Strong emotional experience. A strange but working recipe for dealing with heartache. How is emotional pain experienced?

People often go to psychologists for one purpose - to immediately drown out the pain. To stop feeling

Fast time. Quick change of feelings. There is no place for pain to live.

People often go to psychologists for one purpose - to immediately drown out the pain. To quickly stop feeling - and run again, into life, work, family. Like robots. To live and not worry. To live and not interfere with obsessive thoughts. To live and not feel.

Because pain is about feelings. This is an indicator. Where integrity is broken, it hurts. Where there is a wound, there it hurts. Where there is a wound, there cannot but hurt. If the body is alive, it reacts with pain to an injury, to a disease, to a malfunction.

There is a way out: to become a cyborg, then it will not hurt. Never ever. But then the sunset will not please, and the wine is not tasty, and the cat is not touching. It's also about feelings.

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The wound does not heal instantly. Let's anoint with an anesthetic ointment. Let's put on a bandage. But the wound will not heal before all the protective and restorative mechanisms work. Blood cannot be made to clot faster, and cells cannot be made to regenerate faster. Everything happens at its own pace and in its own time.

The same is with the psyche. She needs to be allowed to complete all the steps. Do not hold on purpose (do not pick open the wound), do not speed up (smear one remedy after another right there). You have to give yourself a break.

The loss hurts. Breakup hurts. A message with bad content hurts. An unanswered message hurts. A harsh word hurts. Hate hurts. Ignoring hurts. Jealousy hurts.

It is necessary not to run, not to be saved, but to live. Gotta hurt. As during the flu, you need to lie down in bed, drinking tea with lemon. We must accept this pain and this state. Recognize and name what you feel. "Yes I am jealous". "Yes, I'm afraid of losing her, I'm mortally afraid." And feel. Cry. Get angry. Pour out anger. Suffer looking at pictures. Write stupid letters. You can not send, but write. Dedicate some time to living through the pain of the situation. Stay in it. Not lubricating. Not switching. Not distracted. Set aside time to be mindful of the pain.

The psyche itself will turn on defense mechanisms. If you don't disturb her, she will. It will hurt - and apathy, indifference will come. Then a calm understanding of what happened will come. Then - acceptance of the situation and the desire to move on. This is what you wanted to get immediately, immediately, at the very beginning.

I know it's a strange recipe. But you yourself know: the effect of any painkiller ends, and the wound stops hurting only when it heals

"joylessness"

"a feeling of emotional numbness"

"feeling of absence of feelings",

other sensations, not rarely the most exotic.

Definition of mental pain

What is heartache? Is it a disease or a defensive reaction of the body?

From a doctor's point of view, it's both.

The brain, in this way, tries to convey to us, to signal that it is sick and needs help to cope with today's problem. If he is not helped today, then tomorrow this condition can provoke the formation of a more complex mental pathology.

Emotional pain as a defensive reaction

Any person can experience mental pain, including a mentally healthy person, for example, who has experienced a significant loss of someone or something.
Many conflicts that seem unsolvable in people with a certain type of personality (suspicious, anxious, with increased responsibility, always doubting everything) can cause a feeling of pain in the soul. In these cases, mental pain is regarded as a protective reaction of the psyche to excessive stress.

Mental pain as a symptom of the disease

However, it is not uncommon for mental pain to be a manifestation (symptom) of a mental illness (mental disorder). Particular attention should be paid to the fact that the very expression - "mental illness", has a direct origin from the words mental pain. Feeling mental pain is the most common symptom of the most common mental disorder. recent years- depression.

The reasons

All the causes of experiencing pain in the soul, as mentioned above, can be divided into two groups:

• the first - diseases (mental disorders and behavioral disorders),
• the second is psychological (psychogenic), conflicts between the "real" and the "desired" (true neuroses).

Help with mental pain

It is possible and necessary to help a person experiencing mental pain.

In some cases, help is a conversation and support, or, conversely, isolation and temporary loneliness.

In others - neurometabolic therapy with the use of special methods of psychotherapy and medications, constant strict supervision by the attending physician.

Unfortunately, there is no universal remedy for mental pain. Each case requires an individual solution.

Treatment

Is it possible to remove or relieve mental pain on your own? If possible, how?

If the pain in the soul is not a symptom of a mental disorder, then you can try to treat mental pain yourself with some activities, such as: take a contrast shower, try to give physical activity (squats, running, swimming), try to sleep.

If mental pain is a manifestation of any disease, then the help of a specialist psychotherapist or psychiatrist is needed. The problem is that, as a rule, with mental disorders, a critical attitude towards their condition may decrease, and the sick person does not seek help, does not turn to a specialist. And a healthy person who, after stress, suffers from pain in the soul, on the contrary, is inclined to seek support, help from loved ones, tries to find a way to treat mental pain, turns to a doctor for advice.

What to do if you or your loved one is seized and does not let go of the pain in the soul? If, moreover, it also intensifies day by day?

There is only one answer. You need to go to a psychotherapist or psychiatrist.

Firstly, he knows how to quickly help and relieve this painful feeling.

Secondly, if mental pain is a manifestation of any mental disorder and treatment is required, then the psychotherapist will be able to choose therapy (medication and psychotherapy).

The Brain Clinic provides adequate assistance to all who apply with different types and varying degrees of pain in the soul.

Call +7 495 135-44-02

We will help you or your loved ones get rid of mental pain!

We help in the most severe cases, even if the previous treatment did not help.

Sometimes we love a person so much that it leaves deep wounds in our soul. The pain of being rejected is nothing less than the physical pain. And it doesn't really matter if your boyfriend suggested breaking up after a long relationship, or if a new acquaintance refused to go on a date with you. Healing spiritual wounds is a very long process, but you need to gather your strength and go on a long journey to a renewed self.

Steps

Part 1

Give yourself time

1. Allow yourself to feel sadness. Heart wounds are always painful. You cannot ignore the fact that your experiences are causing you pain. This means that you must give yourself time to process the emotions that come with the pain. With these feelings, your brain is literally telling you how badly what happened hurt you. There is no need to artificially suppress these emotions in yourself.

   • Create a healing space. You need time and space to process your emotions and give vent to your bitter feelings. When you feel emotional pain, try to find a quiet place where you can cope with the wave of emotions that overwhelmed you. Sometimes it’s enough to go for a walk, retire to your room or just make yourself a cup of aromatic tea.
   • When a person experiences mental pain, he goes through certain stages of this process, during which he experiences such feelings as anger, pain, grief, anxiety, fear and acceptance of what happened. Sometimes you may feel like you are literally drowning in your own emotions, but if you can determine exactly how you go through each stage of the experience, this will help you experience the healing process easier and a little faster.
   • Try not to drown in your despair. There is a clear difference between simply giving yourself time to process your emotions and being completely overwhelmed by them. If you find yourself staying home for weeks, forgetting to take a shower, and life seems meaningless to you, you should seek professional advice as soon as possible. psychological help. These are signs that the grief process is too difficult for you to handle on your own.

2. Live for today. If you want to deal with all emotions at once and get rid of heartache immediately, you are probably setting yourself an impossible task. Instead, move from one stage to the next gradually, and always live for today.

   • A good way to focus on a specific moment own life It's about trying to live for today. When you catch yourself on the fact that your thoughts again and again return to the past, stop yourself. Look around: what do you see now? what smell do you smell? What color is the sky above your head? what are your fingers touching? and the wind blows in your face?
   • Don't start coming up with a grand plan to get over the person who broke your heart. On the contrary, if you focus on how to deal with your grief, it will happen by itself.

3. Indifference. When a relationship ends or you are rejected, you will probably feel like there is a huge hole inside of you all of a sudden. A huge black hole that consumes all the happiness from your life. At this point, many people make the mistake of trying to immediately fill this hole with something, because they are unable to bear this painful sensation. Yes, this feeling causes you great pain, and you have the right to feel empty inside.

   • Create a space for yourself where your ex isn't. Delete his phone number and you won't be able to text him when you've had too much to drink. Put him on the "black list" in all social networks, otherwise you will find out at one fine moment that you are looking at new photos in his account all night long. Don't ask mutual friends how your ex is doing. The more clearly you understand that the breakup has finally occurred, the easier it will be for you to heal after it.
   • Don't try to immediately fill the void left by broken love. This is one of the most common mistakes people make when trying to heal their emotional wounds. When you try to immediately start a new relationship in order to stop feeling pain and fill the void left by the previous feeling, it does not really help you go through the necessary stages of coping with the loss. Your unlived negative feelings will return to you sooner or later, but they will become even stronger and more painful.

4. Tell about it. You need to make sure you have reliable support to deal with the pain. The solid support of your friends and family, and even your therapist, will get you back on your feet sooner than anything else. Of course, close people will not fill the void that a loved one has left in your soul, but they can help you deal with this void better.

