Emotional healing can be a painful process. When we experience trauma or go through difficult life events, it often leaves us with deep emotional wounds. Healing these wounds is essential for moving forward in a healthy way, but that journey to healing can feel incredibly difficult and uncomfortable at times. Understanding why the healing process brings up pain can help us better cope with these challenging feelings.
Facing suppressed emotions
A big reason emotional healing hurts is that it requires us to face emotions we may have been suppressing or avoiding. When we go through painful experiences, we often try to numb, block out or ignore difficult feelings like anger, fear, sadness and shame. We may even completely disconnect from our emotions as a protective mechanism. However, suppressing or bottling up emotions doesn’t make them go away. All of these unprocessed feelings are still lingering under the surface, even if we’re unaware of them.
When we start doing the work of emotional healing, those suppressed emotions inevitably bubble up again. We have to bring them out in order to address them. This can feel intensely uncomfortable. We may find ourselves facing a tidal wave of emotions that we haven’t allowed ourselves to feel until now. It’s painful to confront all of this buried hurt and anguish, but getting in touch with suppressed emotions is a necessary part of the healing process. Although it’s difficult, expressing and releasing these emotions helps them diminish over time.
Examining core wounds and beliefs
Emotional healing also involves examining and challenging our core wounds and beliefs. Painful life experiences often form our deeply rooted beliefs about ourselves, other people and the world. For example, if someone experienced significant rejection as a child, they may carry a core wound of feeling unlovable or not “good enough.” This can shape a core belief that they are undeserving of love and connection. These kinds of negative self-beliefs take hold without us even realizing it but have far-reaching impacts on our mental health and relationships.
True emotional healing requires us to identify, analyze and challenge these detrimental core wounds and beliefs. We have to dismantle negative thought patterns and stories we’ve internalized over the years. This means taking a brutally honest look at ourselves. Asking ourselves tough questions like: What unfair self-criticisms do I carry? How has trauma shaped my view of myself and others? What false beliefs have I internalized? This kind of deep inner exploration and dismantling of false narratives understandably causes discomfort and pain. However, it’s the only way to root out toxic thinking patterns and make way for self-love and wholeness.
Making ourselves vulnerable
The healing journey also inevitably requires vulnerability. We have to open up and share our deepest pain with others. This may mean finding the courage to talk to a therapist or counselor. It may involve confiding in trusted friends or family. It could mean sharing our story in a support group. Opening up about trauma and its emotional impact leaves us feeling exposed and raw. However, vulnerability fosters connection and understanding. The process of articulating our inner wounds to another person can be incredibly cathartic. Feelings of shame and isolation lessen as we share our burden. Opening up to others about our pain plays a huge part in releasing pent-up emotions, shifting perspective and finding meaning in our struggles.
Difficult stage of growth
In many ways, the pain of healing is like the pain of intense physical exercise. When we work out our muscles intensely, it’s painful and exhausting in the moment. But afterward, we feel a sense of accomplishment. We’ve gotten stronger by pushing ourselves. Emotional healing is a difficult “workout” for our hearts and minds. We strain and exhaust our inner “muscles” in order to grow stronger. Just like building physical strength, building emotional strength requires effort that feels uncomfortable. However, by facing the temporary discomfort of growth, we store up resilience for the future. Going through this difficult stage of healing equips us with new coping skills and emotional tools. It expands our capacity to handle life’s challenges down the road.
Letting go of the past
Healing also means dismantling our attachment to the past and creating space for something new. Releasing the grip of past pain is a central part of moving forward. However, letting go often ignites fears, anxiety and grief. We grieve for what could or should have been. We worry that changing means losing an essential part of ourselves. Releasing the past feels like jumping into the unknown. This process summons up many complex emotions. Though incredibly difficult, embracing change ultimately frees us from pain that has dominated our narrative and hindered our growth. While the discomfort of letting go feels excruciating, it allows us to create a life driven by purpose rather than past wounds.
Uncertainty of change
Emotional healing brings change in our perspectives, narratives, behaviors and ways of relating to others. Change naturally breeds uncertainty. Suddenly, old ways of seeing ourselves or interacting with people no longer serve us. We may feel groundless, lost or confused as our understanding of ourselves and the world evolves. Old coping mechanisms we’ve relied on for years also slip away. This type of uncertainty is extremely destabilizing and disorienting. Though essential for growth, the changes that come with healing can leave us feeling off-kilter and exposed. Processing these doubts and fears is key to finding our bearings.
Processing trauma
Reliving and processing traumatic memories is often an unavoidable part of emotional healing. Our minds tend to bury or block out recollections of trauma as another protective mechanism. However, avoiding traumatic memories prevents us from making sense of them and releasing pent-up emotions around them. As we build the courage to face traumatic memories, we start unpacking all the fear, anger, confusion and pain attached to them. This process feels incredibly grueling. Talking or writing out the details of trauma can make us feel like we’re re-experiencing it all over again. The grieving process may kick into high gear as we mourn losses or the younger versions of ourselves who endured trauma. Again, confronting such excruciating pain serves an ultimate purpose. Bringing traumatic memories into the light of awareness helps diminish their power over us.
Growing pains
Healing from emotional pain has parallels to the growing pains of childhood. As young children, growing means our bones, muscles and tissues must literally stretch and expand. This causes severe discomfort. However, the pain ultimately enables us to walk, run and move freely. Emotional growing pains work the same way. Expanding our capacity to handle challenges, work through trauma, rewrite false narratives and show up vulnerably will make us feel like we’re being stretched beyond our limits. The process requires growing beyond who we used to be, which feels stressful and uncomfortable. However, just like with physical growing pains, we need to go through this expansion process to gain new emotional skills that serve us for the rest of our lives.
Fear of re-injury
Throughout the healing journey, one prevailing fear is often re-injuring ourselves emotionally. When we’ve experienced trauma or severe emotional wounds in the past, opening ourselves up again feels terrifying and risky. Our instinct is often to protect and closes ourselves off to avoid experiencing that kind of pain again. However, closing down prevents us from forming meaningful connections, processing trauma, or growing. Building the courage to make ourselves emotionally vulnerable again inevitably surfaces a lot of fears and anxiety. However, this willingness to be brave and risk getting hurt again is how we rebuild trust in ourselves and others. We start to understand that we can protect ourselves and speak up if boundaries get crossed. Although incredibly difficult, overcoming this fear propels us to relate to others and ourselves in deeper, more authentic ways.
Breaking cycles and patterns
An important element of healing is identifying and breaking free of self-destructive patterns. These can include patterns around relationships, communication tendencies, work behaviors, substance abuse or self-care. We often cling to detrimental habits, thinking “this is just the way I am.” However, when we build awareness of these cycles, we realize many were adaptive coping strategies we picked up while experiencing trauma. For example, someone who went through parental neglect in childhood may cope through serial unhealthy relationships. Breaking free of self-destructive patterns requires tremendous internal effort coupled with external support. This means unraveling our unconscious pull toward the comfortable and familiar. Healing work of this nature tends to unearth deep-seated fears of abandonment, rejection or the unknown. Confronting these fears feels extremely destabilizing but ultimately empowers us to create new patterns aligned with our health and values.
Excavating family patterns
Emotional healing may involve diving into intergenerational family patterns around things like conflict, communication, expectations and roles. Often, unhealthy relational patterns get passed down through generations without anyone realizing it. For example, if one generation struggles with expressing emotions assertively, the next generation absorbs and adopts this tendency. Or, if a family denies or avoids difficult emotions, children absorb this as the norm. Gaining awareness of how our family system operates takes courage. We may feel guilt or disloyalty bringing negative patterns to light. However, excavating these dynamics is the only way to examine our learned behaviors with compassion. Doing this work helps break detrimental family cycles rather than transmitting them to the next generation. Though emotionally demanding, it’s rewarding work that ultimately fosters healthier family relationships.
Professional support
It’s important to emphasize that anyone going through intensive emotional healing work should seek out professional support. Therapists, counselors, support groups and other mental health resources provide invaluable guidance through these painful processes. Trying to work through trauma and core emotional wounds alone can ultimately do more harm than good if not approached carefully. Supportive professional resources help ensure the work is done at a manageable pace with healthy coping tools in place. If the healing journey feels totally overwhelming, that’s a sign to reach out for help. With professional support and self-compassion, we can all find the strength to persist through the growing pains of healing.
Why it’s worth it
Although incredibly difficult, embracing the pain of emotional healing work allows us to completely transform our narrative and live fuller, freer lives. Healing builds our self-awareness and unlocks our true potential. It enables us to show up genuinely and confidently instead of constantly reacting out of old traumas and beliefs. We relate to others and ourselves with compassion, boundaries and wisdom. By working through old pain, we make room for our inherent light to shine through even more brightly. On the other side of the discomfort, we feel ready to live with purpose, passion and presence. Ultimately, we can see that the pain served a profound purpose—it led to the deepest healing, the most beautiful expansion and authentic alignment with our heart’s calling.
