Conscious living Practice 9 - Accepting emotions as is

I love this particular quote by Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist teacher. It reads, "If you can sit quietly after difficult news, if in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm, if you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy, if you can always find contentment just where you are, you are probably a dog 🐕 " 😀

As humans it is only natural for us to feel angry, or jealous, or irritated. But we have the tendency to label these emotions as 'negative' and would do anything to immediately get rid of them or judge ourselves as being bad, just because we had one of these, so called, 'negative emotions'. 

The truth is, each of these emotions, serve a purpose, which is why they are there, and once we accept them, it becomes easier for us to deal with them. I read this poem by Rumi called "The Guest House'. It goes like this : 

The 'guest' is each of your emotions - pleasant and unpleasant. Let them in. And let them pass when their work is done. 

I learnt a very powerful technique from Tara Brach, a Buddhist teacher and author of the book, Radical acceptance. It's called, RAIN, which is an acronym for: 

R : Recognize ( recognize the presence of the emotion )

A : Allow ( instead of running away from the emotion, face it, and allow it to exist )

I : Investigate ( notice where you feel the emotion in the body, what are the physical sensations associated with the emotion. Stay with it ) 

N : Nurture and Non identification( place your hand on your heart, and ask yourself, what is needed to be done? Find a way to nurture yourself. Do not become identified with the emotion. Know that you are "NOT" the emotion. You just have the emotion and it will pass) 

I love this technique and use it whenever I encounter an uncomfortable emotion ( I prefer to call it uncomfortable over negative 🙂 ). And my way of nurturing myself usually involves journaling, listening to soothing music and spending some quite time. You can find your own choice of nurturing. 

There is one more Mindfulness technique that can be applied when you feel hassled. It's called taking a "SNACK break" 😀. Refer below for the acronym expansion:

Next time you have an unpleasant emotional experience, try to use these techniques and increase your awareness around them. Remember, the only way around is through it.🙂

#consciousliving #practice9 #acceptemotionsasis