My Personal Story on Dealing with Difficult Emotions

I want to share a personal experience I had this morning, in which I had to rely on the practices I teach in the upcoming Emotional Endurance Program and put them into action.

I woke up early to hear my husband getting up and making coffee.

Mornings are one of our favorite times to sit and sip my tea with him, listen to the news, and chat about what inspires us.

But this morning, he had different plans. He wanted to write, and I was disappointed. I wanted to connect, but he wanted to follow his inspiration and get some work done. This has been happening for a few days, and I feel like our special time is being usurped.

I journaled about my disgruntled feelings to get some space from them. Journaling is an incredible way to release feelings from being confused and heavy and see what's underneath them.

The power of naming feelings and questioning what's under them can illuminate a deeper feeling often connected to something much older than the issue at hand that's creating reactivity.

After journaling, I sat on my meditation cushion to breathe deeply through specific pranayama techniques to settle the mind and allow the myriad of feelings to just be.

I noticed I was vacillating between letting my emotions be as they are - to 'shoulds,' I 'should' just let him write, I 'shouldn't' be upset at him for changing our regular routine of connecting, but I was, and I felt like an immature brat.

So, I let my bratty self be included as well. Everything's included here on the cushion because what we resist persists. If I resist my bratty, disgruntled self, she will come out sideways in a reactive way that I'll probably regret.

Once I could allow and include all of my feelings, I could rest in my divine light seated in my heart, where I could connect to love.

Love has many sides: acceptance, appreciation, kindness, patience, and compassion, to name a few.

I could allow them to be and not get attached to them; I could let it be and let it pass. When emotions are allowed to be, they typically last about 90 seconds and transform into wisdom.

The wisdom I came to is that everything is in process; nothing is fixed. Routines shift and change, and often, there is resistance to change, but they also become stale without something to come along and shake things up, which shows what's most important.

I realize this all may sound trivial, but when we can practice how to handle smaller issues in a responsible and accountable way by processing disgruntled emotions through journaling and meditation rather than reactivity and blaming, then we build the muscle to handle bigger issues with the same tools and can access our innate wisdom to guide us.

If you need support handling difficult emotions, join us for the Emotional Endurance Program starting this Monday! (see below)

It's much easier to start meditation, yoga and new qigong practices when given in small doses, led by a teacher who uses them personally to regulate her emotions!

What we practice gets stronger! I look forward to seeing you inside the Emotional Endurance course.

Namaste,

Maggie