Pain and Emotion, Pain as Emotion

I’ve written previously about the power of getting curious about your pain, as well as other mindset shifts that are key to creating the conditions under which chronic pain can resolve.

Today, I invite you to move toward a more integrated understanding of your mind and body by exploring the relationship between pain and emotion.

Here are three questions to help you explore how this relationship functions in your life.

Grab a pen and paper, carve out some time for yourself, and see how it feels to dig deep and answer these questions.

Before you start

First, don’t forget to ask yourself: Am I interested in doing this now?

If the answer is no, respect yourself and don’t force it. You’re better off waiting until you have some intrinsic desire to explore. It’s OK if that’s not right now.

If the answer is yes (or maybe), proceed gently, with a spirit of “Let’s see what comes up.” If you notice a desire to “get it right” or “figure it out,” thank your high-achieving self for wanting to be good at things and then see if you can let go of that self-imposed pressure.

The goal is not to figure it out or to be right. The goal is to experience the feeling of open exploration.

OK, on to the questions.

Question 1: How is pain an emotional experience for you?

Let me be clear about why I’m starting with this question: It’s easy to get so caught up in the either/or when it comes to pain (“It’s EITHER a structural problem OR a psychological problem”) that we forget that being in pain is inherently an emotional experience.

What do I mean by that?

Pain is scary (its function is to alert us to potential danger!). It’s demoralizing. It’s irritating (to put it mildly).

Even when it goes away, we might feel nervous for a while (“When is it going to come back?”).

Even when we get rid of it permanently, we may experience the heaviness of grief for all of the time and life energy that we lost because it once ruled our lives.

When we focus heavily on treating pain through interventions focused on the physical body, we can sometimes neglect the intensely emotional side to our pain.

We might not give ourselves the chance to grieve. We might not recognize our fear of pain. We might misdirect our anger at other people or at ourselves.

It’s worth exploring these feelings. Not because it’s all that matters, but because acknowledging our deep hurts and fears in relation to our pain is one important thing that matters.

What do you think? How has pain affected your emotional life? What feelings does it bring up for you? How does it feel to notice the impact of pain on your emotions?

Question 2: How do emotions intensify your pain?

It’s usually very obvious that having chronic pain causes us to feel bad emotionally. Even if we have trouble identifying particular emotions or mood states, we usually at least know that they’re there.

It can be harder to see the ways in which certain emotions lead to an intensification of pain.

The idea of emotions leading to pain can also carry with it the baggage of unhelpful interpretations that many of us have received from healthcare providers over the years. These include such gems as “You’re just stressed” or “You seem anxious.” (Subtext: “Maybe you’d feel better if you weren’t so neurotic.”)

To explore freely here, we may need to first acknowledge the righteous anger and disappointment caused by those misguided and dismissive comments we’ve gotten in the past.

We need to know that asking this question of ourselves now is for our own benefit, so that we can get to know ourselves better, and not to prove anyone else right or wrong.

Setting those past comments aside might allow us to see more clearly that there can be a feedback loop between pain and emotion, such that being in pain brings up strong emotions and, over time, those emotions set the stage for more pain.

Let me restate: This does not mean that pain is “all in your head” or “not real.”

It does mean that having certain emotions or mood states consistently over time can set the stage for continued pain by contributing to an environment of threat and hypervigilance within the body and mind; a tendency to catastrophize, worry, or assume the worst; or an inclination toward behavioral withdrawal.

How about for you? How do increased anxiety, anger, sadness, or other emotions set the stage for you to experience more pain over time? Do you identify with any of the mechanisms listed here? Is this question hard to answer because of your past experiences?

Question 3: How are pain and emotion similar?

Here’s one final piece of food for thought: What’s the difference between pain and emotion anyway?

Emotions consist of several interrelated processes that are experienced in the mind (as thoughts) and body (as physiological responses), and which are associated with a behavioral impulse.

For example, when you experience the emotion of fear, you might be:

• Thinking: “I need to get out of here”

• Feeling: increased heart rate, sweaty palms, shortness of breath (**it can be interesting to notice how embodied emotions are, yet we tend to relegate them to the domain of the mind**)

• Doing: leaving the situation and retreating to a safer place

Emotions are often thought of as sources of information about the world. Fear may signal to us “that’s not safe.” Anger might let us know “that was wrong of him to do.” Sadness may tell us “I cared about that, and now it’s gone.”

Emotional patterns can also become disordered (anxiety disorders, mood disorders, trauma-related disorders, etc.), such that they start to take on a life of their own, feed themselves, and direct our behavior in maladaptive ways. Psychological disorders are characterized by subjective distress, functional impairment, or both.

There is a lot more that can and has been said about what emotions are and the relationship between pain and emotion, but for now, try turning this question inward to see what rings true for you.

In what ways does your pain fit the pattern of an emotion? Is chronic pain like an emotional disorder? How does it feel to think about it this way? What information is your pain giving you? How do you experience the difference between pain and emotion?

Where to go from here

That’s more than enough exploration for one day (and one post!), but if you’d like to take this further, see if you can carry this awareness with you as you move through your week, noting moments of connection between pain and emotions.

Keep an open frame, as your experiences may surprise you.

Want to explore your emotional landscape with me? Check out my coaching program for chronic pain and request to join today.

The content shared here is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. Always seek advice from your physician or other qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.