Tag: meditation

Categories
Dealing with hurtful experiences pain management

Turning Away From Hurt: Wise Or Foolish?

young woman trying to protect herself

Welcome to From Insults To Respect. Today, we discuss that challenging experience known as hurting.

Sometimes, we are hurting because of a physical injury, like when I banged my shin as I walked by the corner of my bed. At other times, it is due to an emotional event, like when I’m insulted for being a New York Yankees fan.

Growing up in Brooklyn, my no-nonsense grandfather disdained my complaining whenever I was hurting, insisting that the best approach to such experiences is to toughen up and just put it out of my mind. Other people encouraged me to turn my mind away from the hurt and focus instead on a pleasant experience. Meanwhile, I learned that psychiatrists and medical doctors frequently prescribe drugs to hide the pain.

Throughout my early years, I tried my best to live according to these types of advice, and for minor hurts, it seemed to work well enough. However, for more serious, longer lasting ones, there seemed to be a brief period during which there might have been some relief, but very soon afterwards, the hurt came raging back. And then, when I was in my mid-thirties, I came upon some research articles that had me trying out a very different approach.

A Different Approach

An article published in 1985, by J. Suls and B. Fletcher, titled “The relative efficacy of avoidant and nonavoidant coping strategies: A meta-analysis”  (Health Psychology, vol 4 (3) 249-288.) summarized its findings as follows:

“Overall, avoidance was associated with more positive adaptation in the short-run. However, attention was superior to avoidance if the former involved a focus on sensory schemata rather than emotional processing.”

Emotional processing (also referred to in the research literature as “emotion focus”) has individuals attending to a thought such as, “This experience is a big time hurt.”  Notice that the emotion focus approach has one observing a set of words describing the feeling, whereas a focus on sensory schemata has one observing its bodily sensations. If the sensations bring forth words such as, “this is so painful,” or “wow, this is awful agony,” you accept this without judgment. You very gently, when you feel ready, return your focus to the physical sensations as if you are tasting, for the first time, some fresh mountain water from a tropical island. Just let the sensations wash over and through you for a couple of minutes. Do this each time you begin to experience the sensations.

In 1989, a study came out by M. R. Frone and D. B. McFarlin, titled “Chronic occupational stressors, self-focused attention, and well-being: Testing a cybernetic model of stress” (Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(6), 876–883). The study looked at stress reactions of some blue collar workers, some of whom were experiencing a great deal of stress from work overload. The results indicated that a tendency of subjects to focus on their bodily sensations from high stress decreased the chances that these subjects developed subsequent illnesses.

The article makes mention of a cybernetic model of stress.

This model posits that individuals who attend to their psychological and body reactions to stressful life events are more aware of deviations from their desired state. Given such mismatched information, these folks are thus more likely to take corrective action, thereby reducing the likelihood of illness.

This article introduced me to the idea that focusing on the bodily sensations when you are hurting might prevent illness. Then other articles came out further supporting this notion.

Meditation

Illustration by Jack Star RubinIt can be helpful for particularly difficult hurtful experiences to practice a type of meditation. For a review of the research on the effectiveness of this type of approach for reducing illness see here.

Although there are a variety of meditation techniques that slightly differ from one another, basically you sit for about twenty minutes twice a day in the morning and before supper. During this meditation, you observe each breath, though it is natural that your mind will wander from this task. When your mind does wander, you are not doing anything wrong; it is just part of an effortless process. When you recognize that your mind has wandered from observing your breath, if you can effortlessly return to observing it, do so; if not, that’s fine as well. From time to time during this meditation, hurtful experiences will emerge into consciousness. When this happens, you take a few seconds to nonjudgmentally observe their associated bodily sensations.

Expressive Writing

Expressive writing has demonstrated in several research studies to improve health outcomes (see here and here). Rather than avoiding thinking about the harmful feelings, those practicing this technique do the following:

Over the course of four days, they write for a minimum of 15-minutes at each sitting about something that has led to having a challenging emotional experience. As they do so, they make sure they include not only what happened, but also what they felt when it happened, and how they now feel about what happened. They include their deepest emotions and thoughts about what occurred. They are encouraged to really let go and explore their feelings and thoughts about it. As they do so, there will be moments when waves of bodily sensory experiences associated with the described emotional experience will arise. At such times, for a few moments they observe these bodily feelings. While writing, they might tie this experience to their childhood, relationships with parents, people they have loved or love now, or their career.

