Holding Our Anger With Care Takes Practice

The late Thich Nhat Hanh inspired me in an interview he did with Ram Das on holding our anger with care. He spoke about holding our anger (or grief, sadness, or any difficult emotion) like you're holding a baby who needs care.

To do this is a meditation.

In this autumn, the season of the metal element, many emotions arise as we let go of what was. The wisdom of observing how we relate to our emotions is the practice.

The autumn metal season is an opportunity to self-reflect, as metal is self-reflective.

Providing space and time for difficult emotions differs greatly from what we are programmed to do. Our culture teaches us to push our challenging feelings away and 'look on the bright side' or 'don't cry; things will get better'—like a knee-jerk reaction to not feeling what's here. And this only makes our emotions come out sideways, often inappropriately.

Our difficult emotions have intelligence behind them. Anger signifies a boundary violated, and sadness indicates that something needs to be let go of.

To sit and breathe with these uncomfortable emotions and care for them like a baby so they can transform into wisdom takes willpower. It requires changing patterns that have been ingrained for years, often generations.

As the holidays approach and the days get darker and colder, a flurry of complex emotions can arise. Trying hard to muster up joy when we're bogged down in resisting our anger, sadness, grief, and fear often leads to overwhelm and numbing.

I've heard from many of you, especially those who can't attend studio classes regularly, about the need for support. Therefore, the Emotional Endurance Program is back in time to prepare us for winter and the holidays.

This three-week online program will meet for weekly meditations each Monday morning on Zoom starting 11/25. You'll receive three weekly practices consisting of yoga, qigong, meditations, and breathwork specific to the emotions of grief and fear.

To release the heaviness of grief, we can use specific breathwork practices and stimulate the lung meridians in yoga poses and chi gong sets, which provide great relief.

The fear that arises, especially in winter, can be shifted into gentle wisdom to tap into our intuition as we build our endurance and willpower. These are all aspects of strong kidney chi that help us age with grace.

Grief and fear are held in the lungs and kidneys, which are most energetically active in autumn and winter. Thus, it is easiest to transform sadness and grief into courage and resiliency in the lungs and fear related to the kidneys into endurance, willpower, and wisdom at this time of year.

From my heart to yours~

Namaste,

Maggie