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This is a concept from cognitive psych therapy.
Clean pain is the inevitable pain of human life. It’s disappointment, grief, anger and longing.
Dirty pain is what we add to those feelings with our stories about the world and ourselves.
Clean pain moves thru us at its own speed, but dirty pain is clogging and sticky.
Examples from dating:
Clean pain: I was really hoping he was HV and I’m disappointed.
Dirty pain: I’ll never find someone.
Clean pain: I wish it were easier to meet HV men
Dirty pain: Everyone else has an easier time dating than me
A good way to separate out the two is to ask yourself, what if this means nothing about me or my future?
When we see the pain as not about us or not permanent/predictive, we’re moving toward a clean version we’ll be able to process without causing ourselves extra suffering.
Hope this is useful queens!
What you’re describing is “catastrophizing” - one of the critical thinking errors or cognitive distortions that occurs in anxiety. Here are the others:
Wow!! What a great way to explain it!
Awesome to consider...thank you for sharing this very helpful tool!
This was needed. Thank you!!