Sometimes emotions just happen in your body, or are magnified or altered by trauma, or aren't relevant to the situation at hand at all. A lot of the time a particular emotional experience a person is having doesn't have any inherent meaning at all. You can also just allow those emotions to pass through you without attaching anything to them as they go.

I used to be exactly like what's described in this comic only it turned into stress and anxiety rather than self hatred.

I learned to completely let those types of negative feelings just flow out of me rather than holding them and then shift my attention towards improvement. It's not that I'm holding onto those to propel myself to success, but that I recognize them briefly and then problem solve.

I guess I just personally don't like the framing of using them to motivate you because it's this idea of holding on to those things which is how I was in such a negative mindset for so much of my life. I much prefer the framing of recognizing them and moving to the next step.

Using your pain metaphor, I recently cut myself doing dishes. I recognized the pain and then applied pressure and found a first aid kit to patch myself up. I did not focus on the pain, but solved the problem. After that I moved on and was a bit more careful handling knives. Next time I didn't stop and remember the pain of the cut to not do it again as motivation, but instead just remembered to be more careful.

Maybe my brain is broken or different, but for me that subtle difference was the life changing part.

My demons have yokes, wear little jumpsuits with my name on me, and call me 'sir' while they do my bidding.