That’s where good firearm selection comes into play.

Recoil is physics: force accelerating a mass.

One variable is weight of the gun: more mass, less “felt recoil”.

Another is bullet caliber. If .22 is the most recoil you can tolerate, so be it. It is better than nothing and at least ammo is super cheap so you can practice a lot.

If you can tolerate a .380, that’s the next common caliber step up in terms of power and recoil. A lot of people who aren’t ok with a ton of recoil will go with .380 for that reason.

9mm is a little bit more than .380 but not much.

When you start getting into .40, 10mm, .45, etc. you’ll get much bigger bumps up in terms of felt recoil so steer clear of those.