Dr. Keith Ablow Explains Sharing Emotional Pain is NOT Complaining

 Often, many people think sharing their pain with others makes them weak or they worry it can be misunderstood as complaining, so they avoid that connection. Dr. Keith Ablow explains how some of his clients “are stoic types who are very hesitant to connect the painful, early chapters of their life stories with the difficulties they are encountering in the present.  They don’t want anyone to think they’re making excuses for their current struggles with mood or anxiety or relationships or a profession.  Even when they survived cruelty or abandonment or experienced very significant losses as children or adolescents, lots of people have told me they feel like they’re complaining if they make a connection between the trouble back then and the trouble right now.”

But in truth, as Dr. Ablow explains, “It takes courage to connect the dots and trace your current struggles back to their roots.  It isn’t complaining about what you now face.  It’s part of explaining what you now face.”

Here are some examples from Dr. Keith Ablow:

· A man in his 40s had trouble figuring out why he was risk-averse and had passed up some very good opportunities that weren’t “sure things.”  Amazingly, he never connected his reluctance to take risks with the fact that his father had passed away shortly after starting a business with two of his friends when my client was just 10 years old.  For my client, being bold was connected with death—literally.  Once we made that connection, he felt like a massive resistor had been removed from his decision-making process.  We had explained his fear of any risk.

· A woman in her late 30s had married one weak man after another.  Three short-lived marriages ended when she realized she was more like a parent in the relationships than a spouse.  She never connected her choice of men to the fact that her father was domineering man who unduly influenced her career path, among other things.  She wasn’t likely to ever risk being in a family with another powerful man, so she chose weak ones—until we explained her choices by connecting the past with the present.

· A woman felt her mood and energy plummet when her daughter turned 11.  She was the CEO of a bank and had to take a leave of absence.  She hadn’t considered the fact that her sadness at losing one of her best friends when she was just 11-years-old was being rekindled by her daughter reaching that age.  Once we explained her sadness and fatigue by connecting the past with the present, they began to go away.

 

 

Explaining isn’t complaining.  It is actually the opposite. Drawing on your own personal strength and putting in the time to reflect and process your early life experiences can help you better understand how they impact your life now. According to Dr. Keith Ablow, “Doing so pays big dividends, because it frees people to live powerfully in the present, rather than being hostage to the past.”

 

Avoiding the roots of your recurring emotional pain can create significant limitations in how you connect to yourself and others, and it can make you more vulnerable to other issues such as anxiety, depression, and addiction. “The walls we build psychologically to keep our pain under wraps may start out as the walls of a fortress, but they always end up as the walls of a prison that keeps us away from our best intentions, most ambitious goals and capacity to love ourselves and others.” Ablow stated.

 

Although many people feel like revisiting the early chapters of their life stories is “dangerous” Ablow believes it is the only way to move past them. “Until you do,” Ablow said, “those pages will be your future, too.”

 

It may seem easier to avoid connecting with emotional pain that originates in your early years of your life story, but without a strong understanding of those events you cannot truly become the most empowered version of yourself.

 

Some signs that you are avoiding emotional pain include:

 

· You constantly try to stay busy or have to admit you are a “workaholic”

· You use intellectual excuses for your emotions, saying things like, “I am upset,” when really the emotion is sadness.  

· Your personal judgement of yourself is harsh and you berate yourself for being weak when you feel emotional.

· You are always seeking reassurance.  When you avoid emotions you may become insecure with your decisions and seek the approval of others that you are making the best decision in any given situation.

These are only a few signs that you may be avoiding emotional pain.  There are many others. Exploring the early chapters of your life experiences will help you recognize patterns and help you understand the emotions you are avoiding. To become the best version of your true SELF you must accept and “make peace” with all the chapters of your life story.

Dr. Ablow believes “human beings don’t really connect with other people by sharing all of their triumphs.  They connect with other human beings by being willing to share their struggles.  And you can’t really share what you’ve survived and how you’ve thrived, amidst adversity, if you can’t bear to look back at the earlier chapters in your life story for what they really were.”

For anyone who wants to explore this topic in more depth, you should read Dr. Keith Ablow’s books To Wrestle with Demons and Living the Truth.  

Using his theories, Dr. Keith Ablow has developed his own unique Pain-2-Power program where he offers 1:1 coaching and counseling sessions personalized to each individual client.  To contact Dr. Ablow email info@keithablow.com.