   • Find a close friend or relative with whom you can talk about your feelings, especially on long, lonely evenings. Try to find a person, or several people, who can give you emotional support to make up for the loss of support you received from your partner in an ending relationship. Ask your friends for permission to call them every time you feel an irresistible urge to talk to the person you are trying to get rid of feelings for now.
   • A diary can be incredibly helpful in this situation. This is not only a good way to let your feelings out, especially if you don't want to dump all the burden of your suffering on your friends, it is also an effective tool that allows you to evaluate the progress you have made. After rereading old records, you suddenly realize that now you are much less likely to think about your ex or notice that you want to go on dates again (Actually, and not just to "fill the void left inside left by broken love").
   • Sometimes you may need to talk with a psychologist or psychotherapist. There is no shame in seeking professional help!

5. Get rid of things that trigger memories. If you are constantly bumping into objects that evoke memories of past love, it will only slow down your healing process. Don't keep old house pants that your ex used to wear after work in the closet, get rid of this stuff.

   • There is no need to ritually burn everything that reminds you of past relationships, especially if these things can be given to people who need them. But you absolutely must remove these things from your life, one way or another. Also, depending on how bad your breakup was, the ritual burning of things can unleash a flurry of feelings that were previously locked in your heart.
   • Take a thing and try to remember what exactly you associate with it. Then imagine that you have placed these memories in a balloon. When you get rid of the thing, imagine that the ball flies far, far away and will never bother you again.
   • If you still have valuables in good condition, you can donate them to charity. In this case, you can imagine how much joy this thing will bring to the new owner.

6. Help other people. If you start helping others, especially those who are experiencing the same feelings as you, you can take your mind off your own experiences. It also means that you are not drowning in your own suffering and self-pity.

   • Take the time to listen to your friends and help them if they are having difficulty. Don't just focus on your own heartache. Tell your friends that they can always count on you to listen and help if they need it.
   • Get involved in volunteer work. Find a job at a homeless shelter or charity canteen. Offer your help at rehabilitation centers or animal shelters.

7. Give free rein to your imagination. You will imagine how your ex came back to you and talks about how stupid he was for letting you leave. You can imagine in detail how you hug and kiss this person, imagine in detail your intimacy. Such fantasies are completely normal.

   • The more you try to stop your imagination, the more often such thoughts will come to your mind. When you try not to think about something, especially if you have imposed this severe restriction on yourself, in fact, you think only about it all the time.
   • Set aside special times when you allow yourself to fantasize, so you don't spend all your time in an imaginary world. For example, you can give yourself 15 minutes a day to think about how your ex wants to be with you again. If these thoughts occur to you at another time, put them aside until the time slot for fantasy comes. You don't refuse to think about it, you just put it off until later.

   Part 2

   Beginning the healing process

   1. Avoid anything that triggers memories. If you have already gotten rid of all the things that trigger memories, as described in the first part of the article, this will help you avoid such moments. However, there are other things that you should keep in mind. Of course, you won't be able to avoid them completely, but at least try not to specifically look for them. This will help you recover faster.

      • The reason could be anything from the song that played on your first date to the little coffee shop where you spent so much time together studying for your exams. It might even be a smell.
      • You may encounter this even when you don't expect it at all. If this happened, determine what exactly triggered your memories, and what kind of memories this factor caused. Then try to switch to something else. No need to linger on these feelings and memories. For example, when you stumble across a photo of yourself on Facebook, admit to yourself that you feel sad and sorry about it, and then try to think of something good, or at least neutral. You might think about a new dress you will wear tomorrow, or that it would be nice to have a kitten.
      • This does not mean that you should do your best to avoid such moments that provoke memories. You won't be able to do this. All you have to do is just try to avoid the things that hurt you and make you regret the past as little as possible. You need your spiritual wounds to heal.

   2. Good music will help you heal faster. It has been proven that music can have a therapeutic effect and help speed up the healing process. Listen to upbeat, energetic songs. Scientific research showed that when you listen to such music, endorphins are released in your body, which help you perk up and overcome stress.

      • Try not to include sentimental, romantic love songs. This kind of music will not help release endophins in your brain. On the contrary, such songs will only increase your sadness and disturb your spiritual wounds.
      • When you find that sad feelings are flooding back into you, it's time to turn on energetic music to perk up. If you turn on dance music, you can get endorphins from listening to upbeat music and energetic dance moves at the same time.

   3. Take a break from heartache. After you have passed the initial stage, when you gave yourself the opportunity to grieve and cope with your emotions, it is time to take your mind off the unpleasant thoughts. When you start thinking about your ex, do something, try to switch your thoughts to something else, come up with some new activity for yourself, etc.

