Managing Emotional Pain through Acceptance

Third in a series about Jewish Mindfulness 

For a long time I have disdained the way our culture seems to encourage us to marinate in our emotions, and even flaunt them. It’s normal for people to refer to themselves as “survivors” of relationships they call abusive or dysfunctional, and of physical or emotional experiences they call traumatic. Many experiences and relationships truly are abusive, dysfunctional, and traumatic. But they are frequently used to cover such a broad swath of experiences that the meaning of these powerful words become trivialized.    

Dr. Edith Eger, a Holocaust survivor and PTSD expert, wrote in her extraordinary book “The Choice” that there is no hierarchy of pain, meaning that everyone’s pain is significant and must be respected. I understand this and would never disagree with a woman of her professional stature and personal history, but it’s hard to deny that the victim mentality has become commonplace. How can you build a forward-looking, optimistic life when you remain fixated on the past?

Jewish mindfulness has made me temper my reproachful attitude toward those who cling to their pain and let it define them. I have come to understand that when this happens, it may be because real pain (at whatever level it was experienced) was never processed in a healthy way. Judaism predated the mindfulness movement by a few thousand years, but both teach a restorative path that encourages emotional pain to lift naturally. 

In Exodus (6: 5-9), God tells Moses, “I have now heard the moaning of the Israelites because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage.” God is validating the pain of His people. But when Moses promises that God will lead them out of bondage, the people do not believe him because of their emotional exhaustion. This kotzer ruach, or constriction of the spirit, literally leaves them short of breath, a reminder of how mindful breathing can be medicinal during acute stress.  

Accepting pain is also a critical step. Both Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) as well as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) therapy teach that thoughts create emotions. At first this sounds confusing: are they not the same thing? In fact, thoughts have words, while emotions are simply feelings. Learning to control our thoughts can help us learn to control and manage our emotions. This isn’t easy and takes a great deal of practice. 

For example, when I’m upset, I will only inflame my emotions by allowing my thoughts to judge them: “What’s wrong with me that I’m getting upset over this? Why does this person always have to frustrate me this way?” “I bet other people don’t have this problem as often as I do.” 

Mindfulness, DBT and similar psychological philosophies encourage us to simply feel that pain. Don’t fight it. Don’t analyze it. Just “let it flow and let it go,” as my mindfulness course leader, Rabbi Dov Ber Cohen, often says. Pain and negative emotions have their uses in the short term. Don’t be upset that you’re upset or feel frustrated that you’re frustrated. “Pain is pain but pain plus resistance is suffering,” said a close friend of mine who has walked this walk. 

In addition to not judging our emotions, these three mindfulness practices can be extremely effective in managing negative or painful feelings:

1. Sit with that feeling. I know a person whose therapist told him to bring a chair outside and invite his pain to sit alongside him. Acknowledging the reality of the pain will ease its grip.

2. Put it in perspective. Know that there is a time and place for feeling pain, but that it’s not going to hijack the rest of your life, either. It may not even hijack the rest of your week or even your day.

Pain is here to teach us something and to help us grow. It’s up to us to find out how to use the pain for personal growth or to help others. 

3. Find the purpose. Pain is here to teach us something and to help us grow. It’s up to us to find out how to use the pain for personal growth or to help others. 

I discussed this topic with one of my sons, Rabbi Noach Gruen, a day school rebbe in Norfolk, Virginia. He pointed out to me that the Jewish model for aveilus, or mourning, provides the ideal paradigm for dealing with painful emotions. When we lose a close relative, we sit shiva — seven days of literally sitting with our grief. We don’t run away or distract ourselves from our pain. We need to feel it, and talk about our loss when it is fresh and experienced most acutely. But shiva ends. We get up and are escorted outside by friends. It’s time to reengage with life.

Shiva is followed by shloshim, the first month after a loss; in the remaining 11 months of the year the restrictions of mourning are gently lifted as we navigate away from our most intense grief, while still being mindful of our loss. Sometimes, well-meaning but misguided people say hurtful things to someone in pain, such as “This will be for the good,” or “God knows what He’s doing.” The Sages of Pirkei Avot know better: “Do not try to pacify your friend in his hour of anger, nor comfort a person when their dead is laying before them” (Avot, Chapter 4). At times like these, only quiet empathy can offer whatever comfort is possible.  

During the last few weeks I was tested by very strong and negative emotions stemming from a professional defeat. This disappointment stung so badly that despite my new understanding of sitting with pain to let it go, I felt rebellious: I would take my sweet time wallowing in resentment and misery. After all, I earned it!  

But the next day, while discussing the situation with a colleague, I began to recover rapidly. Given how intensely I had suffered the day before, I surprised myself by quickly losing interest in my self-righteous pique. I considered what I could learn from the situation and felt ready to move on. Was this mindfulness at work? Or my life experience and Jewish wisdom helping me rise above it? I assume it was both, and am grateful that I proved stronger than my pique.

Mindfulness helps us manage difficult emotions, but what about helping us maximize positive, happy ones? In the next column I’ll look at how mindful practices can optimize even our happy thoughts.

Judy Gruen is the author of several books, including “The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love With Faith.” Her next book, “Bylines and Blessings,” will be published in February 2024.