Foreboding Joy and Pain

We all have coping strategies here to help us feel more safe. Although some might not seem "positive", they crate a way for us protect ourselves from getting hurt.

Along with people pleasing, numbing/ disassociating there is foreboding joy. Foreboding joy is something researched by Brene Brown as a way to stop us from not feeling a positive intense emotion either real or imagined. The thought of this imaged joy can bring so much overwhelm to the system, we stop it as a way to makes us feel safer.

This concept made me think about foreboding pain, not necessarily talked about by Brene but when reflecting on the nervous system, it definitely made me curious.
Foreboding pain might also be used as a coping mechanism that we use when the emotions get too intense.

We start to imagine what would happen if I went for that job and did not get it? What would happen if I said yes to that date only to hear him say no? What if I try to get pregnant and can't'?

Or even more intense, what if I fall in love and then we break up? What if I do get that job only to be fired in a few years? What if I do get pregnant then have a miscarriage?

Our brains typically go to worse case scenario. So of course we imagine the break up, the death, the getting fired. We imagine what it would feel like and how painful that would be. The thought of pain, abandonment, rejection is too overwhelming.

So to prevent that pain of what we wanted most only to be taken away....we don't do it at all.

While foreboding joy is to protect your vulnerability, foreboding pain is to protect you from those feelings of rejection and abandonment.

I think this is normal and I think way more of us out there do this knowingly or unknowingly. It is quite possible the abandonment/rejection wound is buried so deep in your psyche or subconscious that you don't even realize it is playing out into your decisions.

Personally I feel rejection and abandonment is one of the core wounds for almost all of us out there. It takes courage, time, and compassion to start to sit with it and process these emotions. It takes practice to recognize when then are arising and what to do when they do.

So next time you find yourself not doing, not going for, or not acting on the thing that actually might bring you happiness out of fear it will be "taken away", come back to the present moment. Take a few breaths with a hand on your heart and imagine your feet rooting down into the Earth. Feel yourself breathing. Remind yourself that no one can predict the future, not even your mind (I know he thinks he can).

Connect with that part of you seeking love and attention. That part of you that is scared of rejection or loss. Give that part of you all of the love in your heart, all of your attention. You can even say "I see you. I am with you. We will do this together."

Remind yourself you have survived everything so far. Remind yourself this is an opportunity to be a detective into a part of you that needs healing. That this healing will eventually lead to more love for yourself and compassion for others.

This post can't possible solve these wounds but I do hope it can shed tiny light on a possibility of foreboding pain, a hiding coping mechanism, or some ideas of why your mind runs off in the direction of trying to predict the future. I hope that the part of you scared of rejection and abandonment feels seen. And your wise mind remembers to come back to the the present moment again and again.