When It Comes Out of Nowhere: The Emotional Gut Punch

Episode 183 - When It Comes Out of Nowhere: The Emotional Gut Punch

What do you do when a family conflict hits you out of nowhere and leaves you reeling? In this episode, Tina Gosney shares how to navigate the emotional “gut punch” of sudden family hurt. You'll learn why these moments are so disorienting, how our reactions can intensify suffering, and how to begin responding with clarity, courage, and self-compassion.

Tina explains the Buddhist teaching of the Two Arrows and the difference between clean pain and dirty pain—two powerful concepts that will change the way you process emotional pain. This episode is packed with validation, insight, and practical tools for anyone who feels blindsided by family conflict and doesn’t know how to move forward.

Episode Outline

The “Gut Punch” of Sudden Family Conflict
Tina introduces the metaphor of the emotional gut punch—how it feels, why it’s so destabilizing, and why it’s common in family relationships.

The Two Arrows: Pain vs. Suffering
Learn the Buddhist concept of the first and second arrow. Discover how we unintentionally add suffering to our pain by believing fearful or self-critical thoughts.

Clean Pain vs. Dirty Pain
Explore the difference between honest emotional pain and the reactive patterns that keep us stuck. Learn how to stay present with clean pain instead of spiraling into dirty pain.

How to Stay Grounded After the Gut Punch
Tina offers practical steps to care for yourself in the moment—naming the pain, noticing the second arrow, letting the emotions move, and finding compassion for yourself.

Why These Moments Can Become Turning Points
Hear how these painful moments, while difficult, can also be invitations to grow stronger, set new boundaries, and reconnect with your core self.

Related Episodes & Additional Resources

 Download: Heal the Rift – 5 Steps to Reconnect with Your Adult Child – A free resource with simple, powerful steps to begin rebuilding connection 

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Set up a Connection Call with Tina: CLICK HERE TO SET UP YOUR FREE CALL

Tina Gosney is the Family Conflict Coach. She works with parents who have families in conflict to help them become the grounded, confident leaders their family needs.
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Tina is certified in family relationships and a trauma informed coach.
Visit tinagosney.com for more information on coaching services.

Transcript

Tina Gosney: 0:04

Have you ever just been going about your day, doing regular life things like getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home, unloading the dishwasher, thinking about what's for dinner, and then something happens that completely locks the wind out of you? I remember a time when that was my day. I had a plate in my hand. I was unloading the dishwasher. My phone buzzes with a message, and in just a few words that hit really hard. I froze. My whole body tensed up. The plate was still in my hand, but I couldn't feel it. I was somewhere else, everything around me, the kitchen, the dishes, everything else that had happened that day suddenly did not matter, because those are the types of moments that make the rest of the world stop and not seem very important. And that is what I call a gut punch. It's the emotional equivalent of getting the wind knocked out of you. It's sudden, it's sharp, and it leaves you questioning everything. If you have felt that gut punch lately, or if you're feeling it right now, I want you to know that you're not alone, and I want to help you understand what's happening, why it hurts so much, and give you some ways that you can start to steady yourself again. I'm Tina Gosney, a family conflict coach, and today we're talking about emotional gut punches. Let's start with this one truth. These gut punch moments are going to happen. They happen to everybody, and they're going to happen to you again? This is not because you've done something wrong. It's not because your family is especially dysfunctional or damaged. It's simply part of being in a relationship with other people, especially the people that we love most. And I know this is not the message that so many of us were raised with a lot of us grew up believing that if you're just a good person, if you work hard, if you raise your kids with faith and you love unconditionally, then your relationships are going to be okay. There's going to be peace, and you're going to stay close, and everything is going to be fine. And then when something painful happens, when someone pulls away or says something that cuts really deep, we not only hurt, we suffer. So let's talk about what suffering really means. To suffer is to get caught up in the thoughts and the stories that we tell ourselves about the pain. So the pain is the sting of the moment, that ache in your chest, that body feeling like it's on fire, the tears that come without warning. That's the pain that's real, and it's a very human and it happens to everybody. But what about suffering? Suffering is when we start to ask questions that have no clear answer, like, why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? Will this ever get better? Suffering is when we start to believe that that one painful moment defines everything and will determine the future indefinitely. This means I have a I'm a failure as a mother, it proves my worst fear. I am not lovable. I'm just too much for people. This means their life is going to be terrible. I see a terrible future. It shows up in ruination, playing that moment over and over again in your mind, like you're trying to undo it by replaying it. It shows up in isolation, pulling away from other people because you feel ashamed or unworthy. It shows up in fear, where every future moment starts to feel uncertain and unsafe, or maybe even like it's a ticking time bomb, and it shows up in resentment when we hold on to anger as a way to protect ourselves, even if it's eating us up inside. Pain is the bruise. Suffering is the story that we write around that bruise, and then we read it back to ourselves over and over and over again. The good news is we do have a say in how much we suffer. We can't stop the pain, but we can learn to notice when we're piling suffering on top of that pain, and we can start to gently settle that part down. That is the beginning of finding peace even in those really difficult, hard moments. I really love some of the Buddhist teachings, and this is one that I really love, and it's really resonated with me because it puts into words something that we all experience, especially in our closest relationships. It's called the second arrow, or the two arrows, and this is how it goes. I want you to just imagine that you are walking. Through the Woods, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, you get hit by an arrow. You get struck by an arrow that hurts. That is the first arrow. It's unexpected. It hurts. It's painful, and it was completely out of your control. All you were doing was walking through the woods, and that's what it's like when you get that gut punch in real life, when someone says something to you that really stings, or when you know someone pulls away from you without any explanation, those moments are the first arrow. They hurt. They come without warning. You didn't cause them. You couldn't have prevented them. They happen because you're human, and you live in a human, imperfect world. But then it feels like it happens almost simultaneously. Before you can even catch your breath, you take a second arrow and you drive it into yourself. That's what we do when we start creating suffering for ourselves without realizing it. So the second arrow sounds like This shouldn't have happened. This means I'm a terrible parent. I'm never going to recover from this. Something is wrong with me. It's the way that we layer that judgment and the fear and the meaning on top of the original pain. So let me give you an example. This is a client. I'm going to call her Rachel. She worked so hard. She was doing such great work. She worked really hard to rebuild trust with her adult son. She was changing how was she was communicating. She backed off when she needed to. She was respecting his boundaries. And then out of nowhere, she got on social media one day and saw a post that he had posted about toxic family members and how he needed to cut ties. So arrow number one, the pain, the shock, the sadness and the confusion. Arrow number two, he must be talking about me. I'm ruined. I've ruined everything. I'm a terrible mother. All of that effort meant nothing. Why did I put out all that effort? That is the story, that's the spiral that keeps us stuck. Here's another example. This is another woman I coached. I'm going to call her Denise. She was super excited to visit her daughter, who had just had a baby, this brand new, brand new grandbaby. She could not wait to see and embrace her daughter and just love on all of them. And she had rearranged her schedule. She had planned what gifts she was going to take. She was days away from leaving, and just a few days before that trip, her daughter called, and she said, You know, I don't think you should come. Things are kind of overwhelming here right now, and I just can't handle you being here. Arrow number one, disappointment, disconnection, grief. Arrow number two, this is the story. She doesn't want me there. I'm not important. I must have done something wrong. She's pushing me out of her life. That first arrow hurts, the second arrow isolates. And often it's the second arrow that causes the deepest suffering, not the first arrow. The first arrow is the event. That's what happened. It's the meaning that we attach to it that causes our suffering. But the power in this one teaching is that once we learn to see the second arrow, we have a choice. We don't have to keep driving it in. We can learn to pause, to notice and respond with self compassion to our own pain instead of causing suffering. Here's another way to look at two arrows is by looking at the difference between clean pain and dirty pain, clean pain is the natural human pain that comes from living in a human world that is filled with loss and disappointment and unmet expectations. That is the pain of the first arrow. It sounds like this hurts. I miss them. I thought this would be different. Clean pain is honest. It's rooted in love and in hope and in care. It's what we feel when we're truly present in the moment with what's happening, and we don't run from it, and we don't make it mean more than it does. It's that ache that tells you that something matters, and I am feeling a loss. Dirty pain, on the other hand, is the pain we create on top of the original hurt. It's what happens when our minds try to explain or justify that pain with stories, and they often are turned against ourselves. That's. Can arrow so dirty pain sounds like this hurts and it's all my fault. I'm too much. Nobody wants me around. If I were a better parent, this wouldn't have happened. Clean pain helps us process and move through grief. Dirty pain keeps us spinning in shame and blame and fear. It loops around. It keeps coming back. It festers. It keeps us stuck. You could even think of it as like getting stuck on the inside lane of a traffic circle. So here's an example from my own life. Just a few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with someone that I really love, and I got hit with something that was super painful. I learned something that was very deeply, deeply disappointing to me, and I felt that first arrow hit me, and it really dug deep. So arrow number one, I felt hurt, I was disappointed, I was confused. That was the clean pain. Arrow number two, my brain started telling me, and it felt like it was simultaneous, but it wasn't. There was a space. Now that I looked back at it, there was space, but I noticed the second arrow. This is what it sounded like for me. Nobody cares about you. You're such a failure. If you had been better, this wouldn't have happened. And so suddenly I wasn't just feeling sad and disappointed. I was feeling unworthy, unloved, anxious about the future. That's dirty pain at work. The hardest part is that dirty pain feels so real. It shows up in our bodies, in our racing hearts and our racing minds a tight chest and especially in our sleepless nights, it's our nervous system's way of reacting to the perceived danger even when there's no actual danger. But the truth is that dirty pain is optional. We don't always catch it right away. I didn't catch it right away that night, but when we do learn to name it, we can start to reclaim our power. We stop re wounding ourselves with a second arrow, and instead, we learn to sit with clean pain, to be tender, to be honest with ourselves, and to allow it to pass through, and that is where healing begins, not by avoiding it by but by learning how to feel it without creating more of it. So what do you do when that gut punch hits? I want to give you some few simple steps, nothing super complicated, nothing overwhelming, just a few things that you can do to reach for in that moment that feels like a life raft when you are feel like you're drowning. So step number one is to name what's happening. That might sound really small, but it's very powerful. Say something like that really hurt. I wasn't expecting that this feels like too much. So when you name it, you bring compassion into the moment. You're not pushing it away. You're not pretending that everything's fine. You're not telling yourself you're not supposed to feel that way. You're being honest with yourself, and honesty is where healing begins. We actually need honesty to begin healing. Step number two, notice what you're telling yourself. Notice that second arrow. Pay attention to the thoughts that follow, the pain. They don't care about me. I always mess things up. This proves I'm not enough. Just notice those what are your go to thoughts in those moments you don't have to fight them and you don't have to fix them, you just say, oh, that's the story I'm telling myself right now. Sometimes I say to myself, that's a really painful thought. It doesn't mean it's true. It just means that's what my brain is telling me. And I don't have to believe everything my brain is telling me, that little bit of distance between you and the thought your brain is telling you gives you just a second to breathe, gives you that moment to breathe and catch your breath. Step number three is to let the clean pain move. This means you allow yourself to feel sad, to feel the grief and the disappointment. You don't push it down, you don't try to numb it or explain it away. Instead of doing that, you might just take a walk around the block. You might go to your car or your closet or the shower to cry, maybe you journal a little bit just to let it out. Sometimes I advise my clients to rage journal. If the emotion is really big and has a lot of energy, get that journal out and rage journal. Or if it's an emotion that doesn't have energy but is heavy, sit quiet. Quietly and put your hand on your heart. You're not doing this to fix the pain. You're doing it to honor it. You let your body and your heart know