      • Call those friends who said you can always count on them if you need help. Read the book you've been wanting to read for a long time. Put on some hilarious comedy (and get an added bonus because laughter helps you get well).
      • The more you do to not think about the past and about your mental suffering, the faster you will feel better. Of course it's difficult. It is very difficult to control your thoughts all the time and keep track of how much time you spend thinking about your heartache.
      • Try not to get carried away with "painkillers." It may be something that allows you to stop feeling pain for a while. Sometimes you really need something to give yourself a break from the heartache. However, be careful that these distractions don't hurt you, especially in the beginning when you need to learn how to deal with negative experiences. This "pain reliever" can be alcohol or drugs, but it can also be continuous TV viewing or a constant presence on the Internet. Or even the food you eat just to feel calmer.

   4. Change your lifestyle. One of the problems that you face is that the habitual way of life that was formed when you were together was suddenly destroyed. If you start doing something new and change your habitual lifestyle, this will open the door to new habits. There will be no place in your new life for the person who broke your heart.

      • You don't need to drastically change your life to get rid of old habits. Do simple things like go shopping on Saturday morning instead of lying in bed; try listening to a new style of music, or discover a new hobby like karate or flower gardening.
      • Try not to make radical changes in your life before you have carefully weighed the pros and cons. Especially try to avoid drastic changes at the beginning, immediately after the breakup. If enough time has passed and you want to show that you are really changing, then it's time to get something like a new tattoo or shave your hair bald.
      • If you have the opportunity to take a short vacation, go on a trip. Even if you take a weekend trip to some new city for you, it will help you take a fresh look at what happened.

   5. Don't interfere with your own healing. Of course, there are relapses from time to time when you're trying to bounce back from a failed relationship. This is normal, this is also part of the healing process. But there are some things that you can foresee and thereby prevent them from throwing you back in your movement towards a new life.

      • Pay attention to the words you usually use. When you say "Awesome!" or "Terrible" or "Nightmare!", you continue to see the world in black. This creates negative thinking. If you can't think positively, at least try to stick to neutral terms. For example, instead of saying, "It's over forever!", say, "This breakup was very painful for me, but I'll do my best to get through it."
      • Try not to embarrass yourself. You don't have to drive past your ex's house every night to see if he's found a date. Try not to call or text your ex while you're drinking. These things only keep you from moving forward.
      • Remember that everything changes in this world. Your feelings today will be very different in a week, a month or a year. We promise that there will come a time when you will be able to calmly remember this period of your life without experiencing pain.

   Part 3

   Accept what happened

   1. Stop blaming. An important part of your healing and acceptance of what happened is to understand that it is useless to blame yourself or another person. What happened happened, so you can no longer do or say something to change what happened, so what's the use of blaming.

      • Try to find good feelings towards the other person. No matter what he did or didn't do, try to find compassion in your heart for him and what is happening to him. This does not mean that you should immediately forgive him, it only means that you will stop being angry with the person.
      • On the other hand, don't blame yourself for everything. You can acknowledge and reflect on what exactly you did wrong in previous relationships and promise yourself that you won't repeat past mistakes in the future. But don't waste time reliving your own missteps over and over again.

   2. Feel when you are ready to move forward. people need different time to heal from heartache. It is impossible to name a specific period of time that you will need, but there are signs by which you can determine that you are moving in the right direction.

      • You no longer worry if you find several missed calls from an unknown number on your phone.
      • You no longer visualize the scene that your ex comes back to you and begs you for forgiveness on his knees.
      • You no longer find associations with your life in films and songs about unhappy love. You notice that now you like to read and listen to things that have nothing to do with this topic.

   3. Try to understand who you really are. There is one thing that usually goes unnoticed during the time you are in a relationship with someone and during the first stage of grief after the end of that relationship. This is the ability to be yourself. For a long time you felt like a part of your couple, and then - someone who grieves for a lost relationship.

      • Work on your personal development, both external and internal. Go in for sports or change your appearance. These things are great for boosting self-esteem, which must have suffered during a breakup. Determine which personality traits you need to work on. For example, if you tend to be passive-aggressive when you're in a bad mood, try to work on finding healthier ways to express your anger.
      • Develop character traits that reflect your uniqueness. When you're spending all your time with another person or trying to deal with the aftermath of a breakup, you tend to pay less attention to your personal interests. Try to reconnect with the people you didn't have time to communicate with during the period of the relationship and after the breakup, and again do what you are really interested in.
      • Try something new. This can help you meet new people who have never met the person who broke your heart. Learning new things can help your brain take its mind off the heartache and start living in the present.

   4. Try not to go back to the past. You do not want to interfere with the process of healing from spiritual wounds, so do not do anything that will provoke your mental suffering again. Sometimes this cannot be completely avoided, but you can try to keep the risk to a minimum.

