When our body is injured, the body bleeds or shows bruises, the body’s protective system kicks in to help us heal. Normally, we feel physical pain when we are injured, or the body is out of its normal state. The function of pain is to signal us to withdraw from the damaging situation, we protect our injury, we rest and heal and we avoid similar experiences in the future if possible.

In a similar way, our emotional pain is the body indicating to us that we might be injured, and something is out of the ordinary, and we need to take action to keep us safe, find refuge and healing.

When we feel sad, the body is signalling to us that we have lost something important and telling us to withdraw, slow down and heal.

When we feel anxious or fearful, the body is warning us about danger, telling us to seek safety.

When we feel angry, the body is indicating to us that someone or something that we value is being taken away or violated and tells us to draw safe boundaries and take action to protect ourselves.

When these feelings become intense and unresolved, it becomes emotional pain. Even though our emotional pain is from non-physical sources, it is real, and it affects our body physically. Our body is one unit, with the physical parts and psychological parts interconnected. Study has shown that when we feel emotional pain, it activates the same regions in our brain as the physical pain does (the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortexes).