On January 30, 2020, the worst day of my life happened. My grandpa passed away who I loved so much. The pain was horrible, and I suffered from grief for a very very long time. Parents and adults are given the responsibility to help kids who are upset, in pain, and grieving cheer up. Kids are usually taught to get past the problem without actually dealing with it. We’re always told “it’ll be okay”, or “Just forget about it”.

That's exactly the problem, says Steven Stosny, Ph.D. Having studied in Anger in the Age of entitlement.  He warns us that "As the alarm of pain intensifies, fixing our focus on distress, we become self-obsessed. Eventually, we identify with the pain, in a subtle or overt victim-identify. At that point, we can scarcely perceive the pain of other people, which robs us of the unique power of social healing.” He's saying we have to identify with the pain in order to get to the healing part. When I was grieving, I did something that I never have done. I let the pain take over. I let it take over until I could finally move on, and I am so glad that I did that. Overall, we can recognize when we are angry or upset or feeling down, but we’re taught to just push those feelings aside. We never get through those emotions completely, but they don't see that pain and suffering can be good and healthy for you.  It is true… TOO MUCH pain is NOT good OR at some point, we DO need to move on, BUT… that takes time… 

Later on in life, we will start to learn to work through our emotions and learn how to express them better, “pain keeps us focused on distress, for the purpose of relieving it. Pain motivates behavior that will help heal, repair, or improve,” says Steven Stosny. From personal experience, I would always keep my emotions bottled up and never express them, and when one tragic thing happens no matter how big or how small, you just explode because all those emotions have been bottled up for so long. 

Instead, we need to help kids learn how to work through their pain and suffering, to help them understand how to express themselves without holding back everything in a healthy way, and to help them learn that it's okay to feel pain and suffering, and it's okay to not be okay. To do that, we need to relinquish the fake “advice,” like “it's okay” or “you’re fine” because sometimes it's not fine and that's okay. We have to stop letting the “let it go” mentality be the first option we think of when it comes to emotions. 

This year, let's fight for us to acknowledge our pain...