The way to heal difficult emotions is to deep dive into them

H

aving emunah and bitachon in Hashem is usually the key to leading a mentally healthy life. They enable a person to move forward gracefully from disappointment, loss, and even tragedy. It helps us understand that Hashem does everything for the good and that every event is part of a guided, larger plan.

But what happens when despite our emunah and bitachon, our feelings of fear, or anger, or sadness continue to haunt us?

The Human Brain

The brain has different “departments.” The front upper region (the prefrontal cortex) holds all of the beliefs that constitute emunah and bitachon, along with systems for remembering, analyzing, problem-solving, thinking, and understanding. The middle region of the brain holds our emotional processing plant and the lower region manages our basic survival tasks such as breathing, heart rate, and body temperature.

While interrelated, these sections operate independently to a certain extent. The result is that a person can operate on different levels simultaneously, sometimes in such a way as to be in conflict with herself. For instance, a person may report that she feels afraid “for no reason” — there’s a part of her that is experiencing physical sensations of fear, and a different part of her that rejects the feeling as she sees no danger present.

While the middle section of the brain does, in fact, always have valid reasons for generating fear (such as trauma or chemical imbalance), it’s not directly connected to the prefrontal cortex, and therefore the person can’t logically account for those emotions.

Often, even if a person can explain a fear (“I’m afraid of flying because the plane could crash”) their fear objectively makes no sense (it’s actually more dangerous to be in a car on the ground than in a plane in the sky, but they don’t feel fear when driving).

Even if one uses logic to prove that the story is nonsense (“It’s extremely unlikely that your plane will crash...”), fear can persist. Rarely will a frightened person easily surrender their fear (“Gosh, I had no idea that flying isn’t dangerous! Thank you for sharing that fact. I’m now completely over my fear of flying!”).

The reason for the persistence of “irrational” emotion is simply that the logical upper brain has limited influence on the middle emotional centers.

Emunah Lives Upstairs

Sometimes there’s a correlation between a person’s solid emunah and their difficulty in emotionally recovering from painful events. Simply put, a person who draws on her emunah to refute the validity of emotions may not heal from them because she’s too busy talking herself out of them.

She might be saying, “Everything turned out all right in the end, the house burned down, but it was only a house and everyone survived and I have so much to be grateful for so I shouldn’t be traumatized...” or diminishing her painful emotions because “Hashem never gives a person more than they can handle so I have no reason to feel frightened and overwhelmed..”

Ironically, what is sometimes needed is an ability to put thoughts of emunah aside for just a few minutes in order to properly address and heal feelings. We don’t need to worry that our emunah will disappear; it’s safely locked up in the prefrontal cortex and will be accessible when we come to fetch it after tending to some needy emotions.

How does one tend to emotions? Accept that the feeling is there and then welcome it completely. Fully feel the sadness, without admonishing yourself for feeling it, and the sadness will be released, making room for an influx of emunah and bitachon. Welcome and feel fear completely in order to allow it to dissolve. Feel the full extent of the rage. As the boiling cauldron evaporates, space will be made for fresh spiritual reserves and a deeper understanding of the bigger picture.

In short, heal what you feel by doing a deep dive into the heart of your distress. Then go back home to your emunah.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 968)