this matters to me and I can handle it. So these three steps, name it, notice it, let it move. These are gentle. They're doable, and they work. They help you stay grounded when those waves of emotion feel like they're too much, and the more you practice it, the easier they become. You start to recognize when you're in clean pain, and you recognize when that second arrow is starting to sneak in, that because that's when things start to shift. Remember, now here, I want to pause and speak directly to your heart, if you, right now, are in one of those gut punch moments. If that's the reason that you clicked on this episode and you decided to play through this episode, if your eyes are full of tears, if you feel like you are barely holding it together, I want you to know something. You're not alone. You are not the only one walking through something that feels too big to name. You're not broken, you're not a failure, and you are not weak for feeling what you're feeling one of the hardest parts of pain like this, you know, the first arrow is that it makes us want to pull away. We think no one understands, or I don't want to burden anyone. This is just mine. I don't need to put this on anyone else. Or if they knew how much I was hurting, they would think I'm overreacting, or they would think less of me or less of this other person, and we and so instead of going and being with other people that could help us, we isolate, we go quiet and we withdraw, we'd have put up barriers between us and other people. But the truth is, those are the moments that we need other people the most, when we're hurting. We don't need fixing. We don't need someone to fix us. We just need a presence. We need someone there to say, I see you. I'm here, and you're not alone, but the shame and the fear and the second arrows and all the stories that they create, they make it so hard for us to reach out, and they convince us to tough it out alone. I talk to women every week who are carrying this invisible pain. They feel like they're doing everything they can to hold their family together, and inside they are so exhausted and they're lonely and they're questioning everything. Do you know what they all have in common? They all think that they're the only one, but they're not, and neither are you. You're part of a quiet, tender hearted community of women who love deeply and have some deep grief and some quiet grief you're trying to do this family thing with as much grace as you can muster, even when it hurts. So if you're pulling away and you're tempted to isolate, let this be your gentle reminder that you don't have to go through this alone. There is strength in reaching out. There is healing and being seen even in your pain, and right now, I see you because I have been you. I know what you might be thinking right now, but why does it have to hurt so much? I know these are lessons that I need to learn, but can't I learn the lesson without the pain? Why does personal growth always seem to come at such a high emotional cost? And I get it, I have asked those same questions. Here's what I've come to believe, that the pain is not there to punish us, it's there to help us wake up, not in a cruel way, but in a way that invites us to stop running away from ourselves, to stop managing our lives and our relationships in the way that we have been managing them, because it's not working. It tells us to stop avoiding ourselves and look at what's been buried underneath the surface. That first arrow, the original pain, is actually full of so much wisdom. If we could stay with that clean pain without adding the second arrow, we could learn a lot from it. But we don't know how to do that because we've been taught how to fix, how to hide, how to pretend, everything's fine. So instead of staying with the clean pain, we spin out into suffering, we pile on the shame, and we turn inward in fear. And that second arrow, the one that we create ourselves, is not necessary for our growth, but often that becomes the doorway that leads us into the growth, because eventually the. Suffering gets so loud that we just can't go on anymore. We have to stop and we have to pay attention to it. And when we do something super powerful can happen. We start to see the patterns that we've been stuck in, probably for many, many years. We start to notice how we've been trying to earn love and prove our worth and avoid everything difficult, we start to ask deeper questions like, What do I actually need right now? What's my responsibility here and what isn't and how do I start taking care of myself and trying instead of trying to fix everyone else, how do I start to take care of myself? Emotional pain in our closest relationships has a way of stripping things down to the essentials. It shows us what's not working, and in that clarity, we can start to rebuild things, not because we're building things out of fear or people pleasing, but now we're building out of authenticity and courage. I wish we could all skip that suffering part, don't you? I wish we could just learn from the clean pain and not create all the stories around it. Sometimes we can, especially when we become more aware of what that second arrow looks like, but even when we do go to the second arrow, even when we spiral and shame ourselves for a while, it is never too late to come back and to pause and to just choose a different direction or choose to put the arrow down. So that's why these gut punch moments, as painful as they are, they can turn into turning points. They call us back to what is really important. They invite us to stop abandoning who we are, just to keep the peace, and they offer us a chance to grow more courageous and more grounded and more whole within ourselves, not because we mastered being being in pain, but because we've learned to walk through it with self compassion and honesty. So take a breath, put your hand on your heart and say, this is hard, but I can handle it, because you're doing sacred work and you are not alone. If you want support, please go check the show notes. There's a free resource there called Heal the

Heart: 22:25

Five Steps to Reconnect with Your Adult Child. It's gentle and powerful, and it's a beautiful place to start. If you want to go deeper, reach out to me. Set up a connection call. We can talk personally until next time, be gentle with yourself.

Unknown: 22:55

You.