Those who go through this experience, sometimes report that after writing, they sometimes feel somewhat sad or depressed. Like seeing a sad movie, this typically goes away in a couple of hours, and in the long run, the research suggests this is beneficial.

If you try this and find that you are getting extremely upset about a writing topic and come to feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop writing or change topics. You might try to return to the extremely unsettling topic again in a week or two. If you again begin to have feelings that are so extremely upsetting that you feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop. Try one more time to write about this topic in a month or so.  If you end up striking out, you might want to seek out a professional humanistic counselor to help you to process this sensitive material (see HERE for some suggestions for obtaining this type of counseling services).

Additional evidence that suggests there is positive value to take time to focus on one’s hurts comes from research on the effects of “exposure therapy.”

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy was developed to help people dealing with trauma. When people are fearful of something, they tend to avoid the feared objects, activities, situations, and associated emotional bodily feelings. Although this avoidance might help reduce feelings of harm in the short term, over the long term it can prolong and worsen the experience. In this form of therapy, psychologists create a safe environment in which to “expose” individuals to the things they experience as hurtful and thus try to avoid. This exposure, in time, helps reduce the harmful consequences of traumatic experiences.

Exposure therapy has been scientifically demonstrated to be a helpful treatment (see here and here).

Conclusion

So, “Is it wise or foolish to turn away from hurt?” In answering this question, it seems to me that if your style of dealing with the hurts you experience is best described as maneuvers to avoid thinking about them, this does not indicate you are foolish. People pick up certain habits when they are young and making changes to them can be hard. Although I found I was able to change my old avoidance habit, if you are satisfied with your avoidance approach or just don’t want to bother to go through a process of change, you are entitled to continue as you have always done.

Rather than joining a chorus of name callers to encourage learning a different approach, I have laid out some of the research backed arguments for spending some time to marshal the courage to make friends with the bodily sensations that come when you are hurting. In line with that old saying, “The best things in life are free,” two of the three approaches I’ve described are completely free. Going forward, it is up to you to freely choose how to deal with hurtful challenging experiences.

——————————-

Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Categories
anxiety conflict resolution dealing with anxiety

Anxiety and Whistling a Happy Tune

Welcome to From Insults To Respect. 

In two recent posts I aimed to encourage folks to consider learning to deal with anxiety in a manner that can improve their self-respect. The first of these, “The Nature of Anxiety,” provides a general overview of the topic. The other, “Anxiety, Guilt, and Responsibility” makes the case that anxiety is an enormously helpful state of mind when acted upon responsibly, rather than guiltily. Today, we take our examination of anxiety a useful step further by questioning a common belief.

For many people, the best, most respected way to deal with anxiety is to avoid thinking about it. This might be done by turning one’s attention to something pleasant, such as a happy tune. Is this a wise strategy? Is it perhaps wise in some situations, but not others?

To begin this discussion, I present the context in which two of the leading characters from the play, The King and I, begin to sing the delightful song, “I Whistle a Happy Tune.” The song’s lyrics, along with a discussion of the song’s philosophy is then presented. In the end, we get a deeper understanding of how to wisely handle anxiety.

The Context Of The Song

You can view the charming opening scene of The King and I, which includes the singing of the song on YouTube for free by clicking HERE.

The story is about Anna, a British widow, who has been hired by the King of Siam in the year 1862 to educate his children. Anna has brought along her 12-year-old son, Louis.

As their ship arrives in the Siam bay, Louis notices that the king’s royal barge is approaching. As Louis spies the people on the barge through a telescope, he says, “They look so cruel, mother.” Looking anxious, he goes on to say, “Father would not have liked us to be afraid, would he?”

To this, Anna puts her hands on Louis’s shoulders, and replies, “Father would not have liked us to be afraid. Not ever.”