      • Don't let this person come into your life too soon, or at all. You will only inflame your own spiritual wounds and feel your unhappiness with the same sharpness. Sometimes it's impossible to be friends with an ex.
      • If you still did it, don't despair. The work that you have done to heal from spiritual wounds has not been in vain. You will still win. Do not give up. When it comes to relationships, everyone has experienced relapses of heartache in one way or another.

   5. Do what brings you joy. When you do something that brings you joy and happiness, you cause a rise in dopamine levels in the brain. This is a chemical that helps a person feel happy and deal with stress (its level can rise to a critical level after a breakup).

      • Do things that don't evoke memories of your past. Start doing something new or go back to the hobbies you gave up when you were in a relationship.
      • Learn to be happy. People are more willing to communicate with those who are happy, because happy people help others feel happy too. Of course, you can't force yourself to feel happy all the time, but try to do the things that bring you joy and live the life that makes you feel happy.
      • Reward yourself for every small victory. If you haven't thought about your ex all day, reward yourself with a delicious smoothie or a piece of cake.
   • Continue to love yourself, even if it seems like an impossible task. In the long run, this will make you stronger.
   • By helping other people, you help yourself. Give people good advice and don't show negative feelings.
   • A good joke will make you laugh even in this difficult time. Even if it seems inappropriate for you to have fun at such a moment, laugh - and life will become a little happier!

   Warnings

   • Do not rely solely on our advice. If you feel that you have become worse, consider that you may need professional psychological help.
   • There is no need to hurt yourself, even if you feel like you have lost the love of your life.

A story about psychological suffering, mental pain, as old as the world. From the torments that "tormented the soul", did not give the opportunity to "breathe and straighten their shoulders", forcing people to plunge into the abyss of their experiences, is remembered and described by the classics of literature. For us, pain becomes a necessary attribute of all stages. life development. In fact, it is. Pain is a necessary and important link in the maturation of an individual and the formation of a person.

The peculiarity of the difference between mental (psychological) pain and physical pain is manifested in a delayed response and a person’s “work” with it. When something starts to hurt in the body, a signal is triggered that some organ or system is undergoing a program failure and needs help and support. In most cases, a person seeks to treat himself and correct the work of the internal system of the body: visits to doctors' offices, raids on pharmacies in search of medicines begin. A person has a clear goal: to recover as soon as possible and return to their usual way of life. The pain of the soul is different.

About heartache and how we deal with it

From the position of an average person, this kind of pain will be perceived through the phrases: “the soul hurts”, “a stone in the chest”, “heavy thoughts”. We see that in fact, people draw the concept of mental pain mainly from folk wisdom, their own experience and the experience of previous generations. However, on the practical side of the issue, how you can help yourself more professionally, it turns out that this knowledge is not enough. If everything is clear with physical pain, since there is a clear algorithm for action in order to cure the disease, then it is harder and more difficult to deal with internal pain. Often we can observe a picture that a person in such a situation does not know at all what to do and how to help himself cope with something that is “broken inside”. He remains blind to his needs, because pain is just about the need for something (attention, self-care). A person "keeps" the pain in himself and can continue to drift in his state, in the hope that everything "corrects by itself" and "time heals."

How to cope with mental pain: how pain can be useful to us

If, through physical pain, the body sends us signals about a “malfunction” and serves as a reminder that we are still alive, it is a mistake to assume that psychological pain has other properties. Mental pain carries the same function, more subtle and sensual - informing us about the psychological state of the body. We can underestimate the psychological comfort and the rules of mental hygiene, however, when the situation becomes critical for our body, the work of consciousness and the processes of the unconscious turn on. The body begins to actively modernize itself and adapt to new environmental conditions.

What is psychological pain for? As noted above, these are important life scenario accents. It is the consequences of experiencing “crises”, “pain points” of our life path that form the further development of a person. Experiencing mental pain is not an easy test, and is perceived negatively by many. However, mental pain also has a number of benefits, as it is a "signal" of possible positive changes in your personality. Among the positive aspects of experiencing pain are the following.

Mental pain as an initiation and acquisition of new experience

Due to psychological discomfort, each time we find ourselves in a choice: move on or stay in place. Pain can be viewed as a rite that will give impetus to the transition to a new stage of development, "initiation" into a more mature life. Any emotional pain, for example: the breakup of a long-term relationship or a short-term connection, the loss of a job or a quarrel with loved ones, is intended to make us wiser, to adapt to the situation.

