How to Accept Your Emotions When You Can’t?
We begin gradually. Start with noticing the sensations, just attending and describing, nothing more (though it’s a lot already).
Pick a feeling you might be having, even a tiny bit. Nervous? Relaxed? Worried? Annoyed? Tired? Bored? Curious? What comes to mind—anything is OK.
Now let’s attend to that feeling. Where in the body do you feel it most? Point to the place. What size is it? How deep into the tissues does it go? If it had a temperature, what might it be? How has it changed since we started? Like that. Feelings are physical. They’re e-motions, in other words, something in the body is moving.
This might go on for 10 minutes. It’s just an exercise. Pretty soon people realize that feelings are things you. . . feel. In the body. And you can notice them without acting on them, and you can accept that they are there.
Accepting their presence is the very beginning of compassion. We go from there.
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