“Doesn’t anything ever frighten you ever, Mother?”

“Oh, yes, sometimes.”

“What do you do?”

“I whistle.”

“Oh, that’s why you whistle!”

“Hm, hmm. That’s why I whistle.”

Then she launches into her song. Let’s take a peek at its lyrics.

The Song’s Lyrics

I Whistle a Happy Tune

Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I’m afraid.
While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows
I’m afraid.
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well!
I whistle a happy tune
And ev’ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid.
Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far.
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are….
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein / Richard Rodgers
I Whistle a Happy Tune lyrics © Williamson Music

Does This Scene, Along With Its Song, Convey A Wise Philosophy?

Anxiety is the experience of fear that occurs when we think about dealing in the future with a fearful situation. In the scene, Louis learns his father would not like it if either he or his mother ever experience fear. Perhaps his father might have conveyed the attitude that to experience fear is cowardly. This is a common lesson that children are taught by their parents, and consequently, these children may grow up to feel guilty when experiencing anxiety, and then take steps to avoid experiencing it.

In actuality, even people who have done the most heroic acts, and therefore are viewed as brave, do experience anxiety and other forms of fear as well. Their anxiety had prodded them to prepare for the situation in which they had acted bravely, and their preparation was essential for them to act bravely even while fear was present. Moreover, the fear that they experienced while carrying out the brave act kept them highly alert and provided the burst of extra energy required to deal with the highly stressful situation they had encountered.

Louis’s mother, Anna, admits that she does experience fear, but whenever this happens, by acting fearless and whistling a happy tune, she claims that it prevents people from suspecting she is fearful. She also claims that these actions even convinces her that she really isn’t afraid.

The fear that Louis is experiencing is about what might happen when those in the approaching royal barge arrive at his ship. Because the fear is about something that is not yet immediately present, we distinguish this type of fear by calling it an instance of anxiety.

In the scene we are discussing, we see that the anxiety being experienced has the potential to serve a useful function. Louis expresses his anxiety to his mother when he says with tension in his voice, “They look so cruel, Mother.” Upon expressing this, it leads to a discussion between Louis and his mother about fear, and he ends up learning a strategy to deal with fear–whistling a happy tune.

As the scene continues, the king’s men come on board to escort Anna and Louis to the king’s palace, all of them looking mighty scary. Now Louis is directly in the presence of what he had feared. His anxious fear that he experienced at the approaching of the barge has now changed to the type of fear we experience when we are actually in the midst of a fearful situation.

Judging from Anna’s face, not only is Louis now experiencing fear, she is as well. To deal with their shared fearful experience, both of them begin whistling a happy tune. Despite employing this technique, judging from their faces, the whistling is not entirely eliminating all of their fears.

One of the characteristics of anxiety and other fearful experiences is that we often can delay attending to them for a limited period of time so we can engage in other tasks viewed by us as having higher priorities. When we put off dealing with the concerns connected with our fears, they don’t just go away; they come back again and again reminding us that we have to adequately address them. Despite our efforts at putting them off, as our fearful concerns begin to accumulate without being fully addressed, it becomes harder and harder to delay dealing with them. Our memory begins to remind us of them more frequently and more intensely until we reach a point at which we must attend to them, like it or not. If we put off taking time to process our fears for too long, our functioning for dealing with many aspects of life can begin to deteriorate, and at some point, we may end up having what some people refer to as a mental breakdown.

Some people who learn to feel guilty when experiencing anxiety and other forms of fear can often find ways to distract themselves from these types of feelings. As their fears begin to build up, they have to try harder and harder to distract themselves. They may begin to eat far more than is healthy, binge watching suspense movies, begin to talk and talk about anything other than their fears, etc. Alternatively, they may try to suppress the feelings by consuming more and more alcohol and other drugs.

It is not just feeling guilty that can lead to problems dealing with anxiety. Some have incredibly demanding jobs along with many other pressing obligations. With no time to take an hour a day to be alone so they can let their fears arise into their consciousness and then figure out what to do about them, these people find that their functioning begins to deteriorate just like those who have learned to feel guilty for experiencing anxiety and other forms of fear.

