Welcoming emotions

The following meditation from Tian Dayton explains how we can befriend and experience emotions rather than judge, label, split and divide them… Relating to our inner emotional reality is not easy in a society now ruled by memes and platitudes that don’t take into account the wholeness, complexity, paradox or depth of human nature.. But to find a way to make peace with and integrate our emotions (which come from the soul and self) is one of the most important tasks we can engage with in a feeling wounded culture.

Emotions.

It is not necessarily emotions themselves, but rather, my relationship to them that creates problems for me. When I regard certain emotions as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’, I erect inner barriers that prevent me from processing my feelings and understanding them. Sitting with my emotions and experiencing them allows them to be released and integrated into the energy of my self. Their meaning can only become clear to me as I allow myself to experience them. When I label certain emotions as ‘bad,’ in a sense I refuse to accept them. I disown them and think that by disowning them, they will disappear. Quite the contrary – the very process of disowning then increases their power. What I disown in myself, and find too painful to feel or accept as being a part of me, I oftentimes project outwards onto someone else. This does not help me to understand myself or another person. It is fair on no one.

Today I will own my emotions.

Nothing vivifies and nothing kills like the emotions.

Joseph Roux