Learning to heal painful emotions is essential for true growth in emotional health, or what psychologists call emotional intelligence. This doesn’t mean you’ll stop experiencing challenging emotions like anger, envy, or fear—in fact, emotions are a beautiful part of who you are. But as you learn to care for your emotional well-being, you’ll find more calm and clarity within yourself. And that inner peace will transform your relationships with others.
When painful emotions go unhealed, they can fester like an open wound. They may stay hidden from your conscious awareness for a while, but they’re only waiting for a vulnerable moment to resurface. Left unaddressed, unhealed emotions tend to:
Unhealed emotions can emerge in ways that feel out of control. They may:
- Slip out sideways in sarcasm or bitterness toward others
- Overcome you with extreme reactions to minor incidents
- Hijack you unexpectedly with floods of anger, fear, or loneliness
- Leave you feeling powerless or hopeless
- Distort your self-view and erode your confidence
But when you heal painful emotions, you gain a deeper sense of freedom within. Rather than being at the mercy of your emotions, you learn to lead them with care and compassion.
Most of us were never taught how to heal painful emotions. As a result, we often fear the power of our emotions or feel uncertain about how to handle them. So we deny our pain or wear a mask to keep others from seeing what we’re really feeling. I see this all the time in my counseling practice—and I’ve struggled with it myself. Many women suppress their loneliness, sorrow, envy, anger, and fear. We get very good at telling ourselves and others that we’re "just fine." But those walled-off emotions will eventually erupt if we don’t care for them with compassion.
Instead of shutting emotions down, we can learn to understand and care for them. Painful emotions can even become our allies. For example,
- Loneliness can become a cue to seek connection with others.
- Sorrow can help us slow down and create space for healthy grieving.
- Anger is a signal that boundaries may need to be set.
- Fear, when tended well, can encourage humility and keep us grounded in relationships with others and God.
The secret to healing painful emotions is to pay attention to them—not shove them aside. Here are three steps to begin that process:
3 Steps to Heal Painful Emotions
1. Focus on the emotion.
It may seem counterintuitive, but focusing on an emotion helps you gain distance from it. When you name an emotion, you start to see it as something you experience rather than something you are. Here are a few ways to take this step:
- Take a few minutes to notice your thoughts and feelings.
- Write down several brief phrases to describe what you notice.
- Name the emotion or emotions as best you can.
Simply acknowledging what you feel—“I feel angry about what happened.” or “I wish I didn't, but I feel hurt by her behavior”—soothes the brain’s limbic system, allowing you to access other regions of the brain.
2. Get curious about the emotion.
When you feel a strong or painful emotion, approach it with curiosity. Ask yourself questions like:
- Where do I feel this emotion in my body?
- If this emotion were an image, what would it look like?
- Is this feeling familiar? Has it been with me a long time?
- Do I have an early memory of when this emotion first appeared?
- Can I extend compassion toward this emotion?
Curiosity leads to self-compassion. Rather than judging yourself for the emotion, you learn to understand it. Criticizing yourself only heightens inner tension, but curiosity helps you ease into self-compassion and healing.
3. Invite God to draw near.
We are emotional, intellectual, and spiritual beings. By inviting God into your experience of pain, fear, or anger, you can access deep spiritual resources. You might ask:
- What is it like to invite God into this emotional experience?
- Do I notice any hesitations about inviting God in?
- Can I express my fears or reservations honestly to God?
Notice what you sense without judgment. God can handle your honesty. This might not instantly remove the emotion, but it will help you gain perspective. By inviting God into this space, you magnify the healing power.
Working through these steps—focusing on, getting curious about, and inviting God into your emotions—creates a grounded sense of calm, confidence, and clarity. You’ll discover that you can approach your emotions with compassion and that you’re in charge of them, not the other way around.
As you practice these steps, you’ll learn to calm yourself in the face of painful emotions, respond intentionally to difficult situations, and advocate effectively for yourself and others without doing harm. In time, your emotions will become your allies.
