Ep 18: Being Kind to Difficult Emotions

Difficult emotions, which we inevitably experience from time to time, can feel really unpleasant and potentially overwhelm us.

Rather than trying to get rid of these negative emotions (a strategy that mostly backfires), we can try to be with them and award them the attention they need - in a gentle and compassionate way.

In this Take A Pause session recorded on 4 August 2024, I guide the TAP community in noticing difficult emotions during our meditation practice, allowing these emotions to be here with us, investigate the nature of emotions with mindful curiosity, and intentionally practicing some kindness.

We ended the session by listening to Donna Ashworth’s Hosting Sad.

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Practice Begins: 09:26

Reading Begins: 27:11

Meditation Duration: 19 minutes

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Hosting Sad

— Donna Ashworth

Sometimes I wake up sad. For no reason.

And I know, as soon as my eyes open, that today, I am sad.

I can choose positive thoughts, have a cold shower, run on the treadmill, but I will still be sad.

And counting my blessings, on days like this, makes me even more sad.

How lucky I am and how tenuous that is.

How others are not so blessed and how unfair that is.

And I’ve learned to accept these little bouts of sad, or soul-flu, as I have now come to call them.

They are not within my control, this I know.

I don’t fear them anymore, they can’t harm me - because I don’t ‘become’ them.

I just let my ‘sad’ in the door and say “hey, how are you, take a seat…but don’t stay too long please, I have things to do.”

And I rumble along in my mental kitchen, making tea, emptying the dishwasher. And my sad sits there and just exists, without judgement or acrimony. Just acceptance.

I know she is many things you see, other than just sad. She is love, she is grief. She is fear, she is weariness and worry, and really, she puts up with rather a lot in this life.

So I give her a cup for tea. And listen to her sorrows, until she’s ready to go back outside again.

Sometimes I wake up and sad has already let herself in.

But I don’t scold her for that.

She’ll go soon.

And really, she deserves a warm place, every now and again, this world gives her much to bear.

Sometimes, I wake up sad.

For no reason.

And that’s okay.

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A couple more TAP practices for you:

• Take A Pause Ep 17: Changing Your Relationship With Stress

• Take A Pause Ep 2: What It Means To Be Mindful Of Emotions

And a few nuggets of wisdom:

• “I Don’t Have Bad Emotions,” She Says

• To All Who Have Taught Me Love, I Wanna Thank You

• What To Do When We Can’t Take It Easy