4 psychological tricks to cope with emotional pain.

Each one of us has faced some degree of emotional pain throughout our life. Being hurt by a friend, breaking up with someone you love, loss of a loved one, or facing rejection at your dream job interview; these are all the instances where you felt extreme anguish without any physical damage or a visible wound. This pain is a complex emotion which is difficult to comprehend and cope with.

Now psychological literature suggests that a healthy amount of emotional pain is necessary to build emotional resilience and increase emotional intelligence. However, it can only be beneficial when healthy strategies are used to cope with it.

So, here are 4 psychological tricks that will help you cope with emotional turmoil.

1. Cognitive Reappraisal

Changing the way we think about something is called cognitive reappraisal. A great deal of the suffering accompanying a painful event is created by our cognition. The way we perceive or think about any event constitutes our cognitive appraisal about the situation. The way we think about a situation is an essential factor in determining how painful a situation is.

I’ll try to explain this with some examples:

• Say you failed an exam. You feel hurt and in pain. Now, in what sort of thinking would be in less pain: thinking that you failed because you are a failure, a disgrace to your family and lack the qualities to succeed in life OR thinking that this failure was a good thing because your weak areas have been pointed out, and its better to work on them now then during your professional life?

• Your partner broke up with you. Now, what sort of cognitive appraisal would lead to greater pain and should therefore be avoided: thinking that you are a loser and don’t deserve to be loved by anyone OR thinking that although it is painful, at least you learnt a lesson on what you lacked as a spouse/partner, and now you can work on that so your next relationship doesn’t fail for the same reasons?

Now I am certainly not saying that you ignore the negativity in your life and be happy and positive all the time. No, that’s just not possible. Feel the negative emotions life throws at you, suffer the necessary amount. But don’t make the mistake of making a monster out of a little pain. Studies show that many cases of depression, anxiety, paranoia etc. are brought on by the negative appraisals of stressful or traumatic life experiences. So, try to reappraise your thinking about any adverse experience and try to look at it from a positive lens. This will also greatly help reduce the suffering of the individual.

2. Acceptance

Sometimes bad things just happen to us and there’s nothing we can do about it. We try to subdue our pain by denying the reality or not acknowledging that we are hurt or in pain. This actually worsens our suffering and the prospect of moving on from the emotional pain becomes unlikely.

However, if instead of going into denial and suppressing our emotions we accept reality, the healing process would be much quicker. Acceptance is very difficult and needs courage, but only by accepting our pain we can tolerate it enough to function in our daily life.

To practice acceptance, you must first acknowledge the reality of what has happened. Then you need to allow yourself to feel all the emotions that this event has brought you. Feel all the hurt, grief, betrayal etc. but it is important that you feel the emotional stress of this event. Be sure to have someone you trust by your side that can take care of you, calm you and tell you its okay. Then, when you’ve gone through the hell of emotions, tell yourself that “It’s okay. It happens. Life goes on.” And then do your best to move on with life. This all may seem a bit harsh but sometimes you have to be hard on yourself to handle life.

3. Reverse Role modeling

Reverse role modeling is a bit like reverse-engineering. In reverse-engineering you look at the product and try to understand how it is made. Similarly, in reverse role modeling you look at the person who inspires you and try to understand how they would behave in a certain situation.

Reverse role modeling is quite an interesting coping strategy. This requires us to think of a person who we look up to, respect, or are inspired by, whenever we face emotional pain and think of how they would respond to it. We try to internalize their thought patterns and mindset in ourselves and respond to pain and suffering as they would.

This technique is quite helpful as it motivates the individual to use their cognitive abilities to cope with the pain instead of passively letting it affect them. This strategy also increases the confidence of the individual to face emotionally challenging situations and as a result improves their emotional resilience. Lastly, there is less room for being overwhelmed when facing problems using this techniques as it heavily relies on the healthy behaviors and thought processes of another person and the individual himself doesn’t have to think of a novel solution in a stressful situation.

4. State Breaks

State breaks are a healthy habit to keep your mood and emotions regulated and under control. This is a mindfulness-based coping strategy. It requires us to take short breaks throughout the day to check in on our emotions. The purpose of state breaks is simple; to snap you out of your daily routine to take care of your emotions. This is necessary as a majority of us respond to emotional pain by neglecting our emotions and keeping ourselves busy. This, however, is unhealthy as it results in the bottling up of emotions. Constant neglect of these emotions can result in an outburst or a mental breakdown.

Using state-breaks is easy. Keep a timer on your phone or install an application which alerts you to address you emotions for a couple of minutes every few hours or so. In this few minutes, try meditation, breathing exercises, positive self-talk, self-pacification etc. This can be a very helpful coping mechanism to keep your emotions under control without even hindering your everyday functioning.

Pain is a necessary and inevitable part of life. It is very sad how pain can change a person for the worse, make them bitter and resentful. It can even push them towards mental illnesses and addictions. However, that is because they use unhealthy coping mechanisms like denial, avoiding or bottling up their emotions, numbing their pain with drugs and alcohol etc. But, if we face our pain head-on, feel its agonizing presence to its fullest and still stand tall in its face… that right there is all the success we could ask for.