The Key to Your Joy Is in Your Pain

When we avoid those dark feelings, we are essentially blocking the bright feelings.

Source: Tessa Rampersad/Unsplash

One of the goals of living a fulfilled, actualized life is the ability to feel.

Feelings are what makes us “human” and differentiate us from objects such as a chair or table. Feelings are what gives us meaning and “meat” to our life.

In the clinic, I aim to help clients feel feelings openly without falling to two extremes: detachment on one side and emotional flooding on the other.

Emotional range

When I work in the clinic with clients, I like to use a metaphor of an emotional range from 1 to 10. Imagine all the human emotions are on a scale where 1 is the darkest feelings such as despair, grief, and helplessness, and 10 represents the brightest feelings such as ecstasy, deep joy, even nirvana. All the other feelings are spread out between those two extremes: 3 would be sadness and worry, and 6 could be satisfaction or anticipation.

I define the end-points of the range and allow every person an individual range.

When I look at my 6- and 8-year-old kids, it is evident that they are comfortable feeling the whole 1 to 10 emotional range. They move within seconds from deep despair and frustration to elation and joy, dancing, and singing. With one sharp “no” when they ask for another cookie, they fall from “heaven” to their version of “hell” in seconds.

But one thing is clear: Children are alive; they feel everything.

It’s only when we get older that society and the processes of our socialization encourage us to be more “regulated” and less emotionally extreme.

Avoiding pain

Many of us have a core belief that pain is bad: That feeling pain is undesirable, demanding, and can even lead to depression or total collapse. Therefore we develop elaborate ways to avoid negative feelings such as despair, anguish, and helplessness, which in the emotional range I call the 1 to 3 feelings. Blocking these feelings usually involves defense mechanisms such as repression, projection, intellectualization, avoidance, and more.

This makes perfect sense because we want to protect ourselves; no one likes to feel pain. But aside from extreme emotional states, such as suicidality or mental illness (which it is important to regulate), most of the time, pain is a natural, functional feeling that will not destroy us.

The price of avoiding pain

But when we avoid those dark feelings, we are essentially blocking the “7 to 10” bright feelings.

Why?

Because feelings aren’t inherently “bad” or “good.” In psychotherapy, all feelings are necessary and welcome. Even feelings that are considered “bad,” such as fear or sadness, have an important evolutionary and survival function. For example, fear helps us avoid danger, and sadness lets us grieve and process harsh events that happen to us.

So this emotional range is symmetrical, even circular in the sense that the polarity of 10 (ecstasy) is directly connected to 1 (despair).

This means that when you avoid feelings 1 to 3, you are also blocking your ability to enjoy feelings 7 to 10.

And the result is that you are left with a very narrow emotional range, which I call the "4 to 6" emotional range.

The “4 to 6” emotional range

I work with many people (often men) who live their lives with a very narrow emotional range of 4 to 6. They don’t feel deep sadness, but they also don’t enjoy many moments of ecstasy. Over time, the 4 to 6 emotional range leads to boredom, loneliness, and a loss of vitality.

“4 to 6”ers are sometimes experienced as being more dull and rigid, and experience less intimacy and empathy with the people closest to them.

I’ve found that 4-6ers attract other 4-6ers and together they create stable, yet somewhat rigid and unexciting relationships.

Want to feel happier in your life?

Most of us want to feel happier in our lives. We aim for more 7 to 10 feelings. But most want to experience that 7 to 10 while continuously avoiding the 1 to 3 feelings. It just doesn't work that way, though.

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I offer this advice:

Open yourself up to the 1 to 3 feelings.

Feel the pain. Stay in the storm. Surrender to the pain, the fear, the anguish.

Every day, I help people face and feel their 1 to 3 feelings bravely, viscerally, and openly. I now know that those feelings will not break them, but rather awake in them the 7 to 10 range. This experience is even stronger if they dare feel the 1 to 3 next to their partner. Such vulnerability deepens the connection and intimacy of the relationship.

Two examples

I once worked with a strong woman who made herself “bulletproof” from a very young age. Growing up in a tough environment, she simply shut pain out. The problem was that it worked too well. She survived her childhood, but as an adult, she wasn’t able to feel deep intimacy, pleasure, or real excitement and joy. She was miserably single and complained that she couldn’t find and maintain an intimate relationship. Why? Because she blocked the 1 to 3 feelings her whole life, which consequently blocked her from feeling the 7 to 10. We had to explore together, slowly and carefully those 1 to 3 feelings from her childhood.

I hit the 1 to 3 at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. For a while, I was blocking out the pain, anxiety, and fear of this pandemic and the horrible political and societal impact it had on our society. I stopped watching and reading all news, I minimized my social networking consumption and focused only on my family.

Then one day I decided to open the floodgates and let all of the pain I was feeling in. I opened myself emotionally and physically and just started reading and watching the news. I allowed myself to feel all the pain and despair. I let all of it in.

And then I physically collapsed on the living room carpet and started to cry. I was weeping. I let all my fears, despair, and helplessness, just overwhelm me.

In the beginning, I was somewhat embarrassed by crying out loud next to my wife, but then I realized this was a chance for me to feel the 1 to 3 feelings I encourage my clients to feel. Luckily, my wife didn't try to fix, encourage or heal me. She just sat there, holding the space for me to dive deeper (after all, she is not responsible for my pain).

The 1-3 wave eventually calmed down, and we went to sleep. The following morning, I experienced a calmness and softness that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. My 7 to 10 opened and I felt more love and connection for a couple of days.

So how do you allow yourself to feel more (joy and pain)?

1. Share this post with your partner. Have a common language with your partner and loved ones so they can ground themselves and be supportive as you dare to explore the 1 to 3 emotional range.
2. Examine your core beliefs about pain. How did your family view pain? Is it bad? Will it lead to collapse or death? Was it welcome? See if these core beliefs still serve you.
3. Create a safe space for 1 to 3 exploration. Consciously, proactively experiencing these feelings openly can be quite hard and scary, especially if you are not used to it. Therefore, it might be easier to set a time and space for this exploration. Create a safe “enough” space with your partner, friend, therapist, mentor, therapist, partner, friend, colleague, or anyone you trust who will be grounded enough to not try to cheer you up or get flooded by your emotions. Decide beforehand how long this expedition will last (I recommend you set 30 to 60 minutes). Make sure there will be no distractions so you won’t have to be in control or too self-aware.
4. When you feel it, Let it land. Allow yourself to dive into the 1 to 3 viscerally. If your body wants to, allow yourself to physically collapse, cry, yell, lie on the carpet, hug a pillow, do what you need to do. Let these feelings move through you.
5. Remember “This too shall pass.” Feelings pass. They come and they go, like clouds. Like in meditation or mindfulness practices, let them land and also let them go. Don’t be surprised if they are followed by more “positive” feelings such as release, vulnerability, self-love, and intimacy.
6. Dare to bring the 1 to 3 feelings openly to your intimate relationships. Start expressing these feelings when you communicate with your loved ones. This will require them to be grounded and differentiated.
7. Expect new ruptures (and repairs) in your relationship. Bringing more affect will also make your relationship more visceral and alive. This inevitably leads to more ruptures, as well as new highs in your life.

If you walk this path, then over time you will open your range from 4 to 6, to 3 to 7, to 2 to 8, and so on. You will realize that you will not always be 100% regulated or 100% neurotic. You might experience new unexpected rushes of feelings.

The key to your joy is in your pain.

That is called being alive.