Befriend your negative emotions by being the awareness behind them.
How your negative emotions are created
Who wants to feel negative emotions?! No one! They make us feel uncomfortable. That’s why they’re categorized as “bad.” Our natural response is to run away from them. We don’t want to feel them. We’re afraid of being overwhelmed by them.
We use different distractions to escape from them up. Maybe you turn on the TV to watch a film or a show. Some of us look for something to eat. Even if the film isn’t interesting and you’re not hungry at all, you do it anyway because you don’t want to be with yourself. Being with yourself means experiencing your negative emotions. But guess what? They have their purpose and they are essential for our mental health.
First let’s understand how they are created.
So, there is an event or situation that has happened. Your mind is denying that situation by creating thoughts around it. Those thoughts are your perception of the situation therefore they aren’t reality. Emotions are created by those thoughts. You feel sad, fear, angry… Now you’re in the state of resistance.
When you’re continuously resisting emotions, they become your filters through which you see the world. You’re making a pile of your emotions and then your emotional state becomes your perception of the world. That’s why it’s important to befriend your negative emotions.
What happens when you accept any situation as it is. You recognize that the situation is terrible and move onto what you can do about it. When you surrender yourself to it, you allow life events to unfold naturally. In this way you avoid creating all the negativity that rejection brings about. Accepting the present moment as it is, it’s an internal event.
To know that you’re resisting something, awareness is required. Sometimes you don’t need a particular event. For example, I used to wake up in the morning feeling anxious. I didn’t know where it was coming from. Obviously, I was in resistance with the present moment. That strong reaction to it with judgments behind it was my indication.
So I used to push my negative emotions away. I was trying to bury them. The problem is that supressed emotions don’t go away, they’re deeply buried inside of you causing more pain. If you ignore them for a long time, they snowball into every area of your life.
Meditation became my greatest tool for allowing my emotions to pass through me. Meditation turns your awareness inward so you’re able to see and understand your inner world.
How to befriend your negative emotions
First you have to become aware of your current emotions. That means you need to bring your mind home to your body. The most effective tool for this is your breath. Mindful breathing will help you to establish yourself in the here and the now.
Take a pause to let yourself come to yourself and feel your emotions. Then it’s time to increase your emotional library by naming them. Worry, blame, jealousy, doubt, anger, insecurity, fear, sadness, disappointment, hopelessness, frustration… Breathe consciously through it.
Breathing in, you’re aware of that feeling inside of you. Breathing out, you’re still aware of it.
Now, imagine you’re laying your emotions down on the table. You have a choice to examine them, see what they are. Or refuse to look at them, resist them.
Let’s go for the choice number one!🙂
You can examine them by asking high quality questions, “What is this emotion trying to tell me? Where is it coming from? Why is it here?” Here, you’re willing to be with whatever comes up without any negativity “I shouldn’t be experiencing this“ but with curiosity. You can’t release them and free up that space if you try to fight them. I guarantee you will lose this fight. They are so powerful but when you know how to deal with them, so are you.
You have to allow the power of present moment come through. Imagine you’re opening a door and inviting your fear or anger to enter. “Hi Fear! How are you today? Come in my friend, let’s have a talk.”
You’re used to living in a certain way. One of our common emotions is fear of change. Instead of avoiding that emotion, you decide to sit with it. Have a chat over coffee. Ask questions : “Why do I feel it now? What do I fear about this?” Investigate your fear.
You see, you have to be first aware of your emotional state, then be willing to look at it, feel the pain and embrace it.
You can’t hold your negative emotions down too long because they will pop up sooner or later.
Are you willing to feel, to be & show up in this moment?
You need to let yourself feel what you’re resisting. You will befriend it with awareness. It will still cause you pain but you’re willing to experience again that pain. It isn’t easy to feel that pain, either was back then when you felt the first time. The difference is your willingness to let it pass through you and your awareness that it’s not happening now in the present moment.
You can only free yourself from that emotional energy that is blocked somewhere in the body with acceptance and awareness. Otherwise, you will keep denying what is hidden inside of you.
You’re not your emotions. You’re not your thoughts. You’re not the external event. You are more than a perception.
Thoughts and emotions are happening in a superficial level, so they come and go. They are triggered by certain situations or events. Even if you process them once, they won’t be gone forever. But now you know how to befriend your negative emotions so they are no longer your enemies.
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