How to Bury Pain: the 5 Burial Rituals

When we are touched by loss, expressing pain becomes not just a luxury, but a human necessity and a vital form of healing.

Suppressing emotions or forcefully ignoring them—whether by distraction or denial—does not save us from them. Instead, it hurts us in the long run, and we become our own souls’ biggest enemies. 

I understand that life often imposes circumstances that force us to keep going despite being broken. Life moves forward with its demands, without waiting for us to heal. 

Likewise, we may not find a safe space to express our feelings, or we may not have anyone to share our pain with, and so we carry complex emotional burdens alone—even though understanding and processing them might be beyond our individual capacity.

Whatever the reasons may be, pretending to be healed and refusing to acknowledge our emotions means depriving the soul of one of its most basic rights: the right to express.

Imagine these suppressed feelings as a substance that rots if not stored properly.
Imagine bottling up your emotions is like placing them in a sealed container. Over time, the contents begin to rot and become toxic. And with every new wound we hide in that same container, the decay intensifies. A single scratch on the surface—triggered by a small incident—is enough for the toxins to leak out, corrupting both body and soul. The pain from the leak becomes greater than the original wound that caused it. You become fragile, unable to withstand even the smallest hardship or misunderstanding from anyone.

The solution, then, is not to suppress emotions, but to bury them in a healthy way. Emotional burial traditions prevent rot from growing within you and purify you from  any negative feelings. 

And that burial only happens through emotional rituals:

- Crying

Emotional loss, betrayal, disappointment—are all incidents that deserve mourning. In crying, there is an acknowledgment of pain and an honoring of what once was.

Cry. Yes, cry over the loss of a relationship, even if you were the only sincere one in it. Mourn the image in your mind that represented someone you loved—or even a comforting illusion—more than you mourn the actual loss itself.

Crying is a simple form of expression, and the tears we shed carry sorrow molecules (less poetically, it’s cortisol) that help cleanse the body. Crying is not limited to sadness—even some joys require tears to express feelings that words cannot articulate.

-Expressing Your Emotions

Expressing your emotions isn’t at all an easy thing to do. It requires you to sit down with yourself, identifying and labeling the emotions you’re feeling, and verbalizing them. Use statements such as “I feel” to start your journal entries. Write about how you feel and why you feel that way without filtering any of the rawness in your heart.

If you don’t enjoy reading, record your self or talk to your reflection in the mirror. Find a way to admit to yourself what you really feel deep down about the situation.

And then figure out if you need help and sound advice, or someone to vent to, so you can move forward to step 3.

- Communication and Venting

Talk to a friend—or to a therapist if needed. Seeking help is not a burden; it is maturity and responsibility. A therapist helps you break down complex personal experiences that ordinary people might not understand or respond to appropriately.

Because if you don’t receive the empathy you need from those around you, your relationships may suffer as a result of feeling disappointed and let down.

Psychological trauma requires sensitive treatment, and your circle may not include professionals trained to carefully unpack its effects. It’s not your fault, nor is it theirs. Some pain is unfamiliar, and some suffering can only be understood by those who have studied it and trained to accompany others through it.

Sharing pain is essential—it prevents you from becoming hostage to your inner voice, which often turns into a harsh courtroom where you pass unjust judgments on yourself. You blame yourself, punish yourself, and listen to inner voices shaped by your insecurities and traumas, distorting the truth. Over time, your features change, your light dims, and you lose the ability to recognize yourself—even in the mirror.

All because you did not allow your emotions their right to expression.

- Stop Blaming Yourself

The first step in healing is to stop blaming yourself. Allow yourself the chance to be a "victim" if you truly were one.

Accept that you did not possess the wisdom you have now at the time the trauma occurred. Always remember—you weren’t the person you are today. You’ve since gained knowledge. The version of you that was hurt knew less than you do now, so be gentler in your judgment of them.

Also, pay attention to the circumstances 

in which the incident occurred. Sometimes we are not victims, but what happened was a reflection of a complex reality at that time. 

The blame shouldn’t fall entirely on one party—try instead to give the situation a deeper understanding and meet it with compassion for what fate brought.

- Gaining Wisdom

The most important—and most difficult—step is to learn. Because if we do not learn, we remain trapped in the same cycles, repeating the same mistakes, and fail to gain the wisdom from our experiences. Life, instead of being a school, becomes a place of constant injustice where we remain the victims.

Understanding is a key part of healing. It enables you to look at your own mistakes with clarity. Even if your actions stemmed from good intentions, they might still have been wrong and caused an unhealthy imbalance in your life.

And this applies not only to emotional loss, but to all kinds of loss: the end of a relationship, a friendship, a financial or career failure—they all require understanding, reflection, and learning.

So sit with yourself and reflect. If understanding feels difficult, search, read, and explore trustworthy sources that can help you see what you couldn’t see before. Read about healthy friendships, mature love, how to love and be loved—as men or as women.

There is no shame in seeking knowledge—in fact, it is liberating.

By opening ourselves to new perspectives and experiences, we can begin to rebuild ourselves and recover the spark within us that has long been dimmed.