Day 8 Question to Ponder

The question: Am I having success recognizing emotions connected to my pain? If so, how do these emotions make me feel. If not, what is preventing me from doing this?

With chronic, low level pain I haven't yet made specific connections, just a general recognition that emotions such as anger, guilt, fear, etc. are at the root of it.

With sudden pain flares, I am sometimes successful at seeing where it came from. Sometimes that helps ease it. When I do this, the emotions seem smaller and less threatening. But sometimes they feel bigger and I feel worse. This happened yesterday when I was angry, felt more pain, wrote about it and it increased. But I stopped writing when that happened, so maybe if I had kept going I would have felt better.

Most of the time, though, I just want to avoid looking at my feelings. My emotions seem big and powerful and overwhelming. I have the feeling that if I let them loose, they will take over how I present myself publicly. I guess it's more comfortable to be in pain than to be real.

It helps to say this out loud!