Unfortunately we where never taught to feel our feelings, we where taught to suppress and run from them. This is so habitual that as soon as we experience a "negative" emotion, its almost automatic to say "I don't want this" and attempt to escape it.
The problem with this is that these feelings never process, they get pushed down and build up in our system creating many problems. We become unable to sit still, unable to experience peace, our nervous systems get jammed up and we get stuck in the fight flight freeze response.
Even in the spiritual world its deemed "bad" to experience these "lower emotions". And then these kind of ideas, the ideas that theres something wrong, add an extra layer of guilt or shame ontop of the original emotion.
These feelings are life! They are energy. Notice that when we stop labelling them they are nothing more than a sensation in the body. A moving energy.
Emotion = Energy in motion. But unfortunately we get in the way and stop the motion causing them to stagnate.
These energies know where to go to liberate themselves. Just like we trust a cut on our finger to heal without getting in the way, we need to treat these energies the same way. If we can step aside, stop resisting, then these emotions process themselves.
So, something we can do, is begin to breath into the feelings, welcome them, become aware of the space that lets them be. Tell them thank you for arising! Notice the space all around you never resists whats happening within it, it never resists the objects, it allows them completely. Be the loving space for these feelings to rise and fall.
They have a message for us, a story to tell us. Can we be open enough to breath, welcome and allow? Can we embrace ourselves exactly as we are in this moment.
We can only do this Now. We can't do it tomorrow or yesterday. When we allow these feelings to arise and fall in our gentle loving presence, the mind goes quiet and a stillness moves to the forefront of our experience.
Then we realise, who we are is so much deeper than the thoughts and feelings, they are just one aspect of the totality of who we are.
This is surrender and this is acceptance. Unconditionally welcoming all aspects of our present experience.
Matt Nettleton