it in the direction of finding evidence that something is wrong with you, with someone else, with your life or with the world. It is created by thoughts such as:
- I will never be happy now that my best friend is gone.
- I am so stupid for not realizing I was being taken advantage of.
- I should NOT have been let go from that job!
- I am a horrible person for making that mistake.
- I’m worried about what COULD go wrong in the future.
Dirty pain is minimized by allowing yourself to truly feel clean pain. But all of us create at least some dirty pain and the majority of the pain we feel in life IS dirty pain. I recommend you notice it. Notice yourself allowing thoughts that are creating it. Then question those thoughts. Are they really true? Are they absolutely positively true all the time? Or are they actually not true at all. Could the opposite be true even?
The coaching I do with clients helps them identify the difference. When it’s someone else’s dirty pain it’s very easy to see that they are creating it. But when it’s our own we have blinders that can make it nearly impossible to see the difference. I personally am the Queen of convincing myself that my dirty pain is clean pain. It takes an insightful person to show me the difference, but when it happens the freedom that follows is amazing.
Let go of the dirty pain. There is no room for it in your life and no need for it either.
Have a great week.
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