5 Little Emotions Most Likely To Cause You Pain

These emotions will take over your life if you don't learn to control them.

By Rena Greenberg
Last updated on Mar 04, 2024

Photo: sdominick, Engin_Akyurt | Canva

There is a list of feelings we all experience that can stop happiness and success in their tracks and present a danger to your life. When you don't work to control your emotions, left to their own devices, these certain emotions are like a speeding train without a conductor. They are ready to derail every goal you have set for yourself, whether the goal is financial success, a healthy mind, and body, losing weight, quitting drinking, or having a happy marriage.

The good news is when you shine some light on their darkness, you can take your power back as quickly as the blazing sun can soak up the remains of a torrential summer shower. If you want to know how to be happy in life and successful in what you achieve, you need to stop running away from those painful emotions and, instead, face them with the courage you have at your core. Here's the list of feelings that stop you from being happy — and how to take control of them.

Here are the 5 emotions most likely to cause you pain:

1. Fear

What causes fear? The feeling of being out of control. Ultimately, we experience fear because the truth is we don’t have control. None of us knows when our death day is coming. Subconsciously, it may seem that if you distract yourself enough with food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, socializing, working, or surfing the net, you can avoid the awful nagging fear that your life will inevitably end. But living this way prevents you not only from experiencing true happiness but also from achieving a much higher potential within yourself. The antidote to fear is faith — faith that even though you will die, your life matters and contains great meaning.

2. Anger

Anger is such a difficult emotion and causes so much internal anguish. Think about how you feel when you are angry. Chances are you are clenching some part of your body. Maybe your fists, jaw, or belly are constricted and tense. Your breathing is most likely shallow and labored. And your thoughts are replaying an event or scenario that is deeply painful to you.

Perhaps you feel betrayed, cheated, or disrespected. The antidote for anger is compassion. How hard it is to be you right now? Expand your awareness and realize it’s not just you. It’s difficult to be human, in general. Even your perpetrator — the one who disappointed or betrayed you — has great pain and insecurity, no matter how arrogant and smug they may appear on the outside. Be generous with yourself and send yourself compassion. Remember you are not alone, even if your feelings tell you that you are.

3. Jealousy

When you’re feeling jealous, your ego is convinced that someone has more than you, and it’s not fair. Does the object of your jealousy appear to be smarter, happier, or more beautiful? Are they graced with greater wealth, love, and abundance than you? If so, realize that nothing is as it appears. Happy people go through emotional moments, too. Though life is surely not fair, we all cycle in and out of abundance in friendship, love, wealth, and success.

Each of us will lose our youth. Each of us will experience other losses as well. Coveting someone else’s good fortune only diminishes your awareness of the blessings in your own life. Perhaps, your jealous reaction stems from feeling a lack of attention. Is the one you love focused on someone other than you? The antidote to jealousy is cultivating a grateful heart and patience.

Indeed, you may not have the attention, wealth, youth, love, or success you desire, at this moment. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have it in the future. In the meantime, by focusing on the gifts that you do have — whether that be a beautiful home or loving friends — you can start to feel gratitude for the wonderful life that you do have while accepting what you don’t appear to have, at this moment.

4. Sadness

Being happy doesn't mean you don't feel sad. At the core of each person is a wound and this wound is a combination of sadness and loneliness. It can be so painful that it’s no wonder that most people will do anything to distract themselves from feeling the intensity of this grief. Why is this deep sadness present? It’s due to the illusion that we are separate — cut off from our greater nature.

All the crazy happenings in this physical world only exacerbate this loneliness and sense of isolation. It takes a lot of food, alcohol, and spending to cover up this pain! The antidote to this deep sadness within, believe it or not, is feeling it. That’s right, and to do that you must summon up all your courage.

Sit with the sadness, while at the same time calling on your deepest connection to what's sacred within yourself and all around you. Bow your head and, with the deepest humility, ask or pray for the Divine to surround you in the higher light and eternal love, as you sit with the sadness. The antidote to deep sadness is the courage to sit with your wound while inviting your higher consciousness and deeper wisdom to bathe you in truth — beyond what your conscious mind is perceiving.

5. Shame

Shame is the most toxic of human emotions. Nothing is worse for most people than feeling ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated. It’s an emotion that makes you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom. In some religions, shaming someone or taking away their dignity is considered to be like murdering them.