Working with Sacred Emotion

There are no negative emotions, only negative beliefs around emotions and maladaptive coping skills developed in response. 

The avoidance of what we think of as negative emotions (not the emotions themselves) is what creates problems in our emotional functioning. We commonly avoid emotions we perceive as negative, such as anger, grief, and despair using denial, distraction, dissociation, and a host of other clever tricks. We do this because of what we believe about these emotions: that they make us weak, that make us un-loveable, or that we will be engulfed or obliterated by them. Avoiding them is a (mostly) maladaptive coping skill. It is a way of trying to protect ourselves, to keep ourselves safe, and it is, in-part, effective.

We feel relieved in forgetting this troublesome part of ourselves and this is when the idea that this is the way to handle negative emotions is further entrenched. What we often don’t realize is that in avoiding these feelings, we stay on the surface of emotional life, unintentionally dimming our access to higher levels if love, joy, and pleasure by limiting our access to pain. Our emotional spectrum (and our nervous systems’s window of tolerance) shortens.

The way to change this is to intentionally turn toward these emotions and meet them with curiosity, kindness and compassion - reclaiming those parts of yourself you left in anger, grief, or despair, and holding their pain.  This can be done is so many ways! Meditation, mindfulness, breath work, yoga, dance, and therapy are amongst the most helpful in my opinion.

There are no such thing as negative emotions (yes some are dark, heavy, uncomfortable, scary, yes!). But emotions are energetic processes that need movement, expression, respect, compassion, and often witnessing. They are great teachers and don’t have to lead to disconnection. They can draw us into deeper into relationship with our self and others if we have the courage to be with them. It’s a lifelong invitation and where you are right now is perfect. Acceptance and surrender and key helpers in this journey (more on this in another post).