STAYING-WITH
There’s something you don’t yet understand about yourself, but you’d like to. Where do you go for that? One resource might be the last place you’d ever expect to look.
What happens when we stop hurrying to get rid of an unwanted feeling? If I pay attention to this feeling, aren’t I just wallowing? Accepting where you are is not the same as wallowing. Something sweet happens when we replace self-criticism with curiosity: we begin to see how surprisingly interesting we are.
Emotions bring us information about our experience of others and the world. To understand this kind of communication you don’t just think about it; you have to feel your way into the emotion and let it “speak” to you. Sometimes the message is unclear or unwelcome. Staying with and exploring an unwanted or obscure feeling even for a few minutes can take us beyond what we already know to something entirely new.