Quote:
Originally Posted by WastingAsparagus
I guess the best way I have of explaining this is like watching your emotions pass as if they're cars on a highway. Not approaching the cars on the highway, but just letting them go by.
I feel like this can work during meditation. During mindfulness (I make the distinction between meditation and mindfulness where meditation is the formal practice and mindfulness is the everyday awareness you get from meditation), I like to just think I have distance from my emotions, and I don't have to give into them. It's harder than it sounds.
I think the really hard part is just letting those tough emotions "go". But it can take years, honestly, for that to happen. I like to think mindfulness and meditation are just a process towards getting healthier.
Hope that helps.
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Thanks much for the answer.
When you let your difficult emotions go, do you also let the emotional thoughts, beliefs linked to them go somehow?
What is it like to give into the emotions? For me it would be giving into them, in a sense, if I tried to shut them down because of the intensity and negativity of them or linked emotional thoughts/beliefs. And just to shut them down, I can get in my own way too much.
Using your analogy of watching cars, do you also observe in detail what colour or model the cars are or what speed they are going at, etc?
Have you seen all this work for emotions with an intensity of 10/8, 10/9 or even 10/10?
Do you know of any other mindfulness techniques that address dealing with such difficult emotions?
(Anyone else can answer these questions too of course)