Most of us have this internal feeling that something is wrong with us. Things can be going great in our lives. We have access to food and clean water. We have shelter. We have people who love us…
Yet we still experience fairly consistent anxiety, doubt, uncertainty…all that good stuff. There’s this lingering feeling that This isn’t enough or I should be doing more.
You don’t have to live a life of austerity or become a monk to address this.
The beauty of mediation is that you don’t even have to stop having these feelings; the goal is just to recognize and identify them.
We all know what it’s like to be angry for an entire hour. But that can be cut down to under a minute by simply capturing all the sensations of anger when they appear.
“I feel slightly hot in my face.”
“I see images of the event that made me mad and hear sentences of things I should’ve said.”
“I’m experiencing distain for this person.”
It sounds overly simple. But by being totally open and honest with what exactly is going on can severely weaken the power of that anger.
This is true for any negative emotion you feel.
TL; DR
Feeling shitty feelings doesn’t make you shitty. They’re unavoidable.
That doesn’t make them fun, but understanding this truth does make them manageable.
The next time you’re sad, notice the difference between:
• My life is sad, and
• I am feeling sad right now
The discrepancy is both subtle and enormous.