Things I’ve Learned in My Emotional Pain…revisited

This is a great article by Jim Palmer of  Divine Nobodies .  A friend sent it to me, so I don’t know if it was on his blog or in a devotional, but it means a lot to me and I wanted to share it.  He breaks the things he learned down into  six items, and I will share each of these with you individually.

“Things I’ve learned in my emotional pain”    by Jim Palmer

By far this has been the most painful year of my life.  Heartache, loss, depression, loneliness, rejection, separation, despair, 2 near-death experiences and emotional pain so deep that it felt like I was going to die and hoped I would.  There were days I wondered if I was going to make it, felt hopeles,s and doubted if life could ever be good again.  I learned a few things about emotional pain in the process.

Here are six things to consider when in deep emotional pain:

1.  You are making it more real than it really is.

When in deep or catastrophic emotional pain, be aware that what you feel isn’t entirely real. Your emotional pain will sometimes tell you things that are not true, and prevent you from seeing aspect of the bigger picture from which you could draw hope.  This times I have been in deep emotional pain it felt like I was going to literally die or that I wanted to die.  It felt as if nothing else existed other than the unbearable anguish of my emotional pain.  I couldn’t imagine anything beyond the depth of my pain in that moment, and it felt like I was going to be swallowed whole by it.  I couldn’t conceive of surviving the pain and it felt like it would never end.

The fact that I am writing this post means that my emotional pain didn’t kill me.  Typically, emotional pain doesn’t kill people.  I survived to see another day.  The emotional pain subsided.  Sure, it came back.  But then it also subsided again.  You can’t really trust the depth of despair you often feel in deep emotional pain.  What it feels like doesn’ t really line up with reality.  So, just keep that in mind.  It won’t kill you.  It is not permanent.  There is something worth embracing and living outside your pain even though you are entirely blinded by it in the moment.

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