Why accepting pain improves your emotional health?

Everybody goes through painful times in their lifetimes. It can be psychological, emotional, or physical, and it's natural to want to push against it and look for methods to get away from it.

But accepting pain instead of fighting it might be the secret to getting over it. Renowned psychologist and author Leslie Becker-Phelps has a fantastic equation for this: Pain x Resistance = Suffering.

In what way, then, can acknowledging this help you lessen it over time?

Pain is a complex feeling that can have both emotional and physical effects on you. Radical acceptance's greatest feature is that it gives you permission to take a step back and examine your feelings. You can better grasp the nature of your discomfort as a result.

Knowing that emotion can originate from a variety of places—including trauma, grief, rejection, or illness—allows you to channel it in constructive ways.

Adding to already-existing suffering, resisting pain creates an additional layer of unpleasant mood. For instance, some say, "Celebrate their life; don't grieve their death," when you lose someone. However, this could make you feel worse about being depressed.

In that instance, you will feel a deeper level of pain than just the melancholy you felt at first. On the other side, acceptance gives you a more compassionate and judgment-free route to recovery.

Radical acceptance can expedite the healing process in addition to facilitating it. You learn more about the causes of your pain and how it impacts your life when you accept it.

You can learn to accept people's observations without passing judgement on them with experience. For instance, a person with a substance use disorder may expedite their recovery by allowing others to witness their addiction without taking offence.

Grit, or resilience, is the capacity to overcome hardship. It's interesting that acceptance, not opposition, is the source of this trait.

You can grow and learn to adjust to the discomfort by accepting it. And every obstacle you overcome strengthens your ability to overcome the next. However, if you push back against or ignore every unpleasant experience, you'll probably wind up overwhelmed and hoarding later on.

Being in the present moment is essential to accepting pain. This is closely related to mindfulness, which is the practice of being completely and impartially aware of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Clear processing of your feelings, including pain, is facilitated by mindfulness.

Stress levels can rise when you resist your pain or make a persistent effort to escape it. By relieving the tension and worry that accompany resistance, acceptance, on the other hand, can assist lower stress levels.

You discover that as you accept it, its ability to cause mental disturbances diminishes.

Relationship problems and miscommunications, whether at work or in the family, could be the source of your pain. Gaining acceptance of this within oneself can help improve understanding and communication. You can build stronger relationships if you approach it with the intention of working through it.

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