Anger. Sadness. Rage.
Shame. Embarrassment. Hate.
Restlessness. Anxiety. Agitation.
As we walk upon our life path, we experience a variety of emotions on which we place value: some feelings are “good,” others are “bad.”
We receive messages about emotions: "I should never feel anger," "I should only feel happiness," "sadness is weakness." Each message chips off a little piece of our capacity to accept and nurture our emotional lives.
What if we were to meet these messages with compassion? How could compassion change our lives?
Patience and curiosity are essential practices to cultivate compassion for the self. Yet we too often deny ourselves the experiences of patience and curiosity. We get swept away in the judgment of these emotions instead of saying "Hello!" to them. How do we learn to summon patience and curiosity for ourselves when we are distressed?
We practice.
We practice by summoning the distress and then bringing in the curiosity with an abundance of patience.
Let's practice.
Bring in a distressing topic or experience, something lower on the distress scale. If we think of
distress on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being minimal stress and 10 being the most stress ever, let's stick to below a 3 or 4. So bring that distress into your mind.
What are you feeling?
What are you seeing?
What are you hearing?
What do you notice in your body?
What memories arise?
These questions are your curiosity. They begin to gather the pieces of the puzzle that will allow you to recognize what is happening within you.
What emotions are you feeling? Say hello to each one. Ask the emotion about itself.
What is its purpose in this particular distress?
How does it serve you?
How have its efforts been in vain?
As you move through these questions, allow the emotions to exist; do not fix them. Simply experience them. Allow the responses to form on their own, without interference, influence, or suggestion. Notice the grace you grant yourself to form the responses. Now, you are practicing patience.
No emotion is wrong.
No emotion needs never to be felt.
Instead, accept the emotion as a signal to explore, be curious, and practice patience. You will learn so much about yourself. And as you learn about, understand, and practice curiosity and patience with yourself, you will naturally extend your practice to others. You are now practicing self-compassion and other-compassion with expansion.
Love yourself.
Love others.
Change the world.
Resources
Feed Your Demons by Lama Tsultrim Allione
Introduction to Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz