The only way out is through.

     Wouldn't it be nice if we could dodge our pain? I'd love it. And we really try to convince ourselves that we can, don't we? But there's a deeper part of us that knows we can't.
     But can we really embrace our pain? Doesn't that seem masochistic? Well, no actually, because what you can do is not embrace your pain but embrace the results that come from embracing your pain.
     And embracing your pain is a tough route to go. Like Tom Petty said in his song "I Won't Back Down" "there ain't no easy way out." So you can kick and scream and bend your mind in a million different ways looking to avoid the pain but  it just ain't going to happen--or you can face it. Like the story of the beefy Irish cop saying: "You might as well come quiet."
     So all we have to do is experience our pain and we're free? Well, yeah. I don't know if it's all that tidy (because whatever is holding us back is often very complicated and deeply embedded), but yeah, that's basically it. Consider this from Frances G. Wickes' The Inner World of Choice:

A complex can only be really overcome when it has been drained to the last depths by life. In other words...we have to draw to us and drink down to the very dregs what, because of complexes, we have held at a distance.

This "drinking to the dregs"--emotionally experiencing--had been the real suffering through which the neurotic victim element had been redeemed, and the energy had been freed for conscious choice and willed purpose.

     In other words to get rid of your pain you gotta experience it. Gross but true.
     So you can keep fooling yourself with rationalizations that you can find a way around the pain. Or you can man-up and dive in. And garner all the benefits that come from doing so.