Making Friends With Your Emotions

This episode is called Making Friends with Your Emotions.

I'm going to start this episode by reading a poem by Rumi called The Guest House.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival,

A joy,

A depression,

A meanness,

Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep the house empty of its furniture,

Still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some delight.

The dark thought,

The shame,

The malice.

Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

What Rumi is talking about here in this poem is our emotions.

He's suggesting we welcome our emotions in like an unexpected guest because each has been sent as a guide.

What we usually do is try to fight against our strong emotions,

Suppress them,

Or get totally tangled up in them.

None of these are going to be helpful.

The more we fight against the emotion,

The stronger it becomes.

Acting this way,

We'll eventually make the emotions into our enemy.

But emotions are not our enemies.

They're our friends and our teachers.

They don't just suddenly appear for no reason.

They come to inform us that something is happening and we need to deal with it.

There are two types of emotions,

Connective and protective.

Connective emotions are compassion,

Gratitude,

Happiness,

Contentment,

And so on.

And protective emotions are usually the ones we fight against.

And they're anger,

Disappointment,

Frustration,

Jealousy,

Pride,

Etc.

When we're in the grips of a protective emotion,

We need to stop what we're doing and welcome and entertain them,

As Rumi put it.

This means we need to investigate why the emotion has arisen and what it's trying to teach us.

We can do this,

We can do this by following the six steps to making friends with your emotions.

So firstly,

We must calm ourselves down.

When the protective emotion is strong,

It can activate our threat system and we can very easily go into the fight or flight mode.

To prevent that,

We need to do a mindfulness practice,

Such as becoming aware of our breath.

This will bring us back to the present moment,

Calm us down and help us focus.

A great practice to do is called rhythmic breathing.

As you inhale,

Count to four,

Hold for the count of two,

And then exhale for the count of four.

Keep doing this for some time to get a nice rhythm going.

Then inhale and count to five,

Hold for the count of two,

And then exhale for the count of five.

And again,

Get a nice rhythm going.

Finally,

Inhale and count to six,

Hold for the count of two,

And then exhale for the count of six.

And get a good rhythm going.

Do this for three or four minutes,

Until you feel calm,

Focused and present in the moment.

Once you feel calm,

You can move on to the second step,

And that is acknowledgement.

So we need to acknowledge we have this emotion.

We can do this by labelling it.

So,

Name it to tame it.

By doing this,

The emotion will already start to lose its power.

The third step is to accept that the emotion is there.

This is a very important step,

Because if we don't accept the emotion,

We can end up suppressing it,

Ignoring it or getting all tangled up in it.

When we accept the emotion is there,

It's important not to identify with it.

If we say,

I am angry,

Or I am sad,

We give ourselves very little room to work with the emotion.

We're telling ourselves that we are the anger,

Or the sadness,

Or whatever emotion we're experiencing.

What we need to say is,

At this moment,

There is anger,

Or there is sadness,

Or there is whatever emotion you're feeling.

This separates us from the emotion,

And gives us the space to be able to work with that emotion.

Remember,

An emotion is a process in the brain,

And so,

It comes to go.

By identifying with it,

We'll stop it from going.

Step four is to investigate why the emotion has arisen.

We can do this by asking ourselves the following questions.

Why has this emotion appeared?

So remember,

The emotion appears for a reason.

So why is that?

So that's the first question you need to sit and answer.

Why has this emotion appeared?

Once you've understood why it's appeared,

Then you can look at the second question,

Which is,

What is it trying to teach me?

So remember,

Emotions are not our enemies.

They're our friends and teachers.

So what is this emotion trying to teach me?

We need to answer these questions as honestly as we can.

While answering the first question,

Don't blame others for the emotion arising.

Playing the blame game is never helpful.

Look at the emotion with a curious mind,

As though we've never seen this type of emotion before.

The emotion may be painful,

So ensure you observe a sense of kindness and compassion for yourself.

Once we've answered these questions,

We can move on to step five.

Now we know why the emotion is here and what it's trying to teach us.

So now we can ask ourselves this,

What do I need to do to learn the lesson and let the emotion go?

If it's sadness,

Maybe we need to speak to someone.

If it's anger,

Maybe we need to get some fresh air or just walk away.

If it's loneliness,

Maybe we need to meet up with friends.

Whatever it is,

Think of a plan that will help you let that emotion go.

The sixth and final step is to put that plan into action.

It's no good making a plan and then thinking,

Oh,

I'm too busy to put this plan into action.

I'll do it tomorrow or I'll do it another day.

It's not going to help let the emotion go.

So once we've made a plan,

Once we've decided what we need to do to let the emotion go,

It's important we actually do that.

So throughout the whole of this process,

Ensure you're being kind and supported towards yourself.

Emotions can be painful and overwhelming.

But by following these six simple steps,

You can learn from the emotion.

Put it behind you and move on.