With this understanding, we now return to our earlier question, Is whistling a happy tune a wise strategy?  Part of the answer, is this: There are times when it does makes sense to put aside for a while our anxiety in order to better deal with some other pressing experience. If you find that whistling a happy tune in such situations helps, that’s fine.

So, when Anna and Louis saw the approaching royal barge and they began to experience some anxiety, if they had a good reason to put aside their anxiety for a while then it made good sense. For example, let’s say there were people aboard the ship who might report to the king how the new teacher handles herself during challenging times. If she had given them the impression that her fear can easily overcome her, the king might take advantage of this. He might think she can easily be pressured to do things she might not wish to do. Better to give the impression to him that she is a force to be reckoned with in order for her to be in a stronger bargaining position. If this was her reasoning, then attempting to put off her feelings of anxiety until she can process them in private makes good sense.

That said, before any of you might jump to the conclusion that singing a happy tune whenever we are anxious is always a good idea, let’s look at another scene in Anna’s story.

Another Scene

As the movie continues, we soon learn that when Anna meets the king, he informs her that he has arranged for her to live in a room within his royal palace. Anna objects to this, explaining assertively that she accepted the teaching position in part because of a clearly stated condition in her contract indicating she must be provided a cottage off of the palace grounds.

Now, I won’t reveal the outcome of this conflict in case some of you haven’t seen the movie, but the issue of wanting a place separate from the palace serves for us a powerful metaphor for my next point. Anna requires a place where she can set up a boundary separating her work responsibilities from times when she can have some peace and quiet.

Likewise, all people need to put time aside to deal with their anxieties, frustrations, and griefs. Therefore, whistling a happy tune at times makes sense. In such cases, it is crucial to make sure you put aside some time to welcome some alone time so those fears are adequately addressed at a more convenient time.

The wise make friends with their anxiety experiences. They find time to be with them, and from those times comes wisdom.

Meditation, prior to breakfast and the evening meal each day, is an especially ideal habit to get into. You can learn a simple form of meditation for free by clicking HERE.

When we meditate, we find a quiet place, thus eliminating outside distractions. This allows us to focus on our internal issues such as our stored up anxieties. A wonderful aspect of meditation is you end up discovering that you don’t have to try to work on your anxieties while meditating. Instead, each of them at various times during your meditation float up into your consciousness quite effortlessly, and when they do, your thought processes begin the work of tossing around plans to address them, also quite effortlessly. At some point, you end up selecting a promising approach to prepare for fearful situations.

Taking walks, especially in nature, is also ideal for working through our anxieties. It is also a wonderful way to keep your heart healthy.

I often hear people say, “I would like to meditate and take walks, but I have no time.” Then I hear that the average person in America watches TV from 4 to 5 hours every day. I well understand that modern society has indeed found ways to distract people from acting in healthy ways.

So, in conclusion, I hope all of the above manages to answer any questions you may have had about the value of whistling a happy tune when experiencing anxiety. And I also hope you consider including in your daily life two sitting meditations and a walk, or taking time in other ways to process your anxiety, for if you do, you will find yourself becoming ever wiser at dealing with fearful situations.

——————————-

Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Categories
ADHD conflict resolution meditation William James wisdom

ADHD and the Wisdom of William James

Last week’s post, titled ADHD and Psychiatric Name Calling, criticized the prevalent practice of converting concerns about a person’s ability to pay attention into medical lingo. There was a great deal of interest in the post so I decided to present another for your consideration.

Illustration by Deanna Martinez
Illustration by Deanna Martinez

As I began to craft this, my thoughts went back to my most popular post, Teaching Children How to Deal with Criticism.  Since the major reason for its great success is that its ideas largely relied on those of William James, I went back to the great philosopher’s writings to see what he had to say on the ADHD subject.

William James
William James

There is unquestionably a great native variety among individuals in the type of their attention.  Some of us are naturally scatterbrained, and others follow easily a train of connected thoughts without temptation to swerve aside to other subjects. This seems to depend on a difference between individuals in the type of their field of consciousness. In some persons this is highly focalized and concentrated, and the focal ideas predominate in determining association. In others we must suppose the margin to be brighter, and to be filled with something like meteoric showers of images, which strike into it at random, displacing the focal ideas, and carrying association in their own direction.  Persons of the latter type find their attention wandering every minute, and must bring it back by a voluntary pull. The others sink into a subject of meditation deeply, and, when interrupted, are ‘lost’ for a moment before they come back to the outer world.

pay-attentionThe possession of such a steady faculty of attention is unquestionably a great boon. Those who have it can work more rapidly, and with less nervous wear and tear. I am inclined to think that no one who is without it naturally can by any amount of drill or discipline attain it in a very high degree. Its amount is probably a fixed characteristic of the individual. But I wish to make a remark here which I shall have occasion to make again in other connections. It is that no one need deplore unduly the inferiority in himself of any one elementary faculty. This concentrated type of attention is an elementary faculty: it is one of the things that might be ascertained and measured by exercises in the laboratory.  But, having ascertained it in a number of persons, we could never rank them in a scale of actual and practical mental efficiency based on its degrees.  multiple intelligenceThe total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex a being for any one of them to have the casting vote.  If any one of them do have a casting vote, it is more likely to be the strength of his desire and passion, the strength of interest he takes in what is proposed. Concentration, memory, reasoning power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses,–all are subsidiary to this. No matter how scatter-brained the type of a man’s successive fields of consciousness may be, if he really care for a subject, he will return to it incessantly from his incessant wanderings, and first and last do more with it, and get more results from it, than another person whose attention may be more continuous during a given interval, but whose passion for the subject is of a more languid and less permanent sort. hard workerSome of the most efficient workers I know are of  the ultra-scatterbrained type. One friend, who does a prodigious quantity of work, has in fact confessed to me that, if he wants to get ideas on a subject, he sits down to work at something else, his best results coming through his mind-wanderings. This is perhaps an epigrammatic exaggeration on his part; but I seriously think that no one of us need be too much distressed at his own shortcomings in this regard. Our minds may enjoy but little comfort, may be restless and feel confused; but it may be extremely efficient all the same. (quote from William James’s Talks To Teachers)

Here we see a true master at work. His sublime summary of the concern, placed in the context of other faculties working together, always lead me to vivid images of the many students I worked with over the years who had little ability to sustain their attention on school work and yet far outperformed outstanding students in such areas as music, athletics, art, computer technology, business, etc.  Rather than framing the concern as a disabling mental disorder, James paints a vision that inspires the hope of finding a way to create a life filled with substantial value.

The one assertion that I tentatively disagree with James is that  a person’s attention span is probably a fixed characteristic of the individual. 

ThinkingI have regualarly seen children who had a below average ability to attend to school work who, as they grew older did much better.  Some of them got over a particularly stressful period in their life. Others learned the value of more physical activity which tired them out, and they began to sleep more soundly. Others seemed to improve for no other apparent reason than becoming more mature.

Jack Star

From my own experience, I found that when I learned to meditate, my ability to sustain my attention on a number of subjects distinctly improved.  There are some excellent research studies that back up my own personal experience.  For an example, that also reviews several of the other available studies, check out “Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention” (Psychological Science, Jun 2010; 21(6): 829–839.) Readers of my blog can find a simple to learn, absolutely free, form of meditation in my post “Anger, Rumination and Meditation.” 

Let me add here, that in our society there is a push by the pharmaceutical companies to get people viewed as having ADHD to take stimulant drugs like Ritalin or Adderall. These have a number of negative side effects, and in a fairly short period of about a month or two the initial positive effects wane, and those using these drugs are left with the illusion that the drug continues to be helpful. The illusion occurs because once the positive effects wane after a few month of regular use, when the stimulant users don’t take the drug, they begin to have a withdrawal reaction that is uncomfortable and reduces their ability to pay attention. When they then again take the drug, the relief they experience from the withdrawal reaction convinces them that the drug is helping them. Instead, they are left with no better ability to pay attention while experiencing the various side effects of the drug.

Okay, so there are a few more ideas about concerns that come up about someone’s attention.  I hope you find them to be helpful.

As always, I encourage readers to join the conversation by making comments in the “Comment” box at the very bottom of this page.

My very best,

Jeff

———————

Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on.  This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence.  To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.

Categories
conflict resolution Emotional pain free social intelligence and emotional intelligence curriculum meditation psychological maturity sensory focus wisdom

DEALING WITH EMOTIONAL PAIN

You get a phone call and discover the person you have fallen in love with has decided to end the relationship.

Eugene 2

An event is coming up and each time you think about this, you experience waves and waves of fear.

fear1Some big kids at school teased you in front of your friends and when you get home you find yourself vividly recalling, over and over again, what happened.  These images are accompanied by gripping, gut-wrenching feelings of embarrassment.

fear3Americans typically use three approaches when they are faced with such experiences.  Let’s take a quick look at them, and then consider three very different approaches that are free and backed by research effectiveness studies.

Three Typical American Approaches to Deal With Emotional Pain

1.  Drinking alcohol or taking pills.

drinking Here we see a man who is using the drinking approach, and he ends up falling into the great sea of turmoil.

2. Trying to avoid thinking about the emotional pain.

approach1Here we see Linus using the avoidance approach.  People who try to avoid the problem of emotional pain sometimes say they don’t pay any attention to it, or that they just ignore it.

3. Trying to divert your attention to something more pleasant.

approach3Here we see Ted trying to “face his fear” by diverting his attention to some fantasy.

If you are using one or more of these three approaches and find that you are completely satisfied with the results, I’d still like you to consider trying three different ones.  They won’t cost you a dime, and there is scientific support for each.

Three Different Approaches to Dealing with Emotional Pain

1. Sensory Focus

Illustration by Jack Star Rubin
Illustration by Jack Star Rubin

“Sensory focus” involves turning your attention to the physical qualities of the pain and observing the sensations you are experiencing.

If the sensations bring forth words such as pain, or awful agony, you accept this without judgment.  You very gently, when you feel ready, return your focus to the physical sensations as if you are tasting, for the first time, some fresh mountain water from a tropical island.  Just let the sensations wash over and through you for a couple of minutes.  Do this each time you begin to experience the sensations.  Also, find some time once in the morning, and once in the evening to take a couple of minutes to sit by yourself and practice doing this.

Although for many Americans distraction is believed to be more effective for managing distressing painful experiences than observing the physical sensations, when compared in experimental studies, distraction most often turns out to be the inferior technique.

Now, I should point out that if you look quickly online, you will see research reports that claim just the opposite—that distraction leads to better outcomes than experiencing the felt qualities of distress.  These reports are usually based on an analysis that failed to make a distinction between sensory focus and emotion focus.  Emotion focus has individuals attending to the emotional aspects of the pain.  For example, someone going through a painful experience might focus on a thought such as, “This pain is making me feel terribly angry.”  Notice that the emotion focus approach has one observing a set of words describing the feeling, whereas sensory focus has one observing its physical sensations.

In more recent studies, researchers have been making a clearer distinction between emotion focus techniques and sensory focus techniques.  It now looks like sensory focus tends to be more efficacious than distraction.[1]   More importantly for dealing with distressing emotional experiences, sensory focus was found to be even more effective when researchers looked not just at the short term effects of coping, but what happened in the long term.

Most studies on the effects of different coping styles look at what happens within four minutes of a painful experience.  In such studies, sensory focus tends to be a more effective coping technique, but occasionally distraction did just as well, or even a little better.  In a study by Kevin McCaul and Carl Haugtvedt,[2] for example, distraction reduced distress early in the four minute trial, but attention to sensations was a superior strategy for the last two minutes.”  When studies looked at what happens when pain lasts longer than a few minutes, or a similar pain occurs again a week later, sensory focus over time more clearly is the better coping strategy.

girl experiencing emotional painNow some have argued that sensory focus works with men, but not women.  However, even for brief pain lasting for just a few minutes the results have been inconsistent.  For example, Thompson and his associates[3] found that women experienced less pain with distraction, but Roelofs and his associates[4] found that women who report that they are high in pain-related fear benefited more from the sensory focus technique than they did from distraction.  In this study the whole painful experience was of the short term variety, lasting four minutes.  giving birthThere are fewer studies involving women and longer term pain, but Leventhal[5] and his associates found that women in labor who were instructed to monitor their pain sensations experienced a sharp decline in pain and negative mood during active labor.  There was no decline in the control group that received no such instruction.  Note that labor tends to last several hours, in contrast to the four minute type of pain that is usually the object of study in the scientific literature.

It appears that when you focus on carefully observing the sensations, your body mobilizes its internal resources to cope with the distressful experience.  You have seen what happens when you cut your finger.  You experience some pain, and before long your body, in an incredibly complex process, begins healing.  Within a few days the cut is completely gone.  You see from this that your body has a way to deal with the cut in a manner that the greatest scientists cannot yet duplicate.  Similarly, when you take the time to fully observe the sensations from a distressing experience, your body over the course of time appears to carry out a process to address the distress in an incredibly helpful manner.

2. The Expressive Writing Technique

Over the course of four days, write for a minimum of 15 minutes at each sitting about something that has led to your challenging emotional experience. As you do so, make sure you include not only what happened, but also what you felt when it happened, and how you now feel about what happened.  Include your deepest emotions and thoughts about what occurred.  Really let go and explore your feelings and thoughts about it. As you do so, recall the sensory experience of these feelings, not just the words that define the experience.  In your writing, you might tie this experience to your childhood, your relationship with your parents, people you have loved or love now, or even your career.  How is this experience related to who you would like to become, who you have been in the past, or who you are now?

You can write about the same issue every day or a series of different issues. Whatever you choose to write about, however, it is critical that you really let go and explore your very deepest emotions, sensations, and thoughts.

As you go through this experience, many people report that after writing, they sometimes feel somewhat sad or depressed. Like seeing a sad movie, this typically goes away in a couple of hours and in the long run is beneficial.

If you find that you are getting extremely upset about a writing topic and come to feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop writing or change topics.  You might try to return to the extremely unsettling topic again in a week or two.  If you again begin to have feelings that are so extremely upsetting that you feel it is unwise to continue, trust your judgment and stop.  Try one more time to write about this topic in a month or so.  If you end up striking out, you might want to seek out a professional counselor to help you to process this sensitive material (see HERE for some suggestions for obtaining this type of counseling services).

Expressive writing has demonstrated in research studies to improve health outcomes and to reduce the anguish people experience during episodes of depression.  You can find the research supporting the expressive writing technique by clicking here and here.

——————-

3. Meditation

For most people, meditation doesn’t provide relief of emotional challenges as quickly as sensory focus, but when it is combined with sensory focus and the expressive writing technique, it can lead to long term improvements.

linus meditationg In an earlier post, I describe a simple form of meditation, along with the research supporting its effectiveness (see Anger, Ruminations and Meditation).  Millions of people for thousands of years have attested to both its health and emotional benefits.

So, there you have it, three approaches to dealing with emotions that are free, and can turn what is now experienced as pain into a valued source of creativity.  Rather than something that has been perceived as negative, it is possible to come to understand that these challenging experiences are our only opener of our eyes to the highest levels of truth.

[1] J. Suls & B. Fletcher, 1985, The relative efficacy of avoidant and nonavoidant coping strategies: A meta-analysis.  Health Psychology, vol 4 (3) 249-288.

[2] K. McCaul and C. Haugtvedt ,1982,  J. of Personality and Social Personality, , vol 43(1), 154-162.

[3] T. Thompson, E. Keogh, & C. C. French, 2011, “Sensory focusing versus distraction and pain: moderating effects of anxiety sensitivity in males and females,” Journal of Pain, 12(80), 849-858.

[4] J. Roelofs, ML Peters, & M. van der Zijden, 2004, “Does fear of pain moderate the effects of sensory focusing and distraction on cold pressor pain in pain-free individuals? The Journal of Pain, vol 5, 250-256.

[5]E. Leventhal, H. Leventhal, S. Shacham, & D. V. Easterling, 1989, “Active coping reduces reports of pain from childbirth,” J. of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 57(3), 365-371.

——————————-

Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.