Mindfulness Daily Check-In December 29, 2017

Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there's a right or wrong way to think or feel in a given moment.

Being able to truly welcome all emotions and feelings into the open space of mindfulness is an essential key to unhooking our patterns of suffering. Much of our daily suffering comes from habitual reactions to our own thoughts and emotions.

The first task of mindfulness is to distinguish between emotions/feelings and thoughts. Thinking is the narrative and imagery created in the cognitive mind. Feelings/emotions are energetic sensations experienced in the body. Thoughts can trigger feelings. Feelings can trigger thoughts. And feelings can trigger more feelings. We need to know this process intimately if we are to gain insight into how we get caught in painful reactivity.

The primary characteristic of awareness is that is knows everything with equal clarity with no agenda. It does not pick or choose or have preference about what it sees. It is compared to a mirror that reflects whatever appears in front of it. Similarly, we are invited to recognize through awareness whatever arises in our field of experience.

However, our conditioned ego-based identity has plenty of agendas for emotions (and everything else). These agendas block awareness and the natural flow of feelings. Through our deeply ingrained reactions we think we must control feelings, contain them, suppress them, repress them, override them, deny them, judge them, reject them, fix them, exaggerate them, glorify them, feed them, express them, unload them, hold on to them, get lost in them . . . the list goes on..........

What if we instead are simply open and present with what we feel, bringing curiosity and kindness to the mysterious upwelling of our richly human emotional life. We create an accepting, warm and caring inner environment to allow emotions to be. Thats all they ever wanted. Thats all they need to be healed and reveal their wisdom to us. As we recognize, allow and have space for our emotions, we also recognize, allow and have space for other peoples emotions. This is the foundation of the start of compassion.

Now I ask you to sit with a feeling or two that you know is hard for you. Write down right here what your truly feel. What are you thinking? What is it you like to be feeling? From what you read now, how can you accept that terrible feeling and know you will be ok?

hugs to each and everyone who reads this

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