Be very gentle with yourself as you try this exercise. When we’re facing our most painful feelings and fears, we’re often dealing with very old stuff. The stuff of childhood and longstanding trauma. Such vulnerability deserves, and needs, kindness.
Open to your feelings. Become aware of feelings by simply allowing them to surface. As you gently breathe in and out, nonjudgmentally open to the feelings that come.
Embrace the feelings that arise with great tenderness, as an unconditionally loving mother would. Whatever they are, just embrace them.
Acknowledge the feelings you’ve uncovered to both yourself and a trusted friend or confidant. Doing so gently and honestly helps break the isolation and loneliness in which many of us live. It also helps us be accountable for transforming limiting and hurtful feelings.
Accept what is. Honoring and validating the feelings you have now creates an emotional climate in which you can transform them. Be gentle with yourself. Consciously invite transformation to be the result of acceptance.
Inner awareness is the beginning of outer change.
Excerpted from How to Stay Upbeat in a Beat Down World by Sue Patton Thoele. Available on Amazon.
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