In just the same way we watch thoughts come and go in practice, we can begin to open to emotions. It can be useful to feel the movement of emotional energy before we get specific about a particular emotion. When we sense into them in this way, we are less likely to get hooked by a story about what we are feeling. We have some space to see that emotion is natural to human experience.

This sounds simple, but the truth is that most of us have very strong ideas about what we should feel, what we are allowed to feel and what is off limits. We might have absorbed these hidden beliefs from our families, friends, the culture at large. All of that is worth holding in awareness. The good news is that once we are aware, we can begin to change our way of relating to emotion.

Emotions can feel so personal but the truth is that every human will experience their share of joy and of sorrow. Emotions are universal. Emotions just are. Sensing them as energy, can help us see them as natural. We fight less. The less we fight, the less they hurt. We cannot avoid pain in life. We can (and should) avoid adding to that pain by judging ourselves, pushing away what is happening, and creating stories about what any given emotion might mean about us.

We come back again and again to curiosity and kindness. When these are the foundations of our practice, of our lives, we can begin to welcome what moves through as another part of the dance of what it means to be alive.

Wholeheartedly,

kim