March 15, 2009
“Experience is the best teacher, but it is always painful and often times very expensive”. Human beings in this life suffer various pains. Among them emotional pain is the most challenging one. This pain occurs due to various reasons, such as:
- Death of a loved one
- Strained relationship between parents and children
- Strained relationship between husband and wife
- Break in relationship between lovers
- Financial breakdown
Teens aged between 17- 25, live a life with mixed feelings. Their emotions at times lift them to the height of ecstasy and at other times may make them gloomy and depressed. Usually a depressed person acts withdrawn and antagonistic. “Love” is a God given gift to each individual born on earth. Although the word “love” is used in many different contexts, in this article, I am referring to the love that exists between two young individuals. I refer a relationship as a cycle of happiness and sadness. It all begins with visual contacts, turns into friendship which then turns to be a little more than friendship, finally results in serious “Love”, these are the moments of happiness. As days pass by these lovers take their partner for granted and on a fateful day their relationship “will be on rocks”, finally they decide to walk out of each other’s life, these are the sad moments.
Emotional pain is extremely painful because it affects the mind and heart. All the daily activities are totally ruptured when an individual is emotionally upset. This pain is worsened when their partner gets committed to another person. Consequences of this emotional pain may be intoxication, introvert behavior, mental disorder, loss of interest in life, black moods and extremely vulnerable people even commit suicide.
Analytical thinking is very important at this stage. Several activities very dear to us have come to an end because of this break in “Love”. However this does not mean there is no scope for living. I would say that right thinking is the most important factor at this stage.
A critical error committed at this stage is introspection of their love life. Any relationship does not come to an abrupt end, rather there is a time called “on the rocks” period, where both the individuals would spend time in analyzing mistakes committed; if any corrective measures could be taken, it would be at this time. Once the period “on the rocks” is over, then introspecting love life would make things very bitter.
“Every activity happens for our good”, I believe love failure has also taken place for our good. It is our duty to analyze and learn the positive aspects of “love failure” This article makes an earnest attempt to help individuals struck with emotional pain understand the positive aspects of love failure.
Self-discipline:
Actions performed by youngsters often reveal that their maturity level is very low, even though they have advanced in age. Individuals who have experienced emotional pain show higher maturity level. This statement is true only when individuals introspect their life. Youngsters when in love, spend most of their time thinking about possible ways of fascinating their lover through deeds or words. They have very little or no time to reflect on their own life. During emotional healing introspecting one's life would be very useful. This would help them gain better control over his/her life and forget the past. This would result in stronger will to withstand and face things bravely, higher determination to face life’s challenges and goal oriented objective.
Spirituality:
It is sad but true that hundreds of individuals are atheists especially youngsters, this is basically because there is no time to think about the good things or blessing bestowed on us. Emotional healing period could be a good time to reflect on the bountiful blessings bestowed on us by our sovereign God. It would also been a good time to seek forgiveness and return to God, who is filled with grace and mercy. I had a friend, who was an atheist. For four years he enjoyed his life with his lover. Finally when they separated for unforeseen reasons, it was very difficult for him to digest that fact. It was then when he began to read the Bible for long hours and visit the church regularly. This example indicates that emotional pain helps us get closer to God. Positive aspect would be:
- Increased faith
- Better understanding of the religious activities
- Increased time to God.
Emotionally Brawny:
“Span of relationship is directly proportional to emotional pain”. This means that longer the period of love higher is the emotional pain. Men and Women handle emotional pain in different ways. Women are gifted with patience due to which they handle emotional distress with utmost care. Men are hasty in their decisions due to which they take up easy ways of overcoming emotional pain. The easiest way of overcoming emotional distress is by consuming drugs, alcohol, smoking and prostitution. Bright future expected by themselves, their parents, near and dear ones is shattered to pieces due to this disgraceful act. Intoxication results in unsound mind, immature decisions and violent actions. Last time I visited Mangalore, I found a couple quarrelling in the middle of the street, and it was clear from his action that he was highly intoxicated with alcohol or drugs.
A very important point to be noted is that intoxication of mind worsens emotional pain, because the mind makes foolish decision when an individual is drunk. Analytical thinking will provoke us to deal with emotional pain in a different way.
Emotional pain is the beginning of a new carrier. Handling emotional pain rightly would be very beneficial. As a first step of emotional healing let us accept the reality that “we can love someone but cannot force the other person to love us." This will help us to gain self-control over the activities we are doing. The advantages of accepting this reality would be:
- Enormous patience
- Reduced short temperedness
- Accurate decision-making ability
- Increased concern for others, especially when others are in a similar situation
I believe if everyone goes through this emotional pain during our youth, then we could make this world a better place to live in because there would be no wars between nations, because we would understand the feeling of others, no communal violence, couples united in the sacrament of matrimony would love each other selflessly with due respect to each other and each of us would treat the other individual with due respect and love.