How does the emotionally disconnected child become the pain-avoidant adult?

Did you know that the difference between meeting and processing emotional pain AND trying to uplift ourselves, shift our mood, or focus on feeling better is profound? One fosters connection; the other fosters disconnection.

This is one of the deepest forms of collective human conditioning: the tendency to deny and bury what causes us pain, along with our emotions about it. This conditioning—to turn away from pain and disconnect internally—is exactly what keeps us stuck: in pain, and in seemingly unresolvable states, relationships, patterns, or situations.

As long as we continue to deny what was buried in our bodies due to emotional disconnection from our parents and others in childhood, we remain trapped—constantly trying to shift, uplift, or change our experience.

And of course, it’s completely understandable. "I’m in pain, I feel discomfort, so naturally I want to soothe or heal it!"

“I’m hurting, so I’ll just take this pill and feel better.”

“I’ll have a beer with my friends, watch Netflix, meditate in nature, eat comfort food, have a little sex, say positive affirmations, try to take control and go in the opposite direction—anywhere but where the pain is.”

We all have our own ways of coping. We’re collectively wired for that mindset—because it seems so reasonable. And I truly love many of those things I just mentioned. But I’ve come to use them less and less as coping mechanisms—that is, as ways to push down and avoid pain.

Of course, before I learned somatic processing and emotional repression work, all I could do was try to cope. I had no understanding or tools to access and process the pain. That was all I knew. I was doing my best.

But something unexpected began to happen when I started meeting my pain and discomfort with love, compassion, understanding, and somatic skill.

It began to shift—on its own. And gradually, the change became unmistakable.

That was new to me. The experiences I had been missing started to come in effortlessly. The patterns began to fall away without me trying to change or get rid of them.

I was no longer drawn to people who wanted to take advantage of me or who tried to dominate and disempower me to feel better about themselves.

I began to feel that being loved and cared for was not just okay—but natural.

The sense of being deserving no longer came with guilt. And so on...

It takes deep somatic work to shift your experience and relationshps. It takes the courage to meet the pain. It takes meeting the part of us that resists the pain. Because often, we don’t even know what’s causing it. And we continue to hurt ourselves for as long as we keep denying it.

Here is my private e-mail if you want to meet the pain and experience shift:

serena@awarenessembodied.com

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