Steve Hagen: We heal through acceptance, not resistance

Experiential avoidance is the root of suffering

Photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

Emotional suffering is not something we can fight off, push away, or get rid of. We don’t heal from them. We stop resisting. We detach from them as they pass. We let go. The unsettling truth is that you can’t heal what you refuse to face or accept. So much of our inner suffering comes from fighting suffering itself.

Zen priest and spiritual teacher Steve Hagen said something that is redefining my relationship with negative emotions. He said, “Acknowledge suffering as suffering. Feel pain and sorrow and divisiveness. Experience anger or fear or shock for what they are. But you don’t have to think of them as evil — as intrinsically bad, as needing to be destroyed or driven from our midst. On the contrary, they need to be absorbed, healed, made whole.”

Internal suffering from pain, worry, anxiety, or fear is hard to shift. But to reduce it, the first step isn’t to push it away; it’s to acknowledge it.

Name it to tame it. Feel the inner disturbance.

Let the sadness, anger, or fear be what it is — not because you want to drown in it, but because denying it only makes it worse.