Psychological pain is a way of adapting to new conditions, gaining or losing

Every crisis we go through is experienced with pain. When we find ourselves “at the bottom” of sadness and impotence, there is only one way to move forward - to rise up and develop. Mental pain can be associated not only with the loss of an object of affection: a break in relationships, death loved one, as well as with the acquisition of new knowledge and experience of failures, acceptance of oneself and one's shortcomings. The rupture of relations is accompanied by the loss of a number of contexts. joint activities: walks, housekeeping, organizing and spending leisure time, joint professional activity, doing business and much more. If the relationship with such a person was very significant for us or was characterized as codependent (when the boundary between the “I” was erased and the “we” was created), the loss of such a relationship can entail intense psychological pain. Adapting to new conditions is often uncomfortable, but thanks to this we can move on.

Pain is a reaction to the violation of personal boundaries

Violation of personal boundaries, integrity and harmony of a person is also accompanied by psychological discomfort and loss of balance. We can lose something valuable not only in what is realized with the help of other people, but also in ourselves. After experiences, we always become different, our attitude and perception changes. Due to the intensity of pain, we can assess the degree of value of this or that significant for us.

Heartache is a great way to see your strengths and weaknesses, get to know your capabilities better, look at yourself in a new way, praise and take care of yourself, accept yourself and give thanks; improve, and outline a vector for further development. Thanks to crises, we are growing. Thanks to them, we improve and change. Therefore, it is not worth considering mental pain purely as a negative phenomenon. It's always an opportunity to improve yourself. If you change the attitude towards pain as a factor necessary for personal development, the very perception and experience of psychological discomfort will change. It is important to remember that pain loves when people talk about it and express their emotions. The more and more intensively you pronounce, the more “productive” your work with pain will be. Don't keep her to yourself and don't work with her one on one! Share what is on your mind, what you think and what you are experiencing with others.

François Guizot

Perhaps there are people in this world who have never experienced heartache in their lives. However, I will not be mistaken if I say that most of us are familiar with this pain quite well, since events often occur in our lives that cause this pain. Emotional pain is a pain that is very difficult to describe in words. One can only more or less intelligibly describe the emotions and sensations associated with it, and even then, basically it can be done well only when the pain in the soul subsides a little. Meanwhile, like any other pain, mental pain gives us considerable discomfort. After all, when such pain overcomes you, you simply stop perceiving the world as it is, it becomes gloomy and lifeless for you, your whole old life collapses, everything around loses all meaning, you have no strength for anything, and you just you don’t know where to get away from this pain - even climb the wall, even howl like a wolf. Heartache, friends, affects our whole life, and not just some separate part of it. And so, until we learn, understand, and ultimately experience our heartache, we cannot return to normal. full life which gives pleasure, but does not force suffering.

In this article, I would like to approach the topic of mental pain from a side that is not quite familiar to most people. I will not talk too much about why it occurs and how to deal with it, so much has been said about this. Instead, I want to tell you about the benefits that can be derived from heartache. You know, over the years, I began to look at everything that I used to actively fight with the help of psychological techniques, with great patience and understanding. Maybe I have become wiser, maybe just calmer and more reasonable, or maybe my understanding of certain things has simply become deeper. Be that as it may, but our life clearly shows us that nothing just happens in it, everything has not only a reason, but also some kind of purpose and a certain meaning. Only we do not always notice this meaning.

What is the meaning of heartache? Well, firstly, like any other pain - it is designed to draw our attention to something. Secondly, it is a call to certain actions, for which a person needs to properly rethink his whole life. He, as it were, needs to reboot his brains in order to get rid of all his old and sometimes absolutely ineffective ideas about life. And thirdly, and most importantly, if you experience mental pain, it means that you have a soul, a living, sensitive soul that makes you human. And if you can also see and feel someone else's mental pain, then you are just a saint. So your heartache tells you that you are not a callous person, you are not an automaton that works according to a strictly defined program and which has no soul - you are a living person, you perceive life more fully, you feel it not only with your body, but and soul. And this is good, this is very good, because the more fully we perceive life, the more joy we can experience in it. But at the same time, there is more grief, more suffering, more pain, because one cannot exist without the other.

Now, let's think about what our mental pain wants to draw our attention to when we experience it. After all, if the soul hurts, it means that something in our life is going wrong, but what exactly is the question. I believe that first of all, we need to pay attention to ourselves if we are experiencing mental pain. Not on other people, not on those who offended us with something, not on circumstances that are not in the best way for us, but on ourselves. After all, something is clearly wrong with us if we suffer. It is with us, and not with anyone else. So I noticed many times, including myself, that we constantly hang on something, on some beliefs, some aspirations, often meaningless, some dubious values ​​that slow us down and knock us off the right course. . We often believe that our life should develop in a certain way, and we are sure that this or that scenario of our life is the only true one for us. And when our expectations are not met, we get terribly upset, begin to experience mental pain, become depressed and slowly eat ourselves. Familiar feeling? We love to live according to a certain scenario, which we ourselves come up with, or someone comes up with it for us. And this is a problem for us. We, and not someone else, make our soul suffer, because we expect from life a certain conformity to our desires.

