Feel The Pain

We are still in regulating emotions topic. Previously we've talked about the way I regulate my emotions through running. For now I want to get deeper on it.

This is what happened when I felt a certain negative emotions. First, something triggered me, I felt something (could be sad and angry). Before I learned about this regulate emotions thing I tended to jump to the solution and skipped the 'feel the pain' process. This is what actually most people do, and this is unhealthy (I have no right to say this, but based on the book that I read, that's the thing).

The truth is, feel the pain is the most important part in term of regulate emotions. We only can release our own emotions if we feel it first.

Something happened during my commuting home some minutes ago. While I rode my bike, suddenly out of the blue, I remembered my ex. A place had triggered me this, I guess. Normally I would say to myself, "This is outside of my control, forget it" or "Come on, Bro, just move on". The more I deny about it, the bigger the feeling is. After I understand this, instead of denial, I acknowledged my own feeling. I asked myself, "What do I feel? Oh this is a bit anger mixed up with sadness. That's okay." Not so long after that, that negative feeling vanished. Easily, effortlessly.

We need to understand this: to let go, we need to feel it first. Our negative emotions just need us to acknowledge their existence, so they would go peacefully.