My son loves open spaces and running barefoot. One evening he came in from the yard crying. We thought he was hungry or wanted something, so we offered him everything we had, watermelon, strawberries, his soul-weakness ice cream. He had a bit of everything, but as soon as he finished, he’d resume crying.
That’s when I noticed the strange way he was walking, like he was trying hard not to let one foot touch the floor fully. I checked and found a tiny thorn stuck in his foot.
That was the aha moment. His crying was a message. Something is wrong, something needs to be dealt with. And the longer we ignored it and tried to distract him with food, the stronger the crying became.
Once we removed the thorn, the crying stopped almost immediately, replaced by a fresh demand for ice cream that he had passed on earlier.
Emotions That Carry a Message
Some emotional reactions work exactly like that.
The body-mind produces them and keeps raising their intensity because there is a reason. Something has gone wrong. Something is out of balance.
You might be feeling frustrated, even angry, sometimes helpless. And you feel more frustrated because instead of feeling good, you are feeling all those uncomfortable things. But a lot of times, your body-mind is producing those emotional reactions because you have a thorn stuck in your foot.
Maybe you are stuck in the wrong job. Maybe something in a relationship is unresolved. Maybe your finances are creating a pressure you haven’t properly faced. Whatever the reason, these emotional reactions are appearing because there is one. Something is off. Something needs attention.
Remove the thorn and the pain stops. That is the only real approach for this kind of emotion. The emotions that are signalling something wrong will ease on their own once you deal with the situation.
What We Do Instead
When emotions are too uncomfortable to feel, most of us do what I did with my son. We start with watermelon and work our way up to ice cream. Whatever distracts, numbs, or temporarily makes things feel better.
The strategies vary. Some people use work, some use food, some use screens, some use staying busy, some use alcohol. The category doesn’t matter. The function is the same: to avoid staying with the feeling long enough to hear what it is saying.
But if an emotional reaction is happening because of a reason, then until you deal with the reason, it won’t stop. In fact, the longer you avoid it, the stronger those emotions tend to get. The thorn is still there. The crying just gets louder.
Don’t kill the messenger. Take the message, and then do something with it.
A Practice
As you move through your day, when an uncomfortable emotion surfaces, try stepping into the role of investigator rather than escapee.
Ask: what message is this emotion trying to give me? What has gone wrong? Does something need fixing or addressing?
And then, if something can be done, take even one small step toward doing it. Not everything can be resolved immediately, but most situations have at least one action available, even if it’s just acknowledging honestly to yourself what is actually happening.
One important qualification. Not all emotional reactions are messengers pointing to a real situation that needs fixing. Some arise from a different source entirely, from accumulated unresolved pain that surfaces without a clear present-day cause. When you try applying this approach and it doesn’t seem to fit, that’s useful information too. It usually means you’re dealing with something older and deeper, which calls for a different kind of attention.
But for the emotions that do carry a message, the approach is simple. Stop looking for ice cream. Find the thorn.