Finding Equanimity With Difficult Emotions
Learning how to navigate emotions is one of the central challenges of the spiritual path. If we learn how to work with them, feelings can serve as a guide to the recesses of the soul.
Emotions can provide important information about external occurrences; for example, when danger approaches, fear is an essential emotion for survival.
Emotions can also become habituated and exaggerated responses to internal stressors. If you have a history of abandonment and loss, you might get anxious when your loved one doesn't get home on time. This response may be pretty familiar. And when it happens over and over, it becomes cognitively embedded and resistant to change. These ingrained emotional responses provide a great opportunity for some healing work.
Perhaps the most important aspect of working with emotions is learning how to tolerate them. We are a "fix it" culture, and it is a well-accepted practice to "get rid of" our unpleasant feelings. Getting busy, getting numb, and getting high are a few of the common ways people cope with feelings.
"Clearing" emotions is another practice. Pranayama (breathing exercises), exercise and energy healing are some ways to release emotion.
Mindfulness practice cultivates the ability to be present with what is going on, no matter how much you don't like it.
Sitting in observation of your experience helps decrease judgement of your feelings and increase tolerance. Clearing your emotions tends to provide much quicker relief from unpleasantness and provides a more effiecient way to get at the core of what is going on.
Which is the right approach? The best answer is both.
In the early stages of healing, there is usually a huge benefit to engaging in insight work and the development of emotional tolerance. Good psychotherapy combined with a mindfulness practice does both of these things. Learning how to identify, understand and sit with your emotions is central to healing, especially for those who have experienced trauma. These are the skills necessary for "doing life."
Once these skills are mastered and you develop fluency with your unique emotional picture, learning to clear emotions may be an important skill to add.
Here are some thoughts about how to work with emotions:
- Notice where the feeling is located in your body. Spend some time experiencing the sensations associated with that feeling. Does it stay the same or change over time? Do any images come to mind? Can you identify thoughts associated with this feeling? Which occurred first, the thoughts or the feeling?
- Do you want to "get rid" of the feeling? When you have difficulty tolerating a particular feeling, can you observe what form of avoidance you use? With practice, are you able to notice the sequence you engage in around an unpleasant emotion?
- The sympathetic nervous system is intricately linked to our emotions. A key factor in managing emotions is learning how to deactivate the stress response. The use of breathing and relaxation skills are really helpful, especially when dealing with fear, anxiety and anger.
- Finally, learn how to stay grounded when your emotions become intense. This helps you stay more connected to your experience, and allows your energy to naturally rebalance on its own. (See the 5-13-10 post, Getting Grounded, Staying Grounded.)
Engaging in this kind of process builds insight, compassion, and self-acceptance. With time, practice and help from those with expertise in this area, you can develop the ability to discern when to sit with a feeling and when to clear it.
Most importantly, listen to yourself when strong feelings arise. Allow your feelings to connect you more deeply to your soul and to your healing journey. It's all good!
Be Well,
Rebecca
"Stream" image by Jennifer Hopkins ( http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/ ) with a Creative Commons license.
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