Especially other people often upset us very much by not living up to our expectations and not meeting our requirements. But after all, it is our soul that hurts, it is we who make certain demands on other people, on life and even on ourselves. This means that we need to pay attention to ourselves first of all, when pain torments our soul. We ourselves are to blame for the fact that we close ourselves in some kind of our own, sometimes very limited little world, which, if it does not correspond to reality, becomes hell for our soul. And we are just drowning in this hell because we condemn everyone and everything, including ourselves, instead of just trying to understand - should everything really be the way we want it to be, or maybe let life be such as it should be, and remain an outside observer? Sometimes, it’s better not to want anything and not to go anywhere, but just to watch how life develops and enjoy it.

And only our obsession with a certain scenario of our life forces us to experience mental pain, instead of enjoying everything that happens in our life. Therefore, life sobers us from time to time, allowing us to stop and think about how correct our worldview, our choice, our goals, our desires, our life path are. Let's think about what a person's life should be in order to meet his desires and needs? Which? Yeah, we don't even really know. Perhaps we should pay attention to what demands life makes on us, and not ourselves? After all, often, I won’t say that always, but very often - certain changes in our lives and even tragedies that at first make us suffer and experience mental pain - subsequently turn out to be not so much the end of something old, that is, not so much loss, how much the beginning of something new, that is, gain. Simply put, all sorts of changes in life turn out to be good for us. As they say, everything that happens is for the best. Maybe not all, but definitely a lot. Therefore, my opinion is that we all need to listen and look closely at our natural essence and our inner voice in order to understand in which direction we should move. And sometimes the reins of life must be completely let go of your hands, giving them to life itself, resigning yourself to the way it develops. Otherwise, our consciousness will be stuck at a crossroads, where reality diverges from our fantasies. So you don’t need to focus on one thing, trying to see your happiness only in this and nothing else. Of course, there are concepts developed over the centuries that tell us how and why we should live, but I believe that each person must learn to listen first of all to himself, and only then to the outside world. In addition, different roads lead to the same goals, and we are all in different positions from birth, so each of us has our own destiny. Therefore, the wider you look at life, the more different goals and different roads that lead to these goals, you begin to notice, the less reason you will have for mental pain. And sometimes you just need to surrender to the arms of the unknown and accept life as it is, so as not to worry about anything. I repeat - everything originates within us - both joy and pain.

Thus, if something happened in your life that gave you severe mental pain, and it is often associated with other people, then I advise you not to rush to get rid of it, I advise you to listen to it and understand that it is trying to you to tell. Don't rush into a decision, heartache is not the pain of a burn to make a reflective decision - think about what is going wrong in your life, what you may have gone wrong, what decisions you made were wrong, what your expectations were not met? You are on the threshold of something new and important, something in your life must change. Therefore, think, think carefully - what prospects does your pain indicate to you? And believe me, they are always there. There is no such suffering, there is no such pain that would not open up new possibilities for us. But in order to use them, pain cannot be ignored, it must be comprehended. Mental pain passes very quickly if you do not concentrate your attention on it, but give it to what it consists of. People usually ask themselves the question - how to cope with mental pain, or how to get rid of mental pain, but for some reason, few people are interested in the question - why did it arise? And this, I think, is a much more important question. Even the cause of mental pain is not as important as its purpose. After all, when a person has a toothache, it makes no sense to think about why this happened, you will think about it later, and at the moment you should think about what needs to be done to get rid of this pain. With our soul, things are similar, if it hurts, then you should look forward, not backward, into the future, not into the past. Yes, of course, with the help of psychoanalysis, you can dig deeper into your past and find in it the cause of your suffering, in order to then correct these causes. But such an approach to a person will allow him to return to the present, to the old life, albeit calm, but old, while mental pain is aimed more at changing our life, it opens the door to a new life for us.

Learn to receive from mental pain not only benefit, but also pleasure. But don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that pain itself should give you pleasure, it just shouldn’t be, you and I are not spiritual masochists, pain is not an end in itself for us, you don’t need to strive for it, otherwise you yourself drive yourself into a dead end of suffering, from which it will be very difficult to get out later. The pleasure should be derived from understanding that this pain changes you and your life, that it gives you a taste of life, it allows you to know more about it. It’s hard on your soul, your heart aches - immerse yourself in these experiences, live these sensations, feel with your whole being all the grains of your suffering. There is nothing wrong with suffering a little, it gives life a taste, albeit bitter and salty, but still a taste. The more you suffer, the more joy you will experience when your life changes. But it will definitely change, suffering is not eternal, life is a striped thing, and a dark stripe is always followed by a bright one. Moreover, what is important is that the dark band appears only against the background of the light one. That is, without suffering, without pain, without experiences - you will not be able to experience great joy, you simply will not appreciate the pleasure that you can experience not only from something good, but also from the absence of something bad in your life. It's like you know, when your shoes are tight and you feel uncomfortable, even hurt, but you know that now you will come home, take them off, put on your favorite slippers and you will feel very good. And this anticipation of relief, joy, comfort, bliss, due to which endorphin is released, makes you happy. So that's the kind of pleasure I'm talking about. The path to joy and happiness lies through pain and suffering.

However, I must say that some people are too keen on this - they poison their souls, drowning in suffering and pain, not looking forward to anything good and therefore not striving for anything good. They begin to live with their pain, driving themselves into a dead end and, as it were, stop the script of their life. They have no joy and happiness behind pain and suffering, they have only pain. This is already an extreme, or better to say, freezing, similar to the one that happens to people with psychotrauma, only it, this freezing, is on a conscious, and not on an unconscious level. Simply put, some people start to enjoy suffering. Heartache for them is a kind of comfort zone, no matter how contradictory it may sound. I'm not going to talk about why this happens now, this is a topic for another article. I will only say that in order to get rid of dependence on suffering and pain, you need to feel the taste of joy and happiness, that is, you need to try to look beyond the black streak of life in order to feel all the advantages of the bright streak. Nobody really wants to suffer forever, it's just that some people forget how to live. full life in which there is not only pain and suffering, but also joy, pleasure, happiness. Such people wean themselves from the good, so they stop striving for it, and therefore they stop getting pleasure from all the good things. But as soon as they are pulled out of the swamp in which they are bogged down, their life will begin to move forward again.

In general, any pain makes us wiser. We begin to understand a lot when we live through some kind of pain, even mental, even physical. We understand those causal relationships that lead to this or that pain and begin to take them into account when making decisions and committing certain actions. Provided, of course, that a person learns from his experience. Especially useful is the heartache of love, which teaches people to love. After all, heartache after a breakup always, well, or in most cases, makes us reconsider our attitude towards people, it teaches us to love those who are really worthy of love, and not those who just seem attractive and interesting. I will tell you this, dear readers, based on my experience of working with people - the best, most reliable, happiest relationships are created mainly by those people who have experienced unhappy, painful relationships, which, as they say, have suffered in their lives. And only the severe pain they experienced made them appreciate what they have or those whom they did not notice before. So only a person who is left with nothing is able to look more wisely at life and at himself, therefore we need pain, in particular mental pain, as a cure for immaturity and unreason.

But in the end, emotional pain must be endured, it cannot be dwelled on for a long time. Are you sad, sad, hurt? - Cry, suffer for a while, suffer as much as necessary to make it easier, and then wipe your tears, pull yourself together and fight again. Monstrous interesting life waiting for you friends. You definitely have a lot more to experience, try, feel, experience, do, so do not waste time in vain. Better think about what you live for, look into the future as far as possible and set yourself a great goal, then nothing will stop you on the way to it. And the pain, the pain will pass. It would be something for her to go through. As Friedrich Nietzsche said: “If a person has a “why” to live, he can endure any “how”.” After all, what is mental pain, in comparison with the greatness of the meaning of life, which penetrates a person to the depths of the soul, if he has this meaning. I don't want to sound overconfident, but sometimes I am absolutely convinced that I could cure any mental illness in any person, with only the meaning of life, which I would just need to help him find.

Please take note, dear readers, that no pain, including mental pain, and especially emotional pain, is not a tragedy, not the end of life, this is not a reason to torture yourself at all - it is rather an incentive to give up something then old and start something new. I don’t know what will be new for you, in your life, but I know that the pain in the soul will definitely lead you to this if you use it as a guide at the crossroads of your life, and do not let it use you. In life, everything needs to be experienced - both joy and sorrow, and love, and pain, and happiness, and suffering. But you can’t stop at anything, you always need to move on in order to truly live. Because life is multifaceted, you cannot fully experience it and you cannot fully enjoy it if you reject something that it offers you to experience. Therefore, do not bother yourself with thoughts about how to relieve mental pain, just survive it. And in order not to stop, not to hang on it - look into your future and look at all the beautiful and interesting things that await you in it and what you can come to when your pain passes.