I asked Sharon on the tweet chat this past Saturday if more regular meditation practice = more intense emotions, or whether it might be perception. Her response confirmed that I wasn’t imagining it:

There is an intensification factor of concentration. We can get very sensitive 2 our inner world. It's good.

And of course we see more clearly what has been happening all along.

Arising of emotions isn't a problem. How we relate to them is crucial. Not being submerged, also not fighting.

Today, I have been both fighting and submerged all day. My morning meditation was followed by the unpeaceful sounds of renovation construction in an apartment two floors above. I fled as fast I could. A few hours later, a tiny misstep in karate class landed me on top of my now bruised, swollen, throbbing pinky. Oh, and I must have scratched my eye while removing and reinserting my contact lens a few dozen times because it was bothering me.

Today I am not finding myself happy. I am still breathing. I am noticing how uncomfortable I am with feeling uncomfortable. How physically violated I felt by the construction noise. How dazed I felt out on the street with no where to go. How scared I was when I heard my pinky go “pop”. How angry I am that such a tiny little injury can wreak so much havoc, emotionally and physically. And on and on and on.

I was going to write that I haven’t felt this out of sorts for quite a long time. But then I noticed something. I have. More than I would like to admit. And I wonder what I will be noticing next?