There is a huge misconception out there, that you can desensitize yourself from emotional pain. For example if you have a phobia, you just need to put yourself in that situation and if you stay long enough with the pain, you will eventually become immune to it.
Pain is the opposite of pleasure, you can become desensitized to pleasure, if you eat your favorite food every day you are going to enjoy it less and less. Because your body needs variety, it is an adaptation that will force you to seek variety to make sure you are nurturing your body properly.
On the other hand the more you experience pain the more damage is being done to you, so the more important it is to find a resolution to that problem. This is why your pain will increase over time, not decrease until you find a resolution.
We manage pain by either avoiding what cause it, or by covering it with pleasure whenever we can't avoid it anymore. Which is what addiction is, an attempt to self medicate to emotional pain.
Facing your fear is like sticking your hand in fire every day in the hope that one day you can hold it in long enough so you won't feel any more pain. Every time you do that, you experience more pain, and you learn that sticking your hand in fire is an unpleasant painful experience.
Even if you are dealing with a phobia that you are exposing yourself to, you will experience the fear and the longer you stay with that fear, the more your body will think that the danger has increased so the more fear you are going to experience. This is why most people who attempt this fail.
To convince yourself that a threat you initially perceived as dangerous is actually safe. You have to first switch from flight to fight, you can do that by moving physically towards it.
It is not facing fear as much walking through it that will provide with enough evidence. Every single step you are going to take towards that will increase the amount of pain you feel. Until you reach the end of the road and you realize that you were afraid of nothing.
This can be a quick process, like ripping a band aid very painful and short. What most people do, is they slowly peel the band aid half way, the pain becomes to much to handle, so they stick it back on. That results in a lot of agony and no results.
To walk through your fear means to go where your fear will increase and then just keep going until you reach a resolution.
We are adapted to respond to threats with impulses, high amounts of energy released over a very short period of time. If you take the slow path your biological cards are stacked against you. As it is not a sustainable strategy, it makes it easier for you to burn out without reaching any resolution.
