Recently, I came to realize that I have been stuck in a rut. Since the moment of my self-diagnosis, I’ve been wondering: why had I let my negative feelings persist?

When you get a splinter in your foot, you stop what you’re doing and turn all your mental and physical resources to getting that splinter out. (I’ve personally tackled splinters with the dedication of a mad scientist – determined to fix the problem no matter how long it took and how gross it made my foot look.) And yet, here was this emotional pain stabbing away at me every day, and I did little more than complain about it. How can we be so accepting of our psychological splinters?

I think the answer lies in the efficiency of our coping mechanisms. We get so good at numbing our negative emotions that we lose motivation to remove the underlying problem. Besides, our brains are very good at habituating – gradually coming to ignore familiar stimuli, even if they are aversive. As we slowly slip into a rut, there is no sudden stab of pain, so we come to experience that unhealthy, unfulfilled state as just plain normal.

To claw our way out of a rut, then, we have to stop protecting ourselves from the real pain embedded just beneath the surface.We have to rediscover the freshness and vibrance of our discomfort so that it pushes us into recovery.

Here are 4 ways to get in touch with your negative emotions and set them to work for you:

1. Do a numbing cleanse. For one week straight, stop putting Bandaids on your emotions. Don’t watch TV. Don’t listen to music. Don’t consume drugs or alcohol. Don’t call your cheerful friends to talk about cheerful things. Don’t eat sugar. Create a quiet, empty space to discover what you actually think and feel.

2. Schedule a pain date. So often, we shush our feelings because they seem to interfere with our plans. Spend some quality time with your negative emotions without distractions or time pressure. Listen to your worst feelings with a mindset of patience and wonder without interrupting or seeking to lessen the pain. It won’t be the most romantic date you have, but it just might be one of the most meaningful

3. Examine it all in one go. When we discuss our pain, we tend to share the Cliff’s Notes version – skimming across the surface of our experience. Or we get fixated on just one aspect of our feelings, dwelling on one memory or event. On the contrary, my rut recovery started when my dear friend and colleague, Roi Ben-Yehuda, challenged me to keep talking (and talking) even when I squirmed and resisted. He asked questions that forced me to look at all sides of my rut all in one (long and uncomfortable) conversation.

This persistent, wholistic excavation reminds we of Marie Kondo‘s wildly effective rule of tidying your living space. She says the only effective way to clean is “all in one go” – rather than chipping away at the mess little by little. When you lay out all your issues at once, you can see how they impact one another and spot the ones that no longer deserve a space in your emotional “closet.”

4. Find the flip side. Our negative emotions are wonderful at telling us what we don’t want. But with a little bit of encouragement, they can also reveal what we mostwant and need. So if you don’t want to feel something, gently redirect your attention by asking yourself what you do want.

For example:

Sadness is triggered by loss. To understand your feelings of sadness, ask yourself: “What do I wish I could hold onto?” “If I could get anything back, what would it be?” “What is precious to me?”

Stress is triggered by the perception that we don’t have enough resources (e.g., time, money, ability) to achieve what we’ve set out to achieve. To understand your stress, ask: “What is it important for me to achieve?” “What will help me feel more capable of achieving it?”

Fear is triggered by a loss of safety. To understand feelings of fear, ask: “What do I want to be protected from?” “What would make me feel more secure?”

5. Say thank you. Odd as it sounds, appreciating your negative emotions makes it easier to release them. Say “thank you” to your pain for trying so hard to protect you. Like people, once your pain feels heard and valued, it is less likely to keep talking.

Despite our understandable preference for living a pain-free life, we have to acknowledge that our pain is one of our greatest teachers. Just think about the danger of congenital insensitivity to pain – a condition in which people do not feel physical pain. It sounds like a dream come true, until you realize that having no pain awareness leads to injuries like wounds, bruises, burns, and biting off entire chunks of your tongue.

When we listen to our pain, we discover what’s missing, and we can take steps to feed our deepest and quietest needs.