Dealing With Emotions.

As I continue developing this practice in meditation, I learn more about emotions. Emotions, as such, are on my mind.

Today I encountered fear. It came. I was with it. I didn’t invite it. It came to the front of my consciousness and I recognized it. Something someone said to me triggered it. Recognizing the process of fear arising is an accomplishment. I’m glad, and proud of myself, I am able to recognize it when it is present. That’s the thing about emotions, they come and go. They visit. I don’t always know what it is they’re doing here, but for now I’m willing to just accept that they just come and go.

So I recognized you, Fear. You didn’t get me, I got you. I called you by your true name and I held you in check, like warding off an evil spirit. (An example of how effective use of nouns. Language is the gateway to magic.)

Learning to be with emotions is a skill. I’ve heard this said before, though I have not been proactive in practicing and developing it. It’s not hard, at least not for me. I mean, it involves just sitting there… that’s pretty basic. I guess I can imagine where the aversion comes from. Say, during your childhood, you had an overwhelming emotional experience in the past, or witnessed outbursts by your parents or other authority figures. You’re not equipped to deal with that shit. So you never learn and just keep going. Soon you forget about it. But it stays with you.

I’d like to think emotional mastery happens automatically. Maybe it does under ideal conditions, however it’s not uncommon for people to miss out on parts of their development into adulthood. So, one way to catch up is to sit. Sit and be. Be with emotions and recognize them. It’s so simple it baffles the mind, and that is part of what made it so challenging for me to get here. I overcomplicated things. Not like I didn’t have people tell me that I was overcomplicating things.

I also recently recognized limitations in my emotional vocabulary coincide with limits on my emotional development. As I alluded to in an earlier post, I have certain ideas/concepts/names attached to emotional experiences, that aren’t necessarily emotions. It made me realize how valuable something as simple as having a list of emotions available to reference can be. Wikipedia has an article on just that here. I’m going to spend some time with that list and see what else I come up with.

Comments & Discussion.

• When is the last time you caught an emotion before it got you?
• Are you skilled in being with your emotions?
• Are you challenged by certain emotions?

As always, please leave a comment. The box is on the left. Thanks for reading and have a great day!