I’ve been pondering the whole idea of working with difficult emotions over the last couple of days. I guess I’m a little behind the curve with the book but that’s how I roll…
I am one of those people who have always managed to distract myself from difficult feelings and emotions. Not that I don’t acknowledge them – I just don’t dwell on them. And I think that’s a good thing to a certain extent except if the ‘not dwelling’ part is really more about trying to ignore them. That’s not so good.
I’ve been trying to practice just being with feelings and not working hard to replace that sensation with something that feels good. Every now and then (and thankfully it really is very rare that I feel this way), I will just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It’s like I should know why I’m pissed off but I don’t even know what I’m angry about. And nothing makes me madder than not knowing why I’m mad.
I used to spend a lot of time pushing the nagging feeling away, trying to think of something that made me feel better. Now, I try to stay with the emotion, roll around in it and not fight it. It’s not as fun as being ‘happy’ all of the time, but I’ve developed the mantra “resistance is futile” and it seems to be working for me.
Happy is great. Happy for